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 - IV. Economics - 14. The Negro in Business, the Professions, Public Service and Other White Collar Occupations - 6. The Negro in Medical Professions - 7. Other Negro Professionals
<< 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 14. The Negro in Business 325
hospitals, benefiting from a monopoly arising from segregation in public
health service.® There are observers who characterize some of these business
practices as exploitative. In addition, they help to keep down the profes-
sional record of the Negro doctor.®^
Having dealt at such great length with the conditions of the Negro
physician, we can content ourselves by touching on the rather similar prob-
lems of the Negro in other medical professions. There were only 5,600
Negro nurses in 1930, constituting less than 2 per cent of the total number
of nurses in the United States (Table 3). The reason why the proportion
of Negroes is even smaller among the nurses than among the physicians is
obvious: nurses cannot count on much private practice; usually they have
to depend on the public health system, which offers few opportunities for
Negro professionals. One would expect, however, that these limitations
would be somewhat less rigorous in respect to nurses, since it would seem
to be inconsistent with Southern ideas to let white women care for Negro
male patients. But a solution to this delicate problem has been found other
than that of letting the Negro nurse monopolize the work in the colored
hospital wings. White nurses may treat Negro patients, but they are assisted
by Negro maids who do most of the dirty work.®®
The Negro dentist has a position much like that of the Negro physician.®®
He may have some white trade, particularly among foreigners in the
North, but also in some Southern communities. On the other hand, large
numbers of Negro patients turn to white dentists, in spite of the fact that,
in the South at least, they are treated on a segregated basis, with separate
instruments, in a separate chair. The fact that Negro dentists, like other
Negro professionals, have little representation in rural areas, forces many
Negroes to use white dentists even if they want to go to a Negro. The
average income of the Negro dentist is somewhat lower than that of the
Negro doctor. Like the physician, he is often a businessman on the side.
In his practice he may, sometimes, be unethical. It is often alleged that
there is a group of Negro dentists—the so-called ‘‘glorified blacksmiths”
who satisfy the vanity of patients by decorating sound teeth with gold or
by substituting more beautiful artificial teeth for healthy natural teeth.
The writer has been told by some observers, however, that this pattern is
gradually declining, owing to the rising educational level of the patients.
7. Other Negro Professionals
Potentially, there should be great opportunities for Negro lawyers. So
often is the Negro wronged—in the South at least—and so little do most
white people understand his plight, that there should be a tremendous
need for Negro attorneys to assist Negro clients. Actually, however, the
* It has even happened, in Detroit for instance, that municipalities which do not want
to accept Negro patients in city hospitals subsidize second-rate Negro-owned institutions.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
