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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - I. The Approach - 3. Facets of the Negro Problem - 2. The Anti-Amalgamation Doctrine
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Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 55
inferiority of the Negro people there exists among white Americans a
whole folklore, which is remarkably similar throughout the country. To this
we shall refer in the next chapter.
Whether this concept of the inferiority of the Negro stock is psycho-
logically basic to the doctrine that amalgamation should be prohibited, or
is only a rationalization of this doctrine, may for the moment be left open.
The two notions, at any rate, appear together. The fact that one is used as
argument for the other does not necessarily prove such a causal psychic
relation between them. In many cases one meets an unargued and not
further dissolvable frimary valuation, which is assumed to be self-evident
even without support of the inferiority premise. Miscegenation® is said
to be a threat to “racial purity.” It is alleged to be contrary to “human
instincts.” It is “contrary to nature” and “detestable.” Not only in the
South but often also in the North the stereotyped and hypothetical ques-
tion is regularly raised without any intermediary reasoning as to its applic-
ability or relevance to the social problem discussed: “Would you like to
have your sister or daughter marry a Negro?” This is an unargued appeal
to “racial solidarity” as a primary valuation. It is corollary to this attitude
that in America the offspring of miscegenation is relegated to the Negro
race.
A remarkable and hardly expected peculiarity of this American doctrine,
expounded so directly in biological and racial terms, is that it is applied
with a vast discretion depending upon the purely social and legal circum-
stances under which miscegenation takes place. As far as lawful marriage
is concerned, the racial doctrine is laden with emotion. Even in the Northern
states where, for the most part, intermarriage is not barred by the force
of law, the social sanctions blocking its way are serious. Mixed couples are
punished by nearly complete social ostracism. On the other hand, in many
regions, especially in the South where the prohibition against intermarriage
and the general reprehension against miscegenation have the strongest
moorings, illicit relations have been widespread and occasionally allowed
to acquire a nearly institutional character. Even if, as we shall find later
when we come to analyze the matter more in detail,** such relations are per-
haps now on the decline, they are still not entirely stamped out.
Considering the biological emphasis of the anti-amalgamation doctrine
and the strong social sanctions against intermarriage tied to that doctrine,
the astonishing fact is the great indifference of most white Americans
* Miscegenation is mainly an American term and is in America almost always used to
denote only relations between Negroes and whites. Although it literally implies only mixture
of genes between members of different races, it has acquired a definite emotional connotation.
We use it in its literal sense—without implying necessarily that it is undesirable—as a
convenient synonym of amalgamation.
**
See Chapter 5.
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