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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 - 2. The Ignorance and Lack of Concern of Northern Whites
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Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 385
can raise the question: ^^Shall I take care of my neighbor?” A citizen of one
single community can say, as a manufacturer did recently:
Negroes here should be In the South. They should never have come to Milwaukee.
for by so doing they have created a social problem for the city.^
The white Northerner can feel that the Negroes ought to be in the South.
The white urban worker can likewise feel that the Negroes should be in
the country, and the white farmer that they should not compete for the
land. An individual employer or a local trade union may bar Negroes from
a particular shop and claim that the Negroes should be somewhere else.
But on d national scale there is no somewhere else^^—unless it be in Africa.
Getting employment for Negroes becomes a concern not only for them-
selves but for the nation. The alternative is to let them become public
charges. A definite policy becomes a necessity.
When, thus, labor market conditions become the concern of the federal
and state governments and of a gradually consolidated national labor union
movement, the “pass the buck” mentality becomes undermined. Causes
and effects will have to be studied, responsibilities will have to be distrib-
uted and shouldered. And in this whole process, of which we are just
seeing the beginning, a most significant thing is that the ordinary American
follows higher ideals and is more of a responsible democrat when he votes
as a citizen or elects workers’ or employers’ representatives to formal
assemblies than when he just lives his own life as an anonymous individual.
Also of great importance is the fact that, on the national scene, there is
no possibility that Negroes will take over all industrial jobs. The individual
employer or the individual group of white workers can always cite the
excuse that they have to discriminate since everybody else doesj for other-
wise, as we have pointed out already, they would have to accept all compe-
tent Negro workers excluded by other employers and by other groups of
white workers. But there is no such excuse in national employment policies.
There are 10 per cent Negroes in the population, and a little more in the
total labor force j
white workers will never be overwhelmed. By attacking
the color bars everywhere, it is possible to minimize the change needed in
any individual establishment if the Negro is to be completely integrated
into the economic system. The breakdown of discrimination in one part of
the labor market facilitates a similar change in all other parts of it. The
vicious circle can be reversed.
The trend toward public control of the labor market is the great hope
for the Negro at the present time. For the Negro, it is of paramount
importance to make the most of it. Public authority is compelled to side
with him, in one way or another. The objective of an educational campaign
is to minimize prejudice—or, at least, to bring the conflict between preju-
dice and ideals out into the open and to force the white citizen to take his
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