"My point stands. Citizenship is separate from the right to vote, so the struggle for voting rights was not a struggle about the definition of the word "citizen"."
Exactly, agreed. But I didn't mention voting rights. That's a point you introduced tangential to my point about citizenship. I don't consider "citizen" and "person entitled to …
"My point stands. Citizenship is separate from the right to vote, so the struggle for voting rights was not a struggle about the definition of the word "citizen"."
Exactly, agreed. But I didn't mention voting rights. That's a point you introduced tangential to my point about citizenship. I don't consider "citizen" and "person entitled to vote" to be synonyms. Neither did the Supreme Court. Which, as you say, is why the 15th Amendment was necessary.
The 14th Amendment, as you might imagine, was heavily contested by people who didn't want black people to be granted this status. If memory serves, it has been described as one of the most hotly contested pieces of legislation in American legal history. That's the "argument" I was referring to in the example.
Fair enough, thanks for clarifying. That satisfies many of my concerns, which I will drop.
The remaining one is that I do not see the Black emancipation movement of the 19th century to have been a struggle over "definitions". That is, it was not fought in terms of who gets to control the definitions of words, expecting that control of language to yield the desired effects.
An example of the latter could be the attempt to redefine woman to mean "anybody who identifies as a woman" and thereby automatically get covered by any and all prior uses of the word when it was written to mean something else (as contrasted with directly seeking specific protections for trans folks). Similarly for "racism" - trying to control the definition as a tactic for shaping the discussion and making it harder to discuss clearly. This sense of explicitly fighting over (or simply asserting control over) definitions as a keystone path to social change appears to have come from postmodernism with its emphasis on using language as a weapon for social change.
I don't see similar dynamics in the 19th century. The struggle to end slavery, and grant citizenship and voting rights to the former slaves, did not center on a tactic of changing the meaning of "citizen" with the rest to follow.
But none of this is meant to detract from your conclusions in the article and discussion. Your basic argument does not depend on this one example, the example was just meant to help illustrate it.
"My point stands. Citizenship is separate from the right to vote, so the struggle for voting rights was not a struggle about the definition of the word "citizen"."
Exactly, agreed. But I didn't mention voting rights. That's a point you introduced tangential to my point about citizenship. I don't consider "citizen" and "person entitled to vote" to be synonyms. Neither did the Supreme Court. Which, as you say, is why the 15th Amendment was necessary.
The 14th Amendment, as you might imagine, was heavily contested by people who didn't want black people to be granted this status. If memory serves, it has been described as one of the most hotly contested pieces of legislation in American legal history. That's the "argument" I was referring to in the example.
Fair enough, thanks for clarifying. That satisfies many of my concerns, which I will drop.
The remaining one is that I do not see the Black emancipation movement of the 19th century to have been a struggle over "definitions". That is, it was not fought in terms of who gets to control the definitions of words, expecting that control of language to yield the desired effects.
An example of the latter could be the attempt to redefine woman to mean "anybody who identifies as a woman" and thereby automatically get covered by any and all prior uses of the word when it was written to mean something else (as contrasted with directly seeking specific protections for trans folks). Similarly for "racism" - trying to control the definition as a tactic for shaping the discussion and making it harder to discuss clearly. This sense of explicitly fighting over (or simply asserting control over) definitions as a keystone path to social change appears to have come from postmodernism with its emphasis on using language as a weapon for social change.
I don't see similar dynamics in the 19th century. The struggle to end slavery, and grant citizenship and voting rights to the former slaves, did not center on a tactic of changing the meaning of "citizen" with the rest to follow.
But none of this is meant to detract from your conclusions in the article and discussion. Your basic argument does not depend on this one example, the example was just meant to help illustrate it.