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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Race - 5. Race and Ancestry - 7. “Passing” - 8. Social and Biological Selection
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130 An American Dilemma
Passing has genetic significance for both whites and Negroes.® The whites
get a certain admixture of Negro genes. This may modify certain charac-
teristics of their physical structure to an extent which must be slight, on
account of both the great size of the white population and the predominance
of Caucasoid genes in the passers. It cannot make the white population
much darker even if continued for a long time.^‘® The main genetic conse-
quence of passing for the Negro people is that some of the near-Caucasoid
elements are being constantly removed from the possibility of reducing
the proportion of Negroid genes in the remaining American Negro popula-
tion. This is, of course, a relative matter, since far from all light Negroes
attempt to pass, and since many who cannot pass have a large admixture
of white blood. Passing is apparently more common to men than to women,
judging by opinion and the sex ratio.** This does not reduce the genetic
significance of passing, however, since the contribution of genes by a father
is just as great as that by a mother. Of some consequence for genetic com-
position is the fact that young adults are those who pass most frequently.
These are the persons who bear most children, who are, consequently,
usually lost to the Negro group.
8. Social and Biological Selection
There are no data to permit the conclusion that, in the rural South where
most of the miscegenation has taken place, one social class of the white
population was more responsible for the existence of the mixed-blood
population. than corresponds to its relative proportion in the population.
Neither does the available evidence allow the contrary conclusion. But
even if one social class of white people in the South should have been more
predominantly involved in miscegenation, this would not necessarily have
great genetic importance, since it is not scientifically established that social
classes of whites in the South differed significantly in genetic composition,
in spite of the popular opinion that poor whites are degenerate.^^ It is also
not possible to state that within the various social classes of whites, mis-
cegenation has followed any pattern of individual selection.
Turning to the Negro partners in miscegenation it would, however, on
a friori grounds, seem probable that a factor of positive selection in mating
could have been at work, at least until recent times when Negro pride
became important. The Negro girl whose physical appearance and cultural
manners approximated the prevalent standards in the higher caste would
* In the following discussion and throughout the book, we discuss certain implications of
the inheritance of skin color as an example of all physical traits which have significance for
social status, such as breadth of nose, thickness of lips and hair form.
**
This probably occurs because passing usually involves economic advantages to Negro
males who must compete in a white man’s world, but economic disadvantages to a Negro
female who could get a white husband only from the lower classes, but possibly a Negro
husband from the upper classes.
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