Race: an absurd classification; The Negro in America

Speaker is the author of many books and articles he's written with his wife psychopathy in the Lincoln City in 1956. The origins of crime in 99 and the origins of alcoholism in 1960. He has taught at Harvard University and is presently a professor in the department sociology at Stanford University and replaced by the present Professor William McCord about a week ago my little boy and I who was 5 years old were looking at a TV show one of our perennial pastimes together and it was a show that some of you may have seen about immigration quotas in America and in the tally an immigrant who was trying to enter the United States but eventually because of particularly because of the quotas imposed by the 924 laws had to leave the country. I tried to explain to my boy the nature of these immigration laws the fact that among other things they put quotas on Southern Italians they put quotas on any Southern

European group presumably upon the assumption that having a dark skin slightly dark skin is an indication of an inferior race. When I tried to explain as to my boy he just simply could not grasp the concept he couldn't understand why America would pass such a law. He doesn't understand of course the physical the obvious physical differences upon which the concept of race is based in those differences in skin color. But he could not understand why this should be used as a basis for discrimination or oppression. In other words the point that I learned with my little boy was that he can see these physical differences but that he has to be taught in the Rodgers and Hammerstein phrase it has to be very carefully taught to hate to use race as a basis for treating a man in a degrading and undignified fashion. Now while children I think know this very simple lesson that is that race cannot be used as

a crutch for oppression. Many of their parents many of us have incredibly failed to learn and after World War 2 when Americans fought a great battle to free the world of a racist mentality which led to the death of 6 million Jews one would think that all Americans by this point would have grasped the fact that racism is perhaps the most dangerous of isms which are alive in the world today but somehow as the vote for Governor Wallace for example has demonstrated somehow throughout America a very strong segment of our population and perhaps even the majority it's difficult to say. Playings rather tenaciously to racist beliefs which the great majority of social scientists and biologists and medical scientists would reject to take just a few examples which I'm imagine are familiar to you.

Various southern legislatures have voted in recent years to label the blood which is given in blood transfusions as to whether or not it is negro blood that is came from a negro or with white blood. This is presumably based on the assumption that if a Negro blood got into the veins of a white man this would result in some sort of racial taint or in Mississippi where I'm going next week on this civil rights battle in Mississippi as you undoubtedly know about 50 percent of the population are considered to be negro. Only seven percent are allowed to vote. Now this restriction of the ballot is presumably based on the belief that only that very great specimen of humanity the Mississippi white is capable of self-government a premise which I. I doubt very much in California. I know I would imagine that many of you are involved in this battle over the

Rumford act and I would assume that those who are supporting the initiative are doing so. Presumably on the basis that a Negro entering into a particular neighborhood will bring with it and bring with him some sort of racial taint bring with him a native viciousness or a high crime rate whatever it might be which will ruin the neighborhood. Now my purpose today is simply to reaffirm once again and this has been done so many times in history that it seems almost ridiculous to have to do it again at this point in our development of development or civilization. But what I would like to do today is to affirm that while the concept of race can be invested with some meaning that is there really is such a thing as race it cannot be used or it should not because let us say as a weapon for oppression and degradation. I wish simply to underline a point which has been made very simply by Bertrand Russell who

commented that racism is a method of bolstering up self-esteem and lust for power by means of police which have nothing in their favor except that they are flattered. Now this task is a rather difficult one since racism is one of the most hardened beliefs of mankind throughout all of the ages. It has always been very easy to have and it's easy for any of us of course to attribute to ourselves some sort of innate superiority at the expense of some other group from the Greeks on words and beliefs about race have played a prominent part in intellectual and political life and they have as you know bolstered and defended slavery and oppression just as in the south today. Beliefs about the negroes serve to bolster the meager self-esteem of the poor white farm. This is no in other words I want to emphasize is that belief in race and attributing certain psychological traits to different racial groups

is no new phenomenon in history. But many of the whites who are around today in America who so easily Praful a lot of rubbish about the so-called Negro race would do well to remember some of the judgments which have been passed upon the whites by their predecessors. For example just to give you a few quotes in the first century BCE Cicero wrote to Atticus do not obtain your slaves from Britain because they are so stupid and so utterly incapable of being taught that they are not fit to form a part of the household of Athens which. Has a somewhat familiar ring in terms of but whites are now saying about Negroes. And to give another illustration cite eed of Toledo who was more a show philosopher unleavened centric wrote races north of the pier and these are of cold temperament and never reach maturity they lack all sharpness of wit and penetration of intellect.

