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An American Dilemma
1384
Johnson, Growing Uf in the Black Belty p. 267. Compare Allison Davis and John
Dollard, Children of Bondage [1940], p. 254 fassim.)
For a discussion of how the color problem enters in the school see, Davis and Dollard,
of. cit.y p. 253; E. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crossways (1940), pp. 96 ff.j
and Anonymous, “The Revolt of the Evil Fairies,” The New Republic (April 6, 1942),
pp. 458-459-
The few attempts made to tabulate and correlate color of Negro husbands and
wives confirm this observation. See: M. J. Herskovits, The American Negro (1928),
p. 64; E. B. Reuter, Race Mixture (1931), pp. 158-159; E. Franklin Frazier, The
Negro Family in the United States (1939), pp. 572 ff.
Wirth and Goldhamer have surveyed the various studies bearing on the problem
;
Of. cit.y pp. 142-147.
2^“. . . dark color is widely looked down upon in the Chicago Negro community.
Instead of being regarded as a proud racial distinction, it is taken as a reminder of tradi-
tional servitude and as a badge of lowly status. The distribution of our cases in each
social class according to color also suggests . . . that dark-skin persons in the higher ranks
of Negro society find themselves a minority in competition with individuals of lighter
color. These higher positions call for personalities strong enough to cope with potential
conflicts over appearance in rela«^ion to social acceptability.” (Warner, Junker, and
Adams, of. cit.y p. 31.)
“Our results indicate that there is little correlation between class and color in the
southern rural area. Differences in complexion and hair create problems of adjustment,
‘
but do not mark class lines within the rural Negro group.” (Charles S. Johnson, Grow-
ing Uf in the Black Belty p. 272.)
Before Emancipation and, in the mulatto societies, for a considerable time after-
ward, it was a point of pride to have a white (illegitimate) father, particularly if he
belonged to the aristocratic classes. This is not true any more. The studies of Dollard,
Powdermaker, and others show that even in the South it is rather a disgrace. Davis,
Gardner, and Gardner, for example, say: “Whereas in Old County of a generation
ago an individual’s status was increased by his kinship to white persons of the middle
or upper classes, today both miscegenation and illegitimacy are rather heavily tabooed in
the colored upper and upper-middle classes.” (Of. cit.y p. 247.)
“Although mulattoes on the whole appear to be proud of their lighter complexions,,
they are at a disadvantage when the question of paternity is raised by their darker
associates. Such derisive terms as ‘Yellow Pumpkin,’ ‘Yellow Bastard,’ are used in this
connection. The youth commenting on this shade of complexion made such statements
as these: ‘Yellow people are not honest’ (meaning that they are probably illegitimate),
‘Yellow is the worst color because it shows mixture with whites,’ ‘Yellow is too con-
spicuous’ (like black), ‘Yellow people don’t look right,’ ‘Real yellow people ain’t got
no father,’ ‘Yellow don’t have no race, they can’t be white and they ain’t black either,’
‘Anything that is too light looks dirty,’ ‘Yellow is mixed bad blood,’ ‘Light people get
old too quickly,’ ‘Yellow don’t hold looks so long,’ ‘White colored people is all bastards.’
”
(Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in the Black Belty pp. 262-263.)
See E. B. Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States (1918), especially pp. 19,
102-104, and Everett V. Stonequist, The Marginal Man (1937), especially Chapter 6.
Robert E. Park in the “Introduction” to Stonequist, of. cit.y p. xv.
Stonequist writes about the mulatto that he is “. . . not the dejected, spiritless
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