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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VII. Social Inequality - 30. Effects of Social Inequality - 1. The Incidence of Social Inequality - 2. Increasing Isolation
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644 An American Dilemma
whites, too. Booker T. Washington’s famous remark, that the white man
could not hold the Negro in the gutter without getting in there himself,
has been corroborated by many white Southern and Northern observers.®
Throughout this book we have been forced to notice the low economic,
political, legal, and moral standards of Southern whites—^kept low because
of discrimination against Negroes and because of obsession with the Negro
problem. Even the ambition of Southern whites is stifled partly because,
without rising far, it is so easy to remain “superior” to the held-down
Negroes. The Southern whites are tempted to remain on low levels of
sexual morals, thrift, industriousness, reliability, punctuality, law obser-
vance and everything else. This mechanism of descending self-adjustment
in a system of moral double-dealing works also in the field of public affairs.
There are few popular movements in the South to improve social conditions
and standards of efficiency and morality partly because of the feeling that
“we” are so much better than “they” and partly because any attempt at
improvement is bound to help the Negroes as well as the whites.^ Most of
these things are true of the North as well as of the South, though to a
much smaller extent and for reasons connected with other minority groups
as well as the Negro.
One of the effects of social segregation is isolation of Negroes and whites.
The major effects of isolation are, of course, on Negroes. Contrary to pop-
ular opinion, however, there are bad effects on whites also, and these are
increasing as the level of Negro cultural attainment is rising. It is as much
a misfortune for whites not to have contacts with Negroes of high educa-
tion and achievement as not to have contacts with other whites of com-
parable attainment—perhaps more, since such Negroes have a unique range
of experience. Whether they know it or not, white people are dwarfing
their minds to a certain extent by avoiding contacts with colored people.
2, Increasing Isolation
Against the obstacles of the powerful interlocking system of social,
judicial, political, and economic inequalities and disabilities, and in spite
of the desire on the part of the majority of Southern whites that the
Negroes remain in an inferior social status, and the great indifference and
ignorance about it all on the part of most Northern whites, the Negroes
* Next to Washington^ probably the most frequently quoted remark on this matter is that
of Chancellor Kirkland of Vanderbilt University:
“In whatever form slavery may be perpetuated, just so far will it put shackles on the
minds of Southern whites. If we treat the Negro unjustly, we shall practice fraud and
injustice to each other. We shall necessarily live by the standards of conduct we apply to
him. This is the eternal curse of w rong and injustice, a curse that abides on the ruler as well
as the slaves. The 5>outh w’ill be free only as it grants freedom.” (Quoted from Mark
Ethridge, “About Will Alexander,” Th^ New RefubVtc [September 22, 1941], p. 366.)
® Sec Chapter 10, Section 2.
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