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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VII. Social Inequality - 30. Effects of Social Inequality - 3. Interracial Contacts - 4. The Factor of Ignorance
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656 An American Dilemma
other aspects of Negro life are neglected in the white press which gives
the unfavorable crime news an undue weight. Sometimes the white press
‘^creates” a Negro crime wave where none actually exists. In the latter part
of the summer of 1941, Washington, D.C. was disturbed by a Negro
^‘rape-and-murder wave,” according to white newspapers throughout the
country. Actually only one Negro was found to be responsible for the
several crimes.^
‘
Crimes against Negroes outside of lynching receive no publicity in the
white press. Lynching receives a wide but declining publicity, especially
in the North, and such publicity probably serves to raise Negroes—^by
contrast with Southern whites—in the attitude of Northern whites.
We have emphasized the most important aspects of the three most im-
portant spheres of Negro-white contacts—the casual, the economic and the
criminal. The casual contact is inevitable if Negroes live in the same com-
munities as do whites; the economic contact is the main reason for not
wanting to send Negroes back to Africa or to segregate them in an isolated
region and is, therefore, ^^inevitable”; the criminal contact is the result of
a prejudiced but news-interested society. Besides contacts in the casual,
economic, and criminal spheres of life, there are a few contacts between
Negroes and whites in almost every other sphere. Usually they are unim-
portant numerically, but they may be important in bringing about change.
The personal relations arising out of Negro activity in science and literature
are restricted to a small proportion of the white population, whose preju-
dice—if not already low—is diminished considerably by such contacts.
Indirectly the effect may be greater. The scientific discoveries of a George
Washington Carver or the literary product of a Richard Wright will
achieve nation-wide publicity and acclaim and will affect people as far
down as the lower middle classes. A second minor field of interracial
contact of growing importance is that of professional interracial relations.®
A third minor type of interracial contact is that between radicals. In the
main our conclusion is that the lack of personal and intimate contacts
between members of the two groups is extraordinary.
4. The Factor of Ignorance
In a sense, this isolation is the result of cultural assimilation itself.
When the masses of the Negroes found out that they could acquire an
education and make notable cultural achievements and—even more
—
when they absorbed the white American’s ideals of democracy and equality,
•The work and significance of such organizations as the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League, the Commission on Interracial Coopera-
tion, and the various local or temporary groups of similar purpose will be considered in
Chapter 39.
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