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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 23. Trends and Possibilities - 1. The Negro’s Political Bargaining Power - 2. The Negro’s Party Allegiance
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5o8 An American Dilemma
their own group. Such persons seem everywhere to be available for utiliza-
tion in splitting the unity of the Negroes. A third relevant fact is that an
even greater group of potential Negro leaders, even if they are not ^^white
men^s niggers,” nevertheless are so dependent that they cannot afford the
integrity required to make them effective bargainers for the Negro group.
At bottom is the ease with which the Negro masses can be duped—^because
they are distressed, poorly educated, politically inexperienced, tractable,
and have old traditions of dependence and carelessness.
All this is, however, relative. Even though the Negro voters are weakly
organized today, the two parties have to compete for them. The N.A.A.C.P.
and all other national and local Negro organizations and the Negro press
are constantly doing a service by creating publicity—favorable or unfavor-
able—in the Negro community for the political parties and the individual
officeholders. To some extent the latter become compelled to adjust
according to the reactions of Negro voters.
2. The Negro’s Party Allegiance
Our assumption has until now been that the Negro vote will remain fluid
but will keep conservatively to the two big parties. One thing seems certain:
namely, that the Negroes will not go fascist. All their interests are against
right-wing radicalism.^ More problematic, of course, are Negro attitudes
toward Communism. To many white people in America, apparently, it
seems natural that they should turn Communist. This is, however, largely
only a testimony of their own bad social conscience and of their ignorance
of the Negro community. It is true that a majority of the Negro people
are in economic distress. It is also true that they are increasingly becoming
conscious of being severely maltreated in America and that they sense
social exclusion, which must decrease their feeling of full solidarity with
the dominant groups in society. All this should make them open to revolu-
tionary propaganda. It is further true that the Communists have seen
their chance and have been devoting much zealous work to cultivating
the Negroes. They have run a Negro as candidate for Vice-President of the
United States. They are the only American group which has in practice
offered Negroes full ^‘social equality,” and this is highly valued not only
among Negro intellectuals but much deeper down in the Negro community,
particularly in the North.
Still the Communists have not succeeded in getting any ap’preciable
following among Negroes in America “ and it does not seem likely that they
will. No intensive study has been made on this problem. The following
observations are presented as impressionistic, even if they are believed
to contain the main facts. To begin with, it is a mistake to assume a priori
that poor, uneducated, and socially disadvantaged groups are particularly
* See Chapter 22, Section 4.
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