And to quote the classic philosopher Aristotle Aristotle's opinion of the Northern Europeans of his time was that the Full of spirit they were wanting in intelligence and skill. They keep their freedom but they have no political organization and are incapable of ruling others now this Mark few of the ancestors of the very people who organized the Dutch British and French colonial empires. Now obviously these beliefs are helped just in reverse form by many whites. As I say perhaps majority of whites in America about American Negroes. The question I'd like to pose today is what concept of what the liberty if any at all. Can one give to the concept of race is there any real content to the concept of rights. Well first let me approach this by saying what in my opinion race is or that is the legitimate way in which one

can use this often misused term and then point out some of the currently fashionable stereotypes about race particularly about the so-called Negro race which I think are quite demonstrably false. First of all what what is right is not only use this term but I would say in its current anthropological use or biological use race means some play a more or less arbitrary classification I emphasize arbitrary because and apologists don't agree as to the dividing points between different racial groups. A more or less arbitrary classification of mankind based on hereditary traits which presumably characterize all members of some particular group some define group. Now the important. Phrase here in the Stuff Nation is hereditary traits that is traits that are transmitted through human genes and very roughly by

this particular definition which is Ruth Benedict's definition. The peoples of the world can be grouped into three major categories the Caucasians Negroid and mongoloid group in their so-called purest biological form. The Caucasians of course are found mostly in Western Europe the negroid group in contemporary Nigeria Guinea and Ghana in the Mongoloid group. Perhaps in sections of China parts of Japan and in Tibet. Now these these are again let me emphasize arbitrary classifications there are many subgroups such as the Australian Aborigines that no one knows what to do with them or the Polynesians they are simply distinct little groups all of their own. Now using this definition of race these three groups the Caucasians the negroid and mongoloid groups differ in only three significant ways as

far as this can be measured at all. First of all most obviously in skin color skin color as you undoubtedly know is determined by two chemicals carotene which gives a yellowish tint to the skin and the melanin which gives a brownish hue to the skip. The three groups differ in the amount of carotene or melanin that happens to be in their skin. There is incidentally no pure white race or pure white man except for the albino who totally Vioxx both carotene and Melanie. Now proportionately obviously the negroes of West Africa of contemporary West Africa have more melanin in their skin than do say Scandinavia and the hereditary reason for this the Darwin Darwinian reason is obviously the darker skin in the tremendously hot climate of Nigeria which I suffered through last summer gives us

very good protection against the sun. The second way in which these groups differ. And again this is not an absolute distinction is in blood types and as each of the three groups differs in the particular amount of blood type A B A B and O which is distributed in the population. Blood Type A for example is mis characterised Christic of Western Europeans while blood type B is most characteristic of Indians there is. Again let me emphasize no absolute difference here. They all spread Aborigines much more closely resemble Western Europeans and blood types since they have a preponderance of blood type. Thirdly the three groups differ to some degree in certain anatomical features. The Caucasian is relatively hairy compared to the other groups. He has relatively smooth hair and relatively thin lips. They also differ

in terms of immunity to diseases that is certain hereditary communities have been passed on within the various racial groups. Now these are the only ways as far as I know the only ways in which the three races as I have defined them differ significantly. Well let me make several qualifications to the definition. First as I've emphasized there is no absolute difference between the three groups even in them in the most pure state using pure in the sense of skin color and anatomical features and so so I can lay most peoples of the world represent a combination of these three types that is the overwhelming majority I couldn't give an exact percentage but I'd say 80 percent of the world represents a combination of anatomical features and in the skin color of the three classic ethnic groups. And then thirdly and I don't know whether this really

