I thought y'all might be interested in reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, a blogger for the Atlantic who writes about race, comic books and the civil war, among other things. Specifically relevant is this post discussing the connection between democracy and racism in light of Coates' ongoing reading of Tocqueville. Here's an excerpt:

"One of the great intellectual tensions in my life comes from reconciling a deep belief in democracy with the fact of African-American history. What is unavoidable is that in America white supremacy has often been quite democratic. Tocqueville calls this sort of tyranny much worse because it bears the imprint of the "majority" and thus is imbued with a kind of moral justice."

One of the things I love about the law is that courts are not beholden to the will of the majority. The protection of individual rights can be and often is accomplished by courts when it would not be done in other democratic channels. At the same time, landmark court decisions that expand rather than contract rights can have a large positive impact on public opinion in support of the right in question.

(This is not incontrovertible; there's a causation question here, often discussed in terms of the Warren court and the civil rights movement but also applicable to the gay marriage decisions in Massachusetts and elsewhere, about whether a court has helped move public opinion or was just reacting to changing public opinion or even just reacting to changing "elite" opinion).

-- ShakedSivan - 18 Apr 2012