Color Prejudice Research Articles

Colour Prejudice: With Particular Reference to the Relationship Between Whites and Negroes

Journal Article Colour Prejudice: With Particular Reference to the Relationship Between Whites and Negroes Get access Colour Prejudice: with Particular Reference to the Relationship between Whites and Negroes. By Alan Burns. London, Allen & Unwin, 1948. 164 pp. Index. 814′​′×512′​′ 12s. 6d. Audrey I. Richards Audrey I. Richards Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 25, Issue 4, October 1949, Page 555, https://doi.org/10.2307/3018551 Published: 01 October 1949

Colour Prejudice: with Particular Reference to the Relationship between Whites and Negroes

Colour Prejudice: with Particular Reference to the Relationship between Whites and Negroes

Racial Pride and Prejudice

THIS book deals with an important world problem from the point of view of the anthropologist and the psychologist. It. is intended for the general reader rather than the student of either of these sciences, and Dr. Dingwall is to be congratulated on the way he has managed to avoid technical language except where it is absolutely necessary. The book has another great advantage in that the author is not only content to present the facts as he sees them, but also does not hesitate to insert short discussions of the possible reasons that lie behind customs and legislation associated with the colour bar. The combined presentation makes admirable reading. It is unnecessary in a notice of this character to stress the sane, but nevertheless realistic, point of view of the author ; it would be more appropriate to direct attention to other special merits that the book possesses. One of these is the admirable psychological approach to the problem of prejudices in general and colour prejudice in particular, and Chapter 14 on the psychology of racial and colour prejudice is a masterful essay in itself. The reader is impressed particularly by the part that jealousy plays in this respect.

The Role of Psychology in Race Survival

Two paths for future progress seem possible for the Negro in America: development of the separate culture forced on us by historic events, or absorption into the total flow of American life. Our racial history to date shows that we have made notable but insufficient advances in both directions. We could debate interminably on which direction would be the better were a specific decision necessary. But we can agree on the important point that our success in any direction lies in our ability to make the most of whatever advantages and opportunities happen to be open to us. If we are to develop within a separate culture-a culture parallel and equal to white culture-we must have men of vision to forge ahead in commerce, industry, education, and government to provide the economic and political leverage which makes jobs for our children and guarantees their right to enjoy life and liberty. We will need many leaders of the kind who made Tuskegee Institute, BethuneCookman College, Wilberforce University, the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Pittsburg Courier and the African Methodist Episcopal Church realities. If, on the other hand, we choose to seek unity in the melting pot of American homogeneity, we must have men, and more men, like the architect in California, the chemist at Tuskegee, the musical director of a West Coast radio network, the industrial chemist of a Chicago firm, the chief cartoonist of Esquire magazine, the radio technician of the Canadian Navigation Company, the chief engineer of an Erie Pennsylvania, radio station, the civil engineer in Des Moines, and so on down the list of men who are working quietly and efficiently at jobs usually reserved for white men. We must produce men who can compete on an independent basis in an indifferent world. Our future may be expected to involve progress on both cultural and individual levels of achievement. Implications of color and consequent prejudice suggest that the separate culture may be a permanent feature of the life of the Negro in America. But the successes of numerous individuals encourage our faith that whenever there is a Negro who can do a job better than the competing white man can do it, he will have a chance, however slight, of getting the job. The important fact for consideration here is that our salvation as a race may lie in the conscious selection of our best individuals for training for leadership. Modern techniques of education, developed by psychologists, enable estimation (with remarkable accuracy) of the potentialities for leadership possessed by the child of seven years; we even can get a fair notion of the pre-school child's abilities and prognose his developmental limitations. The means are now available for the early selection of those children who have the ability to pioneer fields virgin to Negro exploitation and to cultivate areas of production which will fructify in economic security. Until now we have failed, however,