MEANING OF RACE AND RACE SUPERIORITY
Hankins, Frank H.
Second Of A Series On Racialism In A Democracy Meaning Of Race And Race Superiority By FRANK H. HANKINS IN the previous article we showed that race sentiments are not only as natural as the sense...
...The stereotype is a simplified mental picture of a class of persons...
...they are in part contrary to the general perception of racial differences...
...From all this it follows that there is not in the logic of either race or democracy any ground for discrimination against the Negro as a race, unless it can be shown that all Negroes are inferior to all whites and thus wholly incapable of profiting by opportunity for self-development...
...Racial comparisons are based on average differences with much overlapping of the distributions...
...What a revolution in the whole social picture would result from a simple common sense practice of treating all persons as individuals and on their merits...
...It is a complex of inherited traits distinguishing one group of human beings from another...
...They lead at once to a sense of genetic similarity among those who are obviously different and to a sense of confident innate superiority...
...This is a simple but clear illustration of the logic of racial comparisons...
...As former Rep...
...but this does not prove genetic sameness, as some would have us believe...
...As a scientist more devoted to the facts than to worthy propaganda, I do not find either of these statements tenable...
...Take, for example, the moot question of White-Negro intelligence...
...No one can calculate the billions of dollars this country has wasted by not giving larger opportunity to Negro ability, even the capacity to do skillful manual labor...
...A highly publicized, propagan-distic pamphlet by Benedict and W'eltfish makes much of this point...
...A good many writers rest their case on the doubtful evidence that there is no difference in the averages of the two groups...
...Here is a list of such traits: stature, physical strength, freedom from inherited defect, resistance to disease, beauty of features or bodily form, grace of movement, good will, courage, loyalty, sense of duty, intelligence, capacity for the enjoyment of life, artistic, literary, and scientific ability...
...Among civilized peoples there are no.pure races...
...Now it is amaving to discover as set forth by Guy B. Johnston in Characteristics of the American Negro that many Negro?s have accepted the white-man's description of their trails...
...Germans are industrious, obedient, stolid, brutal...
...To the Southern white the Negro is lazy, smelly, dirty, gullible, improvident, sexy, fond of flashy clothes, childish, happy-go-lucky, and superstitious...
...If we were to set the average Swedish stature as the standard of worth or merit in this trait, we should have to exclude many Swedes and include many Japanese as worthy of esteem...
...Race pride is a form of self-esteem...
...Some assert that there is no such thing as race...
...28 states prohibit the marriage of white and black regardless of genetic constitution or personality development, thus checking that amalgamation which is the only final solution of any race problem...
...The Japanese average in stature about 63 inches...
...On the contrary it emphasizes the dignity and worth of the common man...
...Anthropologists find differences between the inhabitants of neighboring valleys in Wales or in the Alps, though they originally came from the same stock...
...Moreover, they do this in spite of meager opportunities...
...The Question Of Superiority Let us inquire next in what sense one race may be said to be superior to another...
...Thus the South controls the Negro mainly through the Negro's conception of himself...
...Hence the race stereotype...
...and such control, so long as the stereotype holds, is more effective than law for it has back of it not only the force of the mores, but the individual will as well...
...Weighted heavily with derogatory implications, among which is an implied hereditary deficiency, they both help to define the social structure and to maintain it...
...race prejudice a form of self-protection and self-assertion...
...Some assert that all races are equal in cultural potentialities, though some qualify so bald a statement with weasel words...
...No one denies that many Negroes excel even the average white in any trait deemed important for either racial soundness or cultural achievement...
...Changes are constantly occurring in the genetic constitution of any group due to mutations and the differential fertility of different strains...
...Moreover, it violates the logic both of race comparisons and of democratic institutions...
...Racism, nationalism, and belief in a natio-racial mission all have common roots in group rivalries and the will to live...
...His conception of himself and of his role in turn tend to standardize his behavior...
...If a Negro gets fair wages, he will spend, pay taxes, hire a doctor, send his kids to school, be a better citizen, and contribute his part rather than being a burden...
...It may well play into the hands of the race bigots...
...These distinguishing traits are derived from inherited genes, so that any group possessing a certain number of genes in common and exhibiting the resulting traits more frequently than their neighbors is in practical human affairs as well as theoretically a "race...
...Racialism And Social Myths A recent research, for example, showed that among college students themselves Dartmouth men were thought of as "out-door, athletic," Harvard men as "blase, snobbish, conceited, intellectual," and Princeton men as "smooth, socialites," though all types are found in each...
...One forms his conception of himself in terms of the cultural medium in which he grows up...
...they would substitute some such term as "ethnic group" and banish the term "race," as though either they or the man in the street could find an essential difference between the terms...
...Maury Maverick of Texas once said on the floor of the House: "If the Negro makes good pay he spends it just like the white man...
...Besides, why should one be ambitious when, regardless of effort, one will remain in poverty and near serfdom...
...For any given trait the members of a race are distributed more or less symmetrically about an average...
...It holds that all men are entitled to the fullest opportunity to develop their potentialities as individuals so that they may make the greatest possible contribution to the common welfare...
