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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 23. Trends and Possibilities - 1. The Negro’s Political Bargaining Power
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5o6 An American Dilemma
as a foUtical unity nationally and locally. One prerequisite for such a tactic
Is present to a greater degree than in any other large American group of
voters. Negroes, as a consequence of the bonds of caste In which they are
enclosed, feel a larger degree of interest solidarity in relation to society. It
is true that the Negro community is stratified into social classes and that,
In general, Negroes are much at variance In political issues. Interests and
ideals. But the lower classes are, because of the caste situation, a great
majority, and the upper classes have strong interests In the economic wel-
fare of the lower classes who constitute the basis of their economic sus-
tenance. As regards Negro Issues, therefore, the Internal differences have
little significance, and those Issues are likely to remain primary. There are
certain concrete demands—all centering around the insistence that Negroes
should be treated like other citizens—about which there is almost universal
agreement among Negroes.
In the sphere of national politics, however, the attempt to take up real
collective bargaining with the two political parties on behalf of the Negro
voters has not been effective.^ Since the Negro vote became fluid in the
1930’s and both parties now recognize this fact, it would be rather natural
for a national Negro political leadership to form itself and start negotia-
tions with the two parties in advance of each national election. This has
not happened. The “bidding for the Negro vote” has been left almost
entirely to the care of the two parties themselves and has principally
become directed to the individual Negro voter, through party-appointed
Negro leaders, as no bargaining agency for the Negroes has Interceded.
In local politics collective bargaining has, as we have shown, not been
entirely lacking. But taking a broad view, the main observation is again that
the situation has not been utilized to any extent approaching the political
possibilities. Negro communities everywhere display in the most glaring
manner clear-cut problems of housing, employment, education, health, and
so on, calling not only for expert planning but for formulation of Negro
political programs. It Is, indeed, a matter to be explained why Negro pres-
sure in these communities, at least in the North, is so diffuse and inarticu-
late, and, relatively speaking, so politically ineffective.
Part of the explanation is, undoubtedly, the poverty and the inherited
psychology of dependence and apathy among the Negro masses, their
low educational and cultural level, and the lack of political tradition and
experience both in the masses and in the upper strata of the Negro com-
munity. All this is bound to change in time. But there are, in addition,
certain intrinsic difficulties inherent in the strategy of not being able to
form an independent party with hope of gaining political power but, never-
theless, of wanting to act as a political unit in order to raise the price paid
for the Negro votes by the existing parties. The very facts that a Negro is
prevented by his caste status from regarding himself as an ordinary Ameri-
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