Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 38. Negro Popular Theories - 1. Instability - 2. Negro Provincialism
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 783
experience they seek, the news they read, the art they create, and in the
disorganization and rivalry manifested in their families and social gather-
ings.® Most American whites believe that emotionalism and lack of ration-
ality are inborn in the Negro race. But scientific studies have made such
inherent temperamental differences between Negroes and whites seem
improbable.** The present author is inclined, for these reasons, to view this
characteristic of Negro thinking as a result of caste exclusion from partici-
pation in the larger American society.
2. Negro Provincialism
Another observable characteristic of the Negroes’ thinking about social
and political matters is its provincialism.
Here also we note an effect of caste exclusion, and not a racial trait. Pro-
vincialism in social and political thinking is not restricted to Negroes.
Everybody is inclined to consider national and international issues from
the point of view of personal, group, class or regional interests. The range
of vision stands apparently in a close correspondence to the degree of
participation in the larger society. And again, when comparing American
whites and Negroes, we note a quantitative difference in both cause and
effect that is so great as to become qualitative.
Negroes have so many odds directed against them and suffer so many
injustices—and the dominant American Creed which provides the com-
mon floor for all social and political thinking in the country is so uncom-
promisingly democratic—that it is only natural that when Negroes come
to think at all about social and political problems they think nearly exclu-
sively about their own problems. The Negro protest defines the ills of the
Negro group ever more sharply in their minds and emotionalizes narrow-
ness. Race consciousness and race pride give it a glorification and a systema-
tization. As the Negro frotest and race consciousness are steadily risings
Negro frovincialism may even increase in the short run^ in spite of the better
educational facilities and a greater acculturation.
The Negroes are so destitute of power in American society that it would,
indeed, be unrealistic for them to try a flight into a wider range of prob-
lems. It seems functional and rational that they restrict their efforts to
what is nearest home. They are not expected to have a worth-while judg-
ment on national and international affairs, except in so far as Negro inter-
ests are concerned. To most groups of white Americans it would be pre-
posterous and impudent, or at least peculiar, if Negroes started to discuss
general problems as ordinary Americans and human beings. They are
allowed—in various degrees—to protest j
or it is, at any rate, taken for
granted that they should protest. But they are neither expected nor allowed
* See Chapters 42, 43 and 44.
" See Chapter 6,
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
