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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 - 2. To the Negroes Themselves
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Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 29
the discrimination against the Negro which is so great that it becomes
qualitative. On the intellectual level, which we are now discussing, the
fettering of the Negro spirit within the Negro problem is not accomplished
so much by simple discrimination as by the prejudice inherent even in the
most friendly but restrictive expectancy, including the expectancy of the
Negro people.
So far we have been commenting on the fate of those rare persons with
extraordinary talents who, if any, should have both the intellectual
strength and the opportunities to break out of the prison of the Negro
problem. To the ordinary members of the Negro upper and middle class,
even the window shutters of the prison are closed. It will be the theme
of following chapters to show in some detail how Negro preachers,
teachers, professionals, and businessmen have had to build their whole
economic and social existence on the basis of the segregation of their
people, in response to the dictates of the white society. To state the
situation bluntly: these upper class Negroes are left free to earn their
living and their reputation in the backwater of discrimination, but they are
not free to go into the main current of the river itself. On the one hand,
they arc kept fully aware of the wider range of opportunities from which
they are excluded by segregation and discrimination. On the other hand,
they know equally well how they are sheltered by the monopoly left to
them in their little world apart. In their whole outlook on life and society
they are forced into an impossible and tragic dilemma.
The masses of the Negro people, however, unlike the more advantaged
leaders, professionals, and businessmen, derive almost none of the com-
pensatory gains from the caste system. They sense how they are hampered
and enclosed behind the walls of segregation and discrimination more
acutely than might be expected.
They do not usually spend too much of their mental energy on theoriz-
ing over the Negro problem. Their days are filled with toil and more
personal troubles and pleasures. But, as we shall find, in most of these varied
activities, the Negro problem enters as a loud overtone. It is heard in
church, in school, on the work place, in the play yard and on the street.
They, too, are imprisoned in the Negro problem.
The broad masses of Negroes are also enclosed in the prison as effec-
tively by the restrictive expectancy of their friends as by the persecutions
of their enemies.
The patronizing attitude is really more damning than the competitive struggle.
The stone wall of calm assumption of his Inferiority is to the Negro a keener hurt
and a greater obstacle than the battle which admits an adversary worth fighting
against. It is hard to keep ambition alive and to maintain morale when those for
whom you have fondness and respect keep thinking and saying that you are only
children, that you can never grow up, that you are cast by God in an inferior mould.^
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