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Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
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Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 37
mistic light. I have sensed the high subjective pleasure of this persistent
balancing on the margins and the corresponding pleasures of the less liberal
audience in being merely teased but never affronted by the sore points. 1
have come to understand how a whole system of moral escape has become
polite form in the South. This form is applicable even to scientific writings
and, definitely, to public discussion and teaching on all levels. It is some-
times developed into an exquisite and absorbing art.
It renders the spoken or written word less effective. It is contrary to the
aims of raising issues and facing problems; it makes difficult an effective
choice of words. It represents an extra encumbrance in intellectual inter-
course. At the same time as it purposively opens a means of escape, it also
fetters everything to the very complex suppressed by this means: the Negro
problem on their minds.
This form has even crystallized into a peculiar theory of Induced social
change. It has become policy. There is nearly common agreement in the
South that reforms in interracial relations should be introduced with as
little discussion about them as possible. It is actually assumed that the race
issue is a half dormant, but easily awakened, beast. It is a complex which
is irrational and uncontrollable, laden with emotions, and to be touched as
little as possible.
When talking about the Negro problem, everybody—not only the
intellectual liberals—is thus anxious to locate race prejudice outside him-
self. The impersonal ^^public opinion” or ^^community feelings” are held
responsible. The whites practically never discuss the issue in terms of
or ‘^we” but always in terms of ^‘they,” ^^people in the South,” ^^people in
this community,” or ‘‘folks down here will not stand for . . .” this or that.
One can go around for weeks talking to white people in all walks of life
and constantly hear about the wishes and beliefs of this collective being,
yet seldom meeting a person who actu^^lly identifies himself with it. But he
follows it.
In the more formal life of the community the Negro problem and, in
fact, the Negro himself, is almost completely avoided. “In effect the Negro
is segregated in public thought as well as in public carriers,” complains
Robert R. Moton.’ The subject is only seldom referred to in the church.
In the school it will be circumvented like sex; it does not fit naturally in
any one of the regular courses given. Sometimes, but rarely, the topic
will be taken up for ostentatious treatment as part of an effort toward
interracial good-will. The press, with remarkable exceptions, ignores the
Negroes, except for their crimes. There was earlier an unwritten rule in
the South that a picture of a Negro should never appear in print, and even
now it is rare. The public affairs of community and state are ordinarilv dis-
cussed as if Negroes were not part of the population. The strange unreality
of this situation becomes apparent when one comes to realize that for
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