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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - I. The Approach - 3. Facets of the Negro Problem - 2. The Anti-Amalgamation Doctrine - 3. The White Man’s Theory of Color Caste
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Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 57
not accepted into matrimony, and the inferior status of their mixed off-
spring, is a strong practical reason for the Negro’s preaching ‘^race pride”
in his own group. But it is almost certainly not based on any fundamental
feeling condemning miscegenation on racial or biological grounds.
On this central point, as on so many others, the whites’ attitudes are
primary and decisive j
the Negroes’ are in the nature of accommodation or
protest.
3. The White Man’s Theory of Color Caste
We have attempted to present in compressed and abstract formulation
the white supremacy doctrine as applied to amalgamation, sex relations and
marriage. The difficulty inherent in this task is great. As no scientifically
controlled nation-wide investigations have been made, the author has here,
as in other sections, had to rely on his own observations.^
Every widening of the writer’s experience of white Americans has only
driven home to him more strongly that the opinion that the Negro is
unassimilable, or, rather, that his amalgamation into the American nation
is undesirable, is held more commonly, absolutely, and intensely than
would be assumed from a general knowledge of American thoughtways.
Except for a handful of rational intellectual liberals—who also, in many
cases, add to their acceptance in principle of amalgamation an admission
that they personally feel an irrational emotional inhibition against it—it is a
rare case to meet a white American who will confess that, if it were not for
public opinion and social sanctions not removable by private choice, he
would have no strong objection to intermarriage.
The intensity of the attitude seems to be markedly stronger in the South
than in the North. Its strength seems generally to be inversely related
to the economic and social status of the informant and his educational
level. Il is usually strong even in most of the non-colored minority groups,
if they are above the lowest plane of indifference. To the poor and socially
insecure, but struggling, white individual, a fixed opinion on this point
seems an important matter of prestige and distinction.
But even a liberal-minded Northerner of cosmopolitan culture and with
a minimum of conventional blinds will, in nine cases out of ten, express a
definite feeling against amalgamation. He will not be willing usually to
hinder intermarriage by law. Individual liberty is to him a higher principle
and, what is more important, he actually invokes it. But he will regret the
exceptional cases that occur. He may sometimes hold a philosophical view
that in centuries to come amalgamation is bound to happen and might
become the solution. But he will be inclined to look on it as an inevitable
deterioration.*^
“ The response is likely to be anything but pleasant if one jestingly argues that possibly
a small fraction of Negro blood in the American people, if it were blended well with all
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