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Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - I. The Approach - 2. Encountering the Negro Problem - 4. Explorations in Escape
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34 An American Dilemma
but could lean back and listen to one of the most revealing and most ably performed,
though sometimes heated, intellectual debates on the Negro problem in America I
had, up till then, and even thereafter, heard. This was not a theater performance
staged for my benefit; the arguments were too well considered and reasoned to be
suspected of being improvised for the occasion; I was, indeed, happily forgotten
most of the time. There was genuine concern, and there was serious disagreement.
Professor Sumner’s theory of folkways and mores had evaporated into the thinnest
nothing; even the doctor never said a word more about the mystically unproblematic
‘’mores.” At the end I had the opportunity to restore good feeling between the
debaters in a roar of understanding laughter when I closed my thanks for Southern
hospitality with the observation that apparently they seemed to have a most disturb-
ing Negro problem on their minds down in the Old South.
A situation in the Negro world parallel to this experience showing how the prob-
lem burns under the cover of a placid stereotype was given me in one of the very
first weeks of my study of the Negro problem in America. When I and my Swedish
associate (accompanied at this occasion by a white friend of the Negro people, a
professor at a Southern university) visited a Negro leader prominent in banking
and insurance in a city of the Upper South, he had kindly arranged for a gathering
in his office of a group of about thirty Negro gentlemen of upper class status, repre-
senting business, church, university and professions. One of his subordinates had
been given the function of relating statistics on the progress of Negro business in
America. He fulfilled his task with much ability and eloquence. The figures some-
times rose to millions and hundreds of millions and, nevertheless, were presented
to the last unit; they marched along solemnly and created an illusion of greatness
and success. The lecture ended up in a cheerful and challenging mood. All had
listened as to a sermon and felt duly elevated.
This spirit prevailed until I happened to touch off some of the unfortunate real-
ities so guardedly concealed within the statistical house of cards that had just been
erected. I referred to the facts, that one of the white companies alone had more
Negro insurance business than all the Negro companies together, while the latter had
practically no white business at all; that Negro banking had a rather serious record
of bankruptcies; that Negroes were practically excluded from all production and
wholesale trade; that they controlled only an inconsiderable fraction of retail trade
even in the Negro consumers’ market and practically none in the white market.
My remarks were formulated as questions, and I was hoping for some discussion.
But 1 had never expected the tumultuous and agitated controversy which, much to
the embarrassment of our dignified host, broke loose. The comforting unanimity a
few minutes before was suddenly decomposed into the wide and glaring spectrum of
American Negro ideologies, bearing not only on business but on all other aspects of
life as well. All possible opinions were vented in a debate where seldom one spoke
at a time, ranging from an old-fashioned revolutionism demanding violent resistance
and aggression by force against the white suppressors, on the infra-red end, to a
pious religious plea, voiced by an elderly preacher, for endurance, forbearance, and
patience under the suflferings, on the ultra-violet end.
As these two occurrences exemplify, the artificially constructed escapist
consensus is liable to crash if pushed from the outside. It is inherent in the
situation, however, that such pushes do not originate from inside, or, if they
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