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 - VII. Social Inequality - 28. The Basis of Social Inequality - 8. Attitudes among Different Classes of Whites in the South
<< 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.
596 An American Dilemma
This spirit has animated a growing number of white educators, churchmen,
and politicians who, for a long time, in cooperation with Northern phil-
anthropic organizations, have worked—“quietly and cautiously,” as they
always stress—^to improve Negro schools and social conditions. This is also
the ideological origin of modern Southern liberalism.® It has, from the
beginning, stamped the work of the Interracial Commission. Fundamen-
tally it is the attitude of the independent, secure, and cultured Southern
upper class person who feels the social responsibility of his position and
does not need to flatter his ego by the vulgar means of Negro subservience.
He has good fences, and he keeps them up, but just because of this he can
afford to be a good Christian neighbor to the poor Negro people around
him.
He is well informed enough about social realities in his region to know
also that such a policy, in the long run, is the best protection for the whites.
He understands that the lower class Negroes, gradually losing their per-
sonal relations to the old master class among the whites, are a social menace
and an economic liability to the South
:
But build him up. Make him sufficient in himself, give him within his own race,
life that will satisfy, and the social question will be solved. The trained Negro is
less and less inclined to lose himself in the sea of another race,®®
The difference in attitude will show up significantly in relation to the
upper and middle class Negroes. The ordinary white upper class people
will “have no use” for such Negroes. They need cheap labor—faithful,
obedient, unambitious labor. Many white Southerners will even today
explain to the visitor that they prefer the Negro workers because they are
tractable. When Negroes become prosperous, acquire education, or buy
land, and when they are no longer dependent, this relationship is broken.
But already, writing at the very beginning of this century. Page had
pointed out “the urgent need ... for the negroes to divide up into
classes, with character and right conduct as the standard for elevation,”
and added the admonition: “When they make distinctions themselves,
others will recognize their distinctions.”^® The younger school of Southern
thinkers took up this idea, but had a greater trust in education and progress
than Page, and a greater willingness to make it their own responsibility
to do something to assist the rising Negroes in reaching, not only occa-
sional landownership and education, but, in more recent times, to help get
for them fair and equal justice, personal security and even political suffrage.
Even for some of the modern liberals, however, it is apparent that they
have great difficulties in freeing themselves entirely from the patronizing
attitude which is the main tradition of the Southern white upper class. “I
have frequently noted that with many white up-lifters the Negro is all
•See Chapter 2x, Section 5.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
