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Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1037
scientists in the field, perhaps the majority, have attached their research interests to
the Negro problem or to various aspects of it because of a primary reform interest.
In the national ethos there is traditionally, as we often have occasion to point
out, a strong demand for “fair play” and for consideration toward “the underdog.”
Since Negroes are severely suppressed, even today, and since by virtue of that fact
they often fall below the mark in conduct and accomplishments, and since public
opinion is still prejudiced against the Negroes, even a friendliness which stands out
as exceptional may allow views which are rather on the unfriendly side of true
objectivity. The range of scientific opinions, therefore, does not even today necessarily
include the unbiased opinion.
Negro social scientists can be assumed, naturally, to have been biased in the
friendly direction. Generally speaking, they have most of the time reached results
more favorable to their group. Public and academic opinion in the dominant majority
group, the Negro scientists’ desire to lean backwards and be strictly scientific, and
other reasons, may often cause even the Negro scientist to interpret the facts in a
way which is actually biased against his own people.
(b) The Scale of Friendliness^^ to the South. Most Negroes still live in the
South, and, what is more important, all economic, social, and political problems of
this region are connected with the Negro problem to a degree without comparison in
other regions. The historical tradition through slavery. Civil War, Reconstruction, and
Restoration also ties together the judgments on the South and on the Negro.
The same is true of the caste restrictions to which the Negro in the South is
subjected. In general, a friendly attitude toward the South carries with it unfavorable
views toward Negroes or at least a tendency to minimize the fact that they are a
substantial proportion of the South’s people. Conversely, a sympathetic attitude toward
Negroes, their shortcomings, their grievances, and their problems, and especially the
attempt to explain them on any basis other than racial inferiority, will be taken as a
criticism of the social and moral order of the South.
The first tendency is conspicuous in practically ’all writings on the Negro problem by
Southern writers—^at least until recently. The natural interest to defend the white
South will be reflected in adverse biases in the discussion about the Negro. Because
of the present trend in social sciences toward fewer adverse biases against the
Negro, Southern social scientists have increasingly taken a critical attitude toward
Southern institutions and morals. This second tendency runs parallel to, and supports.
Southern liberalism.^
A pro-Southern bias, is, however, not restricted to Southern writers. Ever since the
great national compromise of the 1870’s, when Reconstruction was liquidated, the
need for rationalization of the anomalous position and treatment of the Negro has
been national in scope. Contrary to the belief commonly held in the South, the
present writer has reached the conviction that not only the general public in the
North but also Northern social scientists are rather pro-Southern in their biases.’’
* Southern liberalism is discussed in Chapter 21, Section 5.
**
This impression is based upon the writer’s comparative studies of the literature on the
Negro problem. The more precise significance of the statement is the belief that if a statis-
tically reliable sample from Northern scientific literature were made of statements which
twisted truth somewhat in one direction or the other, there would be a considerable pre-
ponderance of twists in favor of the South. Usually those twists are in the nature of avoid-
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