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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Race - 5. Race and Ancestry - 1. The American Definition of “Negro”
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1 14 An American Dilemma
This social definition of the Negro race, even if it does not change any-
thing in the biological situation, increases the number of individuals actually
included in the Negro race. It relegates a large number of individuals who
look like white people, or almost so, to the Negro race and causes the
Negro race to show a greater variability generally than it would show if
the race were defined more narrowly in accordance with quantitative
ethnological or biological criteria. ‘^The farcical side of the color question in
the States”—says Sir Harry H. Johnston—“is that at least a considerable
proportion of the ‘colored people’ are almost white-skinned, and belong in
the preponderance of their descent and in their mental associations to the
white race.”^ In the American white population the so-called Nordic type,
which is popularly assumed to be the opposite extreme from the black
Negro, is a rare phenomenon. This statement is especially true after the
“new” immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and from the
Near East. But even the “Old American stock” was preponderantly “non-
Nordic.” There are, however, also American Negroes with the clearest
of white skin, the bluest of blue eyes, and the long and narrow head which
happens to be both a Negro and a “Nordic” trait.
The popular belief rationalizing the exclusive social definition of the
Negro race is well expressed by the high priest of racialism in America,
Madison Grant, in the following words:
It must be borne in mind that the specializations which characterize the higher
races arc of relatively recent development, are highly unstable and when mixed with
generalized or primitive characters tend to disappear. Whether we like to admit it
or not, the result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race revert-
ing to the more ancient, generalized and lower type. The cross between a white man
and an Indian is an Indian j
the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro;
the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu; and the crosr between any
of three European races and a Jew is a Jew.®
The fact that this belief is contrary to scientifically established truth does
not diminish its force as a belief. An additional fortification in the sphere
of beliefs is the “black baby myth,” the popular theory that the slightest
amount of Negro ancestry in an individual, who does not show even a trace
of Negro characteristics, can cause a “throw-back” and that he—in a mating
with a white individual—can become the parent of a black baby.^
There has been much speculation about how this very exclusive racial
• In making his famous study of the physical traits of “Old Americans” (practically all
of English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, French, or German ancestry), Hrdlicka encountered great
difficulty in finding persons of pure “Nordic” ancestry. (See Ales Hrdlicka, Old
Americans [1925], especially p. 5.)
Even in the population of Sweden, supposed to be the purest “Nordic” stock in existence,
only some 15 per cent can be classified as “Nordics” on strict anthropometric grounds.
^ Here two additional popular beliefs are added to our list in Chapter 4, Section 7, of
beliefs with a special purpose. Concerning the black baby myth, see Section 7 of this chapter.
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