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1 1 84 An American Dilemma
^ Possible exceptions are a few natural scientists, such as Ernest E. Just, and a few
celebrities, such as Joe Louis. But even they, when they reach national top standards, and
probably before that, are forced to become representatives of their “race.”
George S. Schuyler, a prominent columnist gives the Negro point of view in his
recent criticism of the white press for its “sinister policy of identifying Negro indi-
viduals as such”:
“This is a subtle form of discrimination designed to segregate these individuals in
the mind of the public and thus bolster the national polity of bi-racialism. Thus,
Paul Robeson is not a great baritone, he is a great ‘Negro’ baritone. Dr. Carver is not
just a great scientist, he is a great ‘Negro’ scientist. Anne Brown is not merely a great
soprano, she is a great ‘Negro’ soprano. Langston Hughes is not a poet merely, he is a
‘Negro’ poet. Augusta Savage is a ‘Negro’ sculptor, C. C. Spaulding is a ‘Negro’ insurance
executive, R. R. Wright, Sr., is a ‘Negro’ banker, J. A. Rogers is a ‘Negro’ historian,
Willard Townsend is a ‘Negro’ labor leader, etc»^ etc,^ ad infinitum, . . . No other group
in this country is so singled out for racial identification, and no one can tell me that there
is not a very definite reason for it. No daily newspaper refers to Mr. Morgenthau as
‘Jewish’ Secretary of the Treasury, or New York’s Herbert H. Lehman as the ‘Jewish’
governor, or Isador Lubin as a ‘Jewish’ New Dealer. Mayor Rossi is never identified as
the ‘Italian-American’ executive of San Francisco, nor is the millionaire Giannini
called an ‘Italian’ banker. There would be considerable uproar if Senator Robert F.
Wagner were termed ‘New York’s able German-American solon,’ or Representative
Tenerowicz dubbed ‘Detroit’s prominent Pole.’ When has a Utah legislator in Washing-
ton been labeled ‘Mormon’?
“One could go on and on, but the point is that ‘our’ daily newspapers carefully avoid
such designations except in the case of so-called Negroes. 1 cannot recall when 1 have
seen a criminal referred to as a Jew, an Italian, a German or a Catholic, but it is com-
monplace for colored lawbreakers or suspects to be labeled ‘Negro.’
“Personally, I shall not be convinced of the sincerity of these white editors and
columnists who shape America’s thinking unless and until they begin treating the Negro
in the news as they do other Americans. Those who continue this type of journalism are
the worst sort of hypocrites when they write about democracy and national unity.”
(Pittsburgh Courier^ June 13, 1942.)
Schuyler’s point is perfectly clear and his description of the situation correct—except
that he does not care to mention that Negro newspapers are, if possible, more unfailing
in giving prominent Negroes their “race label.”
® E. R. Embree, Brown America (1931), p. 205.
^ James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiografh’^ of an Ex-Coloured Man (1927; first
edition, 1912), p. 21.
® Sec Edgar G. Murphy, Problems of the Present South (1909; first edition, 1904),
especially pp. 188 ff. and Chapter 8; also Jonathan Daniels, A Southerner Discovers
the South (1938), Chapter 35; and Thomas P. Bailey, Race Orthodox’^ in the South
(1914), especially pp. 341 if., pp. 368 ff. and p. 380, also William Jenkins, ?ro-
Slavery Thought in the Old South (i935)» pp. vii-viii.
^Darker Phases of the South (1924), pp. 157 ff.
What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 55.
^Following the Color Line (1908), p. 26.
® The important problem of opportune distortion of knowledge has been dealt with
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