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1192 An American Dilemma
intentions) ;
hona -fide is even today only the trained lawyer’s way of thinking and has,
as yet, never and nowhere really been understood by the mass of laymen whose thinking
on legal matters always seems formalistic to the lawyer. Similarly the simple ‘‘economic
laws” are thought-forms adhered to by business people when they speculate in this
strange field, while the economic theorists, instead, devote their labor to criticising,
demolishing, and complicating economic theory. It is the common man, and not tha
statistician who “thinks in averages,” or, rather, in pairs of contrasting tyfes: good-bad,
healthy-sick, man-woman, white-black. And the common man is likely to handle aver-
ages and types as if they applied to the individuals. He will confidently tell you some-
thing about “all Negroes,” in the same breath as he observes an exception.
He is, further, likely to construct his types without a thought as to sampling difficul-
ties. He has a tendency to forget about range and spread. He has, of course, a prag-
matic understanding that things and happenings have their causes. Otherwise he would
not be able to get on with his several pursuits in a rational way. But particularly when
it comes to social questions, causation becomes to the untrained mind divested of compli-
cations. Social causation is to him mostly monistic, direct, apparent and simple. The
very idea of causal interrelations within a mutually dependent system of a great many
factors is usually entirely absent. In his thoughts on social causation he mingles his ideas
about what is right and wrong. The unsophisticated mind is not questioning; it answers
questions before they are stated.
Generally speaking, it is a fact that “to think in concrete terms” when reaching for
generalizations is the endeavor of theoretical training and a mark of the highest intelli-
gence, while “theoretical,” abstract and formalistic thinking is the common man’s
philosophy.
Stoddard, of. cit.y pp. 91-92.
Ihid.y pp. 100-102.
Lewis C. Copeland, “The Negro as a Contrast Conception” in Edgar T. Thomp-
son (editor). Race Relations and the Race Problem (1939), pp, i 52-1 79.
Like other beliefs of the white man, this one, too, is to some extent taken over by
the Negro group, particularly by the mulattoes. (See Chapter 32, Section 6.)
“All the stigmas of the Negro group, as previously mentioned, are associated with
physical appearance; and it is the black Negro who is regarded as mean, ignorant,
primitive, and animal-like. The light-colored Negro, however, is conceived of as
‘smarter,’ more intelligent, more ‘civilized’ (more ‘like the whites’ in behavior and
ability). These beliefs are not restricted to either group but are frequently expressed
by both Negroes and whites. Sometimes the comment of Negroes is very extreme, as in
the case of two Negroes overheard discussing ‘blackness.’ One of them said; ‘A black
nigguh is the meanes’ rascal God evah made! I mean it. A black nigguh is jes’ natchally
mean. He always suspects you of trying to beat him out of something or take something
from him.’ His companion corroborated his opinion; ‘. . . My grandmother wuz uh
little black woman, an’ she wuz one of the evilest black women God evah made! Dat’s
de truth. He’s right about dat. Dey really evil!’ Cases were known where light-skinned
grandparents trained their children to condemn a black parent, the child saying of her
mother; ‘Oh, she’s black!’” (Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R.
Gardner, Deep South [1941], pp. 40-41.)
The following brief autobiography, describing the growth of racial beliefs and
their relation to segregation, is taken, in full, from the Preface to a master’s thesis by
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