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Footnotes 1383
colored persons having light skin and ‘white’ types of hair will be accorded the highest
station within the lower caste. This fact does not prevent the expression of strong
antagonisms to light-skinned persons by the rest of the group. Such antagonism is an
expression of the envy and humiliation of the darker individuals.
“Since the system of classes operates within a caste system, the physical traits of the
white caste must be accorded highest value; the darker individuals cannot but be condi-
tioned to the all-important symbols of the upper caste, and so give them highest rank.
The upper class, on the other hand, thinks of the lower class as black and woolly-haired,
thus mentally associating the lowest social rank with the ‘lowest’ physical traits.” {Of,
cit., p. 235.)
“The high social value placed upon light skin color and white hair-form is even more
clearly related to the operation of caste sanctions. While it is not true that these physi-
cal traits alone assure a colored person an upper-class status, it is certain that, in most
of even the older colored communities, social mobility proceeds at a faster pace for
persons with these physical traits. It is commonly said by colored men of the upper
and upper-middle classes today that they marry women for their ‘looks,’ while white
men of parallel status marry for family status, money, and education.” {lbid,y p. 244.)
16 observed in the testing program and in the direct interviews with the youth
that they consistently rated their own complexions a shade or more lighter than they
appeared to be. This prompted the study to attempt a more careful measurement of a
tendency which seemed to have some significance. It suggested a type of unconscious
response to the color evaluations which they gave in other situations. They could escape,
in their own minds at least, some of the unfavorable association, by appraising them-
selves as lighter than they were.” (Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in the Black Belty
p. 265.)
Following the Color Line (1908), pp. 157 ff.; Through Afro-America (1910),
pp. 225 ff.
This “peculiar inconsistency” on the color question has been observed and dis-
cussed by every author on the Negro problem during recent decades. Recently much new
material has been made available by the studies on Negro youth, prepared for the
American Youth Commission (see footnote 9 to Chapter 30), all of which have attached
great importance to the color factor in the personality development of Negro youth.
One of the studies
—
Color and Human Nature (1941) by W. Lloyd Warner, Buford
Junker, and W. A. Adams—was mainly directed on this problem. This new material
rather tends to confer the impression that color and color preference in the Negro com-
munity is even more important than was earlier assumed in the general literature on the
Negro problem.
“It often happens that darker children in families feel that their parents give pref-
erence to the children of lighter complexion. Even such inadvertent and casual com-
parisons as ‘better hair,’ ‘nicer complexion,’ ‘prettier skin,’ ‘nicer shade’ affect the
more sensitive young people and contribute to their feelings of inferiority. Children
may apply color values unfavorably to one or the other of the parents and find them-
selves apologizing for the dark complexion of a parent. They may even harbor resent-
ment against the parent who was biologically responsible for their own undesirable
appearance. By far the most frequent instances of color sensitivity, however, occur out-
side the home as the child attempts to make adjustment to new groups.” (Charles S.
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