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Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 139
which conform to the rigid standards of statistics. The present undeveloped
state of this field of physical anthropology should not lead us to accept
low scientific standards and to make conclusions which are not warranted.
At the maximum we are justified in drawing from available studies only
rather qualitative statements concerning average differences, the actual
quantities of which—^as well as the actual spreads around the means—^are
not known or known only approximately, so that words and not figures are
their more appropriate expressions.
Compared to the average white man, the average Negro of the present
day seems to exhibit the following physical traits:® head slightly longer
and narrower j
cranial capacity slightly less; interpupillary distance greater;
nose broader; lips thicker; external ear shorter; nasal depth greater; nose
and h-ead shorter; torso shorter; arms and legs longer; pelvis narrower
and smaller; stature shorter; skin with greater amount of black pigment;
hair wavy, curly, frizzly or woolly; distribution of hair less thick; more
sweat glands. Prognathism is greater, not because the brain case stops
growing In early childhood, but because the upper jawbone continues to
grow after the age at which that of the white man stops. A larger propor-
tion of Negroes have brown eyes, black hair, and sacral pigment spots than
do Old Americans.^ This summary contains all those physical traits,
reported by more than one anthropologist, that distinguish the American
Negro from the Old American. The traits vary greatly among different
groups of Negroes and in the total population of Negroes at different
times, since—as we have seen—Negroes are not genetically homogeneous
and stable. Stature, cranial capacity, and perhaps other traits are also
modifiable by environmental changes over time, and the differences do
not, therefore, necessarily, or wholly, represent hereditary traits.
In many of these traits Negroes differ only slightly from white men; in
nearly all of them there is some overlapping between Negroes and whites.
The average person is, for these reasons, not aware of some of these differ-
ences. Some of the traits are outstanding and easily visible in the average
Negro—although nearly or entirely lacking in many individual members
of the Negro group—such as dark skin, woolly hair, broad nose, thick lips
and prognathism. They are the basic traits that account for the Negroes
^^social visibility.”
The white man might be aware of other differences but grossly exag-
gerates them in his imagination, not because he has observed the differ
ences, but because he has certain opportimistic beliefs which he fortifies by
hearsay testimony and by such occasional experiences of his own as happen
to confirm his beliefs. He also usually attaches an incorrect interpretation
to them. An example is the slightly smaller cranial capacity of the average
Negro which the white man associates with alleged lower reasoning power
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