requires much emphasis. The racial groups are not contiguous with or should not be identified with nationality culture customs or language there is no overlap whatsoever. Certain aboriginal tribes in Japan for example are Japanese in nationality Japanese in language Japanese in custom but biologically that is in terms of blood type and comical features. They are much closer to western Europeans than they are to the Mongoloid group which characterizes most of the Japanese. Now by this restricted and admittedly arbitrary definition but are American Negroes. Where would they fall in the spectrum of race or can they indeed can they be classified at all as a race or biologically. I would suggest we could hardly describe American Negroes as a race. The original

negroid the genes which came from primarily from Nigeria and from Ghana have become in an extinct a plague intermixed with those of a multitude of other groups of which exist in the American population. Melville Herskowitz a distinct late distinguished anthropologist estimated that there are all of those people who happen to be classified as Negro in America today only about 14 percent have bear the characteristics of the West African negroids group. Today in America because of the intermixture that has occurred in the melting pot of America today every negro child according to J C for an s every negro child has at least one Caucasian ancestor and skin color has become so intermixed that again according to the furnace there are at least 20 million people and that's a minimum estimates

probably closer to 40 million people but taking the minimum estimate there are at least 20 million people in America who are classified and who regard themselves as being white but whose ancestors one time were considered to be totally Negro of those Americans who are classed as Negro arbitrarily class that way because of their darker skin color in America. I think we would be wise not to use the word race at all simply because it's lost its biological meaning when applied to the American Negro or indeed applied to to the white man in America. There there just is no single race within America. I think in looking at the American Negro the better word to use would be to describe this group as a caste in American society a caste whose color and whose color alone has this barred them from full participation in American life.

This is how I would define race and where I would put the American Negro in a spectrum of race. Now let me say what race is not for. Unfortunately many misconceptions and many stereotypes have developed over the centuries in America in looking up the American Negro. Now first of all some valid generalizations as you all know some valid sociological generalizations can be made about the negro caste within America. That is as an entire group for taking an average of the group of American Negroes. For example do have a higher proportionally higher prime rate a lower per capita income a lower level of education and a higher rate of almost every disease. Now these attributes as I wish to emphasize have nothing whatsoever to do with race nothing whatsoever to do with biologically transmitted traits. As I will

attempt to show they are the result simply of the continuing discrimination of degradation and oppression which the American Negro house to house suffered at the hands of their fellow Americans. This morning Allah I would like to do is simply to point out five fallacies five misconceptions or five stereotypes if you wish to call them that which are held about the American Negro and are presumed to be a part of his biological ancestry. These five misconceptions are first that the negro the American negro here speaking of is an ately the intellectual inferior of the American who has a lighter colored skin. Secondly that Negroes and here including the West African negroes are incapable of developing a civilization of their own civilization. A high culture as we would know it. Thirdly that racial mixture. Mongrel

ization as the Southern white would say that racial mixture accounts for in some sense explains the rise and fall of civilizations. Fourth that the negro possesses a unique psychological character which is variously described at different points in American history but usually include such accusations as the American Negroes superstitious he's shiftless. Sometimes irresponsible vicious and prone to criminal tendencies and five the exact verse of this. A belief which rather strangely is held by white some white racists and is also held I would say by some of the current African nationalists. That is that Negroes possess certain psychological traits which make them superior to the white group in America. Such traits. I suppose the most commonly cited one is that Negroes

supposedly have greater musical ability in the musical talent than do whites. Now let me say a word to attempt to dispel each of lease lease. First and this is of course I think most important in the debate on the shore or de facto school segregation. First there is the one I would regard the pernicious conceit of some whites that they are innately the intellectual superiors of the American Negroes. Now this belief has gotten some support or some sustenance from two facts. First of all that the brain size and and also the weight of the brain of the American Negro is on the whole. For some reason slightly smaller and slightly lighter than that of the American white. Now from this fact. Which has been

