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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VIII. Social Stratification - 31. Caste and Class - 3. The Caste Struggle
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Chapter 31. Caste and Class 679
fundamentally the same sense as a citizen who, during the war, is in friendly
contact with the enemy. The ^^scab” who goes over to the employer during
a strike is another appropriate comparison. The disgrace and the persecu-
tion of the ^^nigger lover,” the traitor and the labor ^^scab” is fundamentally
independent of their motives. These will usually and unquestionably be
presumed to be base. No explanation is accepted. The reason is in all three
cases that they are considered dangerous to the interests of the group. In
recent years the ^^nigger lover” has generally been associated with the
^^reds,” and the “Communists,” terms that in all America and particularly
in the South are given a wide and vague meaning.
Interracial workers in the South have to tread carefully in order not to
invoke this terrible condemnation of being “nigger lovers.” They know
and their Negro friends “understand”—that they will have to avoid break-
ing such social etiquette as would “offend public opinion.” I have repeatedly
been informed by white participants in interracial work about the fine
diplomacy involved, about the compliant understanding of the Negroes,
and of the tremendous importance of this matter both to their own wel-
fare and to the success of their interracial undertakings. The Negroes
in the South, knowing the whites’ treatment of “nigger lovers” and the
probability that they themselves would come in for a share, often show con-
siderable shyness with a friendly white man, until they feel sure that he
is going to leave the community soon and that he will not advertise his
friendliness. The fear of being stamped as “nigger lovers” on the part of the
white interracialists accounts for their preference to “work quietly” and for
their reluctance to appeal to the white masses. By working only with the
“best people of both races” they hope, and have actually succeeded, in gain-
ing social respectability for their strivings. .But they always stress that they
are treading upon a volcano, even if white solidarity is apparently losing
some of its fury.®
The Negro, from his side, is even more aware of the caste line than is
the white man. Because Negroes are a numerically smaller element in the
population of most communities, the average Negro has more contacts with
whites than the average white man has with Negroes. Too, the contact
usually means more to the Negro j
it is the Negro who must be prepared
to meet the white man in the way demanded by etiquette, and an insult
rankles longer than an expression of ego-superiority. Further: the Negro
thinks and talks more about his caste position than the white man, especidly
in the North, and thus has many more caste experiences in his imagination.
Since the caste line restricts the Negro without providing him with many
compensating advantages, he feels it not only surrounding him but also
*Some white interracial workers have not been able to avoid the designation of “nigger
lover.” But they manage to exist by living in the anonymity of cities and by getting their
economic support from Northern philanthropy.
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