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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VIII. Social Stratification - 32. The Negro Class Structure - 1. The Negro Class Order in the American Caste System
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692 An American Dilemma
We can diagram the caste-class situation in two ways: one, in terms of
absolute numbers after the manner of the ordinary population pyramid
—
as in Du Bois’ description ;
two, in terms of percentages at each social level
—after the pattern of a W diagram. The latter diagram brings out the
line, in temporal changes in which Warner and others have been interested.
The pyramid and the line are drawn hypothetically—it would take an
enormous amount of work to draw them with an approximation of em-
pirical quantitative accuracy. But as to their general shape there can be
Absolute Numbers of
Whites and Negroes
AT Each Level of
Social Status
Percentage of Whites and Negroes
AT Each Level of Social Status
Legend: W—White. N
—
Negro, U—Upper Class. M—Middle Class. L—Lower Class.
little doubt; the pyramid is heavier at the bottom on the Negro side than
on the white side, and the line is a diagonal curvey not a straight line
diagonal.®
There is at least one weakness of all diagrams of this sort: they assume
that the class structures of the two castes are exactly comparable, which
they are not. On the same class level—^that is, assuming white and Negro
individuals with the same education, occupation, income, and so on—the
white does not ^‘look across” the caste line upon the Negro, but he
definitely looks down upon him.® And this fundamental fact of caste is
* On the other hand, witMn the Negro commurnty^ the upper class Negro is placed higher
than is the white man of comparable income, education, and so on, in the white eommynity
Du Bois observed this;
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