quite well established from this fact races draw the conclusion that the bigger your brain is the heavier Your prison is the smarter you are. Which I think you can see just on the surface is untrue for all obviously the size of the brain has nothing to do with the functioning of the mind or its capacity for thought. Thus many geniuses have had unusually small brains Einstein had what would be regarded as a tiny little brain yet somehow out of it a rather major discoveries while the largest brain in the world was possessed by a white idiot. So I would suggest that from this particular fact segregationists can gain very little comfort for their position. A second fact which began to gain prominence around the First World War has been lent a lot of credence and most recently by a reputed psychologist named Frank McGurk who wrote

U.S. News and World Report on this subject. This is the evidence which stems from the results of the comparative studies of IQ tests which have been administered to Negro and white groups in a number of different areas over a long period of time. Now the majority of these comparative IQ studies that is if you just take a group of Negro American Negro men and women and compare them to American white men and women the majority of these studies indicate that the white exceeds the negro on these functioning on these tests by an average of about 10 points that is if you're using a scale of 100 the average IQ score now from this evidence some sober social scientists have drawn the conclusion that this indicates that the American Negro is innately intellectually inferior. Now the difficulty is that all not all but many of these

comparative studies overlooked all of the cultural and sociological factors which we know very well influence performance on IQ tests such factors as the motivation of the person to do well on the test. Such factors as his parents education his parents vocabulary the social class to which they belong. The child's expectation of doing well in school and so on. Now when these are taken into consideration when the social factors are taken into consideration I would I think I could say flatly that no evidence whatsoever emerges for the superiority of the Whites nor on the other hand does any evidence emerge from the superiority of the American Negro. Let me take just three examples three studies which have been. Conducted over the last well we go back to the First World War Three studies I think which illustrate this very nicely. First of all there was the classic study which what with which I think most of you are acquainted.

Done in World War One where millions of draftees going through the ranks were first given the Stanford Benet intelligence test. Now from these results just comparing all American white draftees to American Negro draftees just taking these results the American Negro group was quite significantly lower than the American white group in their performance on the Stanford Benet test and from this evidence of many races including Madison Grant. Use this as proof that the negro was inferior and indeed the results of this test form that much of the basis for the 1024 immigration laws I mean that he became part of the folklore of the nation and were enacted into discriminatory legislation. However when one looked at these tests with a little more care it became obvious that sociological factors and not biological factors

accounted for the difference between the American Negro and the American whites. For example if you broke down the results of the test porting to the geographical origin people vote by whites. Negroes and on the city whites the average score on this particular test the medicine the medicine score was 50 and the average IQ in the city whites scored forty one point twenty five if you took a move to New York to go grab these fairs for supporting my point. Mark saw the results for the whites were forty one point fifty five and then among Ohio negroes the results are forty nine point. Did you slay if you're north or negros to southern

whites. 1 pick now for the channelization that north or negros are in some sense a Perrier intellectually to the Southern but. But certainly these differences which were replicated in a number of different ways. These differences are obviously explainable not by any racial difference but simply because of the. Among other things the lack of educational facilities in the south for both the negro and the white but especially of course for the Negro. And because of the well I suppose the general climate of the South is one which does not encourage intellectual performance. A second piece of evidence is a study which I conducted to counteract this Frank McGirt. Because he has a particular article made me quite angry. We send several colleagues of mine I selected at random from the Boston school population a large group of Negro

children and a similar group of white children. Then these children were matched on a variety of factors social factors which we knew from previous evidence influence performance on IQ tests. Thus they were matched on the basis of parental education parental vocabulary of the social class to which their parents belong. The urban residence attendance in the UN segregated school and a variety of other factors. Then they took both the Stanford Benet test and the Coleman Anderson test which is a slightly advanced bird version of the Stanford Benet test. Now on both of these tests when you took whites from similar socio social backgrounds as the negroes on both of these tests there were absolutely no statistically significant differences between the negroes and the whites. If one wanted to make any generalization from this particular study the only thing that emerged was

