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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VIII. Social Stratification - 32. The Negro Class Structure - 3. Color and Class
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698 An American Dilemma
selection, as we have had occasion to mention previously, it becomes a
dominant factor. It is impossible not to observe that in the higher classes
the wives regularly tend to be of a lighter shade of color than the hus-
bands.^® For a dark Negro woman, especially in the middle or upper
classes, the chances of getting a husband are fewer than for a dark Negro
man: men achieve more on the basis of merit and also take the initiative
in marriage selection. A fair Negro woman, on the other hand, has such
superior marriage chances that this fact is generally recognized as the
major explanation of why passable women do not seem to pass out of the
Negro caste as often as do passable men.
Fair-skinned Negroes have not been allowed by the white caste to
establish an intermediary caste of their own. Their superior status has not
been recognized. With great consistency they have been relegated to the
Negro caste. In the Negro community their exclusiveness has been broken
up by social mobility, aided by the growth of the Negro upper classes.
Darker Negroes can rise to the top among Negroes in social status, and
intermarriage with lighter Negroes is possible and actually not infrequent.
But the marriage selection referred to and the greater opportunities gener-
ally for economic and cultural advance of fair-skinned Negroes have
preserved an inherited situation where the darker individuals tend to form
the lower classes while the fairer individuals tend to belong to the upper
strata. The actual quantitative correlation between class and color is not
known.^^ It would seem, however, as if it were higher in urban districts
than in rural ones.^^ It is also probable that, in spite of the selective factors
still working in favor of the fair-skinned individuals, the relative propor-
tion of dark-skinned individuals in the upper classes is increasing as these
classes are growing. The “blue-veined” societies are breaking up.
As the Negro community is becoming increasingly “race conscious” it is
no longer proper to display color preferences publicly. The light-skinned
Negroes have to pledge allegiance to the Negro race. There is and has
always been much envy on the part of darker Negroes toward lighter ones.
There is even some tendency to regard a light skin as a badge of undesir-
able illegitimacy, especially when the light-skinned individual has a dark-
skinned mother or siblings.^^ There is also a slight tendency to attribute
bad biological effects to miscegenation.^^ The Garvey Back-to-Africa move-
ment appealed systematically to the darker Negroes and tried to impute
superiority to an unmixed African heritage.* Other more recent movements
have made similar appeals.*^ This reaction has, however, never outweighed
the primary tendency, which has always been to regard physical and
cultural similarity to white people with esteem and deference. And the
reaction itself is in many cases a psychological defense against a dominant
*See Chapter 35, Section 7.
"Sec Chapter 39, Section a.
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