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Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 591
"intermarriage” and the theory of "no social equality” to justify discrim-
inations which have quite other and wider goals than the purity of the
white race. Things are defended in the South as means of preserving racial
purity which cannot possibly be defended in this way. To this extent we
cannot avoid observing that what white feofle really want is to keef the
Negroes in a lower status. "Intermarriage” itself is resented because it
would be a supreme indication of "social equality,” while the rationaliza-
tion is that "social equality” is opposed because it would bring "intermar-
riage.”
Not denying the partial reality of the white person’s psychological
identification with the "white race” and his serious concern about "racial
purity,” our tentative conclusion is, therefore, that more fundamentally
the theory of "no social equality” is a rationalization, and that the demand
for "no social equality” is psychologically dominant to the aversion for
"intermarriage.” The persistent preoccupation with sex and marriage in
the rationalization of social segregation and discrimination against Negroes
is, to this extent, an irrational escape on the part of the whites from voicing
an open demand for difference in social status between the two groups for
its own sake. Like the irrational racial beliefs,® the fortification in the
unapproachable regions of sex of the unequal treatment of the Negro,
which this popular theory provides, has been particularly needed in this
nation because of the strength of the American Creed. A people with a less
emphatic democratic ethos would be more able to uphold a caste system
without this tense belief in sex and race dangers.
The fixation on the purity of white womanhood, and also part of the
intensity of emotion surrounding the whole sphere of segregation and
discrimination, are to be understood as the backwashes of the sore con-
science on the part of white men for their own or their compeers’ relations
with, or desires for, Negro women."*^ These psychological effects are
greatly magnified because of the puritan milieu of America and especially
of the South. The upper class men in a less puritanical people could prob-
ably have indulged in sex relations with, and sexual day-dreams of, lower
caste women in a more matter-of<ourse way and without generating so
much pathos about white womanhood.^^ The Negro people have to carry
the burden not only of the white men’s sins but also of their virtues. The
virtues of the honest, democratic, puritan white Americans in the South
are great, and the burden upon the Negroes becomes ponderous.^^
Our practical .conclusion is that it would have cleansing effects on race
relations in America, and particularly in the South, to have an open and
sober discussion in rational terms of this ever present popular theory of
"intermarriage” and "social equality,” giving matters their factual ground,
true proportions and logical relations. Because it is, to a great extent, an
*See Chapter 4.
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