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Footnotes ms
scientists to many important facts about the relations between Negroes and whites and
has sometimes been used as an excuse for conditions which are undesirable from fhe
Negroes’ point of view. Charles S. Johnson, for example, ably presents the case against
the concept of “caste” (Growing Uf in the Black Belt [1941], pp. 325-327). He
points out that there is much tension and friction between Negroes and whites, and
some social scientists seem to presume that a caste system is so “accommodated” that
there is little or no tension or friction. The Negro in the South occupies a subordinate
position, but “he is struggling against this status rather than accepting it.” There is
constant change, contrary to the beliefs of many who use the term “caste”: “. . . the
attitudes of the white group are constantly changing, and at many points In the rela-
tionship between the two races there is a blurring of caste distinctions.” Thus, he says,
the term “caste” is inapplicable since: “A caste system is not only a separated system,
it is a stable system in which changes are socially Impossible; the fact that change cannot
occur is accepted by all, or practically all, participants.”
We are in agreement with Charles Johnson’s description of the facts, and we respect
his right to choose any definition of caste he desires, but we do not agree with his
definition; we do not believe that such a caste system as he has defined ever existed, and
we point out that he is forced to use some other word to mean what we mean by caste.
Johnson uses the older terms “race” and “race system” in exactly the same way as we
use “caste” and “caste system.” While the former terms now enjoy a peculiar popu-
larity in Negro circles (for example, certain militant Negroes use the term “race man”
to refer to any Negro), partly in reaction to white prejudice, we believe the term
“caste”—^with its socially static connotation—is less dangerous and inaccurate than the
term “race”—with its biologically static connotation.
® To this censoring attitude corresponds, as a reaction, an exaggerated interest in
European nobility. A Scandinavian, conditioned for a long time to look upon nobility
with complete unconcernedness—sensing only a slight, pleasant and favorable associa-
tion to the old history—will invariably be much astonished the first time he sees his
democratic American friend make so much fuss over a prince or a count who happens
to be around. The author has observed that European governments, public agencies,
and business concerns have not been slow to adapt themselves to this American peculiar-
ity by attempting, whenever practical, to include nobility as political or business repre-
sentatives to this country. All wavering from the principle of merit and efficiency must,
however, in the long run, be expensive to those countries, particularly as it tends to
preserve the American misconception of the role played by nobility in Europe.
The point has, however, a much closer bearing to the problem under study in this
book. To the author it has become apparent that the Northern romanticism for the
“Old South” has the same basic psychology. It is, likewise, only the other side of
Yankee equali tar ian ism. The North has so few vestiges of feudalism and aristocracy of
its own that, even though it dislikes them fundamentally and is happy not to have
them, Yankees are thrilled by them. Northerners apparently cherish the idea of having
had an aristocracy and of still having a real class society—in the South. So it manufac-
tures the myth of the “Old South” or has it manufactured by Southern writers working
for the Northern market. Henry W. Grady, Southern spokesman to the North, describes
the ante-bellum South in dithyrambs:
“That was a peculiar society. Almost feudal in its splendor, it was almost patriarchal
in its simplicity. Leisure and wealth gave it exquisite culture. Its wives and mothers,
exempt from drudgery, and almost from care, gave to their sons, through patient and
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