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 - VI. Justice - 24. Inequality of Justice - 3. The Southern Heritage
<< 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.
530 An American Dilemma
South, that this is his reaction only to strangers. I have often witnessed
this undercurrent of fear and uncertainty in various undefined situations
even when one or more of the white persons participating were personally
known to the Negroes or were recognized by their dialect as having a
Southern origin. The Northern Negro, in general, appears different in
this respect. His self-assurance in behavior often seems preposterous or
obstreperous to the Southern white man who has become accustomed to
the submissive and guarded manners of the Southern Negro.
The reason for this, as we shall see, is that in the South the Negroes
person and property are practically subject to the whim of any white person
who wishes to take advantage of him or to punish him for any real or
fancied wrongdoing or ^finsult.” A white man can steal from or maltreat
a Negro in almost any way without fear of reprisal, because the Negro
cannot claim the protection of the police or courts, and personal vengeance
on the part of the offended Negro usually results in organized retaliation
in the form of bodily injury (including lynching), home burning or ban-
ishment. Practically the only check on white maltreatment of Negroes is
a rather vague and unformulated feeling on the part of Southern public
opinion that a white man should not be *^mean” to a Negro except when
he ^‘deserves” it. But unless the white man acquires a reputation for being
mean and unjust, his occasional violation of a Negroes legal rights is felt
to be justified or—at most—^^his own business.”
The large element of chance and arbitrariness should be emphasized in
a discussion of lawlessness in the South. Physical violence and threats
against personal security do not, of course, occur to every Negro ever y day.
Some Southern Negroes can probably go through life with only half a
dozen ‘incidents.” But violence may occur at any time, and it Is the fear of
it as much as violence itself which creates the injustice and the insecurity.
The chance nature of the violence is illustrated by the fact that a noncon-
forming Northern Negro known to the author spent five years in the South
without any trouble, while another Northern Negro, who went South with
a determination to comply with all rules so as to avoid difficulty, met
violence within a week.
When trying to understand the Southern situation as to law enforcement
and the Negro’s personal security, it is necessary to examine the historical
heritage of the region. Under slavery the Negro was owned, bought, and
sold as property j
he was worked, housed, fed, and prevented from doing
what he wished if it was contrary to the interests of his master. In general,
the Negro slave had no ^^rights” which his owner was bound to respect.*
Even if in legal theory the slave was given the status of a person xmder
*The North had a small amount of slavery in the early days of the nation, but it was
restricted and was abolished by the first years of the nineteenth century. Its tradition was
completely annihilated by the anti-slavery sentiment before and during the Civil War.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
