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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 17. The Mechanics of Economic Discrimination as a Practical Problem - 1. The Practical Problem
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382 An American Dilemma
Another major general condition behind the Negroes economic plight,
which should be mentioned in this context, is the fact that most white
people are ignorant about the total impact of what they have done to the
Negro in the economic field. This, of course, is not a ^‘primary cause,
either. It only explains how white people have been able to do what they
have done without having more of a bad conscience about it. Yet the
practical significance of it is tremendous. We frankly do not believe that
the Negroes economic status would have been nearly as hopeless as it now
appears to be if white people more generally realized how all specific
economic discriminations add up, and how eflFectively they bar the way for
the Negro when he attempts to better himself.
In addition, of course, there are any number of secondary factors bol-
stering discrimination: inadequate vocational and other educational facilities
for Negroes particularly in the South; the lack of appeal to the ambition
of the Negro worker, who often feels that his fate depends less on his
individual efforts than on what white people believe about Negroes in
general; the political impotency of the Southern Negro; high sickness
rates among Negroes; and so on. In the circular process of cumulative
causation many of these handicaps are themselves partly caused by the
job limitations which keep the Negro’s economic status low.
No interests are served by attempting to brighten this sinister economic
situation by undue optimism. The adequate response is instead to turn the
problem around and ask the practical question: How would it be ’possible
by a planned economic policy to increase Negro opportunities for employ-
ment? The possibilities seem to be greatest, of course, on the Northern
nonfarm labor market which—whether we study it by geographical regions,
industries, or occupations—contains the largest areas where Negroes have
yet to gain a position. Still the possibilities in the South, too, must be kept
in mind. The South’s relative ^^saturation” with Negro labor is largely
artificial.. It depends, in the main, on the fact that Negroes are confined to
such industries and occupations as are expanding only slightly or are
regressing. Production of textiles, the largest manufacturing industry in
the South, excludes Negroes entirely, except for certain types of secondary
service work. Moreover, the South, up to the present war boom, showed
a more rapid increase in industrial employment than did the rest of the
country, but the Negro has been unable to get his proportionate share in
this expansion. Thus, there are reasons both for defensive and for offensive
action in the South as well as in the North.
In this chapter we shall attempt to analyze, in more general terms and
from this practical viewpoint,* some of the main factors which determine
the position of the Negroes in the urban labor market. For reasons already
*The value premises for the practical analysis in this chapter have been presented in
Chapter 9, Section 3.
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