...It is a species of mental shorthand which neglects the infinite variability of human beings...
...One usual result is that we think in derogatory terms of those we consider racially different from ourselves...
...When it comes to questions of social policy involving human rights we shall do well to stick to Jefferson, meanwhile hoping that the anthropologists and sociologists will stick to their scientific knitting and not besmirch themselves with specious special pleading...
...while race prejudice is repugnant to all such students, a certain number of them, led by a rather vociferous school of writers, have allowed their zeal to carry them into the field of counter-propaganda...
...If, however, we plot the two distributions on the same chart we find that many Japanese are taller than theaverage Swede and many Swedes shorter than the average Japanese...
...Even the anti-bias, fair-practices, and anti-discrimination acts and regulations perpetuate this uncritical tendency to lump highly different persons into the same category, whether of race, color, or creed...
...They do not reach the common man...
...While no such scientist accepts the ancient Aryan myth, least of all its Nazified version, or anti-Semitism, or the belief in the general inferiority of the Negro, or the innate depravity of the Germans or Japanese...
...Nor, in last analysis, do I believe that the propagation of such new myths will have much permanent effect on racial relations...
...The superiority attaches to the statistical average, not to the racial groups as groups...
...We may thus say that Swedes excel Japanese in stature...
...The conclusion from such a view as above presented is that the avalanche of disputation over the question whether the Negro is the equal of the white man in intelligence has logically nothing to do with the democratic determination of Negro status and treatment...
...he is what his social status and social role compel him to think himself to be...
...For this reason most of the recent propaganda using stray bits of doubtful evidence to prove that the Negro I. Q. or brain size is just the same as the white on the average is extremely dangerous stuff...
...Now since the lower level of whites are idiots, imbeciles, and morons, this amounts to a reductio ad abaur-dum...
...Purchasing power builds business, prosperity, and the nation...
...blond Swedes about 68 inches...
...The man on the street expresses his views of certain groups by such terms as nigger, kike, wop, mick, and the li-ke...
...This is nevertheless understandable...
...For a like reason the contention that the Jews are not a race will continue to fall on deaf ears, so far as the mass man is concerned, so long as many of them are racially visible, that is, carry the marks of their genetic descent in their faces, Let us ask first, then, what is a race...
...The stereotype is thus a caricature rather than a true characterization and its ingredients are likely to be more cultural than hereditary...
...We form similar pictures of races and nations...
...Here one must keep firmly in mind that all races are human and hence have all human attributes...
...The meager use of its manpower is one of the main causes of the widespread poverty of the Southern states...
...However, increasing numbers of Negroes have found new outlooks and hence new personalities in many respects...
...They manifest the opposites of their traditional stereotype...
...One does not dislodge race prejudices by sophistical arguments to the effect that there is no such thing as a race, that all such notions are illusions of popular ignorance, when even an ignorant man can tell the difference between a white man and a black one at a glance...
...Thus the accepted stereotypes, like other social myths, are hard-working elements in popular thought and social life...
...Democracy does not require that a man be equal to the average...
...Even a dictator seeking to maximize the wealth and power of his people would treat Negroes as individuals in order to utilize all the talent available...
...A View For The Common Man This list includes both hereditary and culturally induced traits, and for both the answer is the same: a large number of Negroes are worth more as citizens of this great republic than large numbers of whites...
...it neglects individuality: in popular usage it does not distinguish what is innate and what is due to cultural environment and experience...
...In other words, all racial comparisons must be made in terms of the quantitative expression of traits...
...it means only that you cannot prove one race superior to another by showing that one is human and the other non-human...
...If now we take up the question of how races differ and how such differences should be conceived, we do not, in fact, find that universal agreement among anthropologists and sociologists that much recent propaganda has tried to make the public believe...
...We cannot, therefore, say that all Swedes excel Japanese in this trait...
...The logic of our view is that the innate capacities of all citizens should be developed and that each should be rewarded on his merits as an individual, not as a member of a race...
...It does not at all prove the races equal...
...Virginia classes all persons with one drop of Negro blood as Negro...
...Japanese are cruel, treacherous, fanatical...
...Second Of A Series On Racialism In A Democracy Meaning Of Race And Race Superiority By FRANK H. HANKINS IN the previous article we showed that race sentiments are not only as natural as the sense of self, hut that they accomplish miracles of psychological illusion...
...It would seem, moreover, that this is a view the man on the street can be made to understand...
...Nor is this fact disproved by remarking that one's glance may often deceive him...
...it is one toward which he is kindly disposed by his allegiance to democratic principles...
...Thus a group that mates largely within itself, even though derived from the same stock as its neighbors, will become in time more or less differentiated from them, while becoming more homogeneous within itself...
...an undetermined percentage of them excel the average white man in the traits that make for good citizenship...
...The implicit assumption back of this view is that, if perchance the scientific conclusion should be that the Negro average is lower than the white, then race discrimination is justified by the facts...
...What Is A Race...
...It seizes upon certain traits displayed by some members of the class and applies them as descriptive of the entire class...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 16