that there was a higher proportion of Negro children who had an IQ of 130 that it. Sort of at the genius level a higher proportion who had a genius IQ is among the Negro children than the white children. But this in my opinion was just an accident and not true. Find a third piece of evidence is the classic study which was done by Otto Klein Berg a social psychologist who has long been involved with and pointed with the problem of race relations out of Kleinberg selected a group of children who had migrated from southern areas and who had come to New York for various reasons. There they entered Of course unsaid are relatively UN Secretary Hood schools and received of course a better education than they had in the south. Kleinberg found a direct correlation between the numbers of a number of years that the child from the south the negro child from the South had resided in New York and his intelligence score.

I forget the exact figures but over an extended period of time that is over the regular schooling period. I think performance on these standard intelligence tests went up by about 20 points which if obviously if intelligence were entirely biologically determined the sort of major drastic change could not have occurred. Further in terms of Kleinberg study some racists tried to argue tried to make the argument that the result of this was due to the fact that more the more intelligent Southern negro was the one who migrated to the north and this was the reason for the difference. In fact as it turned out for some reason the intelligence level of the the the migrant to New York was even was slightly lower than the southern negro who's who remained in at least in the border states in Tennessee and in Kentucky. So I would suggest that in

the light of our present evidence there is no reason whatsoever to assume that one presumed racial group and again I want to emphasize that the American Negro is not a racial group but as a arbitrarily defined caste that one racial group is better in doubt by nature than another. Rather I think it's quite clear from our available evidence that environmental factors such as education socioeconomic background and motivation lie at the heart of group differences. Cicero recognized in the first century men indeed differ in learning but are equal in the capacity for learning. There is no race which under the guidance of reason cannot attain to virtue. A second conceit of the white man in contemporary America is that only his race only the white race or sometimes it's put in terms of the Nordic race or the area and race only the white race can

create a high civilization a great culture and such a view as those who are acquainted with history well know such a view is extremely shortsighted for it overlooks among other things the contributions of a Gyptian Chinese and Mesopotamian civilizations to world culture. But until recently and I still run into this argument from some racists until recently many races could with son. Some legitimacy simply because of our lack of knowledge. They could claim that West Africa has a contemporary Nigeria and Ghana and Guinea that West Africa the heart of the negroid race had not produced a great civilization of its own. A civilization comparable to that of Rome or Egypt or Mesopotamia. Thus Robert Nelson Page who was a rather moderate racist if there can be such a thing as moderate on these

issues once wrote after long elaborate and ample trial the Negro race has failed to discover the qualities which have been haired in every race of which history gives the record which has advanced civilization or has shown capacity to be itself greatly advanced. And if you talk to races down the south at this point you get this same argument played over and over again on the same record. Now what recent archaeological work in Africa has quite clearly demonstrated is the falsity of this myth. The archaeological work has uncovered the great cultural achievements of the ancient Ashanti Ghanian and Mali empires which Ghana and Mali incidentally are not equivalent to in boundaries to the contemporary Nations by that name. Among other achievements as the historians and archaeologists are now showing Ghana and Mali produced the first known concept of

democracy that was the first free elections and the first concept of freedom of speech in political affairs. They originated among other things. Aesop's Fables Aesop was a an ambassador from the court of Ghana to ancient Greece where he taught from the cultural achievements of Ghana and enlightened the ancient Athenians. They produced the beautifully distinctive but mean bronzes which were just recently discovered in Nigeria. I suppose a dark skin of the Gyptian of 2000 B.C. was unable to visit the Germanic folk already settled on the Baltic shore and culture is much less advanced than those of the Ashanti or Evo of 80 14:00. He would have described your and my not so remote ancestors as sordid lay and disheartening early savage obviously unable to cope. Else why hadn't they accomplished more. Now

unfortunately while this great culture these great civilizations did exist and flourished for several hundreds of years while they existed they were increasingly eroded by the slave trade and by incursions from Arabic civilization in the northern sections and because of this American Negroes as a group have lost this unique cultural tradition which still exists today. And more stuff than can still be seen in something of its native state. But the conditions of slavery were obviously such as to destroy this great cultural heritage. As Ruth Benedict has put it conditions of slavery in America were so drastic that this loss that is the loss of the cultural heritage is not to be wondered at. The slaves on any one plantation had come from tribes speaking mutually unintelligible languages and with mutually unfamiliar parts

of what they had been herded together like cattle in slave ships and sold at the block in a strange and frightening world. It is no wonder that their owners remarked upon their lack of any cultural achievements. The mistake they made was to interpret the degradation of the slave trade as if it were an innate and all time characteristic of the African Group which it has. I hope I have shown is obviously untrue. Actually the American negro can lay claim if he wishes to that is if he wishes to consider himself as part of the West African negroid group. He could lay claim to a proud cultural tradition artistic tradition and a political tradition too but it is one which because of slavery. It is a tradition which needs to be recaptured. Thus I think one can fairly say that civilization of however one defines a term cannot by any means be the sole claim

of a single racial group. A variant on this view a third stereotype which is quite often put forward today is that the rise or fall of civilizations can be described on a racial basis and in its most blatant form this is put in terms of if you have a lot of Nordics of pure white Caucasian types in your particular society you will have a flourishing civilization. If these are somehow eroded biologically by other racial groups particularly by negroid groups then the civilization will collapse. Now on a historical basis I don't even know whether this requires emphasis but I'll touch on it on a historical basis. This claim has. Virtually. Well I would say has no validity whatsoever. As many historians have pointed out there are several cogent reasons why race as I

previously defined it cannot be used as a device to explain whether or not Rome lets say grows or declines. First people no people of a high civilization happen in a biological sense racially pure. Indeed one could just as legitimately say that the rise for example of Rome was due to the intermixture of a variety of different ethnic groups just as he has les Of course one could say that the climb of the Roman Empire was due to an inner mixture of ethnic groups for at all times at all periods in every civilization racial or biological mixture is constantly going on. Secondly racial changes in a biological sense and these racial changes obviously do occur. That is they. The West African neighbor who came to America after generations that no longer of course possesses the same skin color as the

West African. Today these racial changes simply do not occur quickly enough to account for the rise. The abrupt rise or decline of a particular civilization in one generation for example as you well know. England change from high civilization of Elizabeth and of Shakespeare to the dull uniformity of Cromwell and similarly Japan without any discernible biological change since they were so the nation was so isolated from the rest of the world. Japan changed literally overnight beginning in eight hundred sixty eight. From a very peaceful country which had never been in a war a peaceful isolated set of islands off by itself into a great industrial power a Western oriented nation and tragically for Japan a nation dominated by Up until recently by military warlords and this occurred as I wish to

emphasize without any possible racial change. Thirdly and this time specifically in terms of the American context there is no evidence whatsoever that the so-called mongrel ization of races due to interracial or interethnic group marriages. There is no evidence whatsoever that this so-called man who is Asian of the poynt race leads to any decline whatsoever in our civilization. Sociologist George Simpson and Milton yang are. Who are the men who approached perhaps most closely investigated the evidence on what happens when there are interracial marriages have concluded that if you take if you take the offspring of an interracial marriage and then you compare it to the presumably pure ancestors on each side they have concluded from a number of studies that race mixed year does not produce biologically or mentally inferior offspring.

Intelligence in most studies where where there's been a test of the intelligence of the ancestors and of the children. Intelligence remains at about the same level or in some studies. If there is an interracial marriage the intelligence of the children on the average is slightly higher on a