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io68 An American Dilemma
in the back of our mind. A main viewpoint in our study of every single factor
in the Negro problem is thus its interrelation with all other factors and their
cumulative effect upon the status of the Negro. The principle of cumulation allows
us to see that there is sense in the general notion of the “status of the Negro.” We
should, indeed, have liked to present in our study a general indeXy year by year or at
least decade by decade, as a quantitative expression of the movement of the entire
system we are studying: the status of the Negro in America. Such an index would have
about the same significance as the general indices of production or prices or any other
complex systems of interdependent variables. The index is an average. It should, for the
same principal reasons, have to be broken down for regions, classes, and items,
and this breaking down would have the same scientific function in an analysis.
It would give quantitative precision to the concept of the general status of the
Negro—^a concept which, because of the cumulative principle, we cannot escape.
And it always clarifies our reasoning to be compelled to calculate a quantitative
value for a notion we use. Materials for such an index of (relative ^nd absolute) Negro
status are, to a great extent, available, and the general theory of the index offers a
methodological basis for its construction. But the work of constructing and analyzing a
general index of Negro status in America amounts to a major investigation in itself,
and we must leave the matter as a proposal for further research.
Our chief task is to analyze the causal interrelation within the system itself as it works
under the influence of outside pushes and the momentum of on-going processes within.
The system is much more complicated than appears from our abstract representation. To
begin with, all factors must be broken down by region, social class, age, sex and so on.
As what we are studying is a race relation, the number of combinations increases by
multiples for each classification applied. White prejudice, for instance, varies not only
with the status of the white man, but also with the Negroes social class and the field
of Negro behavior in relation to which race prejudice is active. There are also Negro
prejudices in the system.
Each factor has its peculiarities and irregularities. White prejudice, for instance,
changes not only as a reaction to actual changes in Negro plane of living, but also to
expectations of such changes. The latter reaction may be totally different from the
former: a higher plane of living among Negroes, when it is actually achieved, may be
expected to eflfect a decrease of white prejudice, but the expectation of It for the future
might increase prejudice, particularly in the South (even if its long-run effects—^when
it actually comes—^will be, as we have assumed, a decrease of prejudice). It is possible,
finally, that certain social classes of whites—say poor whites in the South—even in the
fairly long-range perspective will react with Increased prejudice against the Negroes
approaching the white man’s status.
The system thus becomes complicated, but the fundamental principle of cumulative
causation remains. The scientific ideal is not only to define and analyze the factors,
but to give for each one of them a measure of their actual quantitative strength in
influencing the other factors, as well as a measure of their ability to be influenced them-
selves by outside forces. The time element becomes of paramount Importance in these
formulas. As we have exemplified for the factor of white prejudice, the eflFccts might
have diflferent signs in the short and in the long run. Even when this is not the case,
the cflFects will be spread differently along the time axis. A rise of employment, for
instance, will almbst immediately raise some standards of living, but a change in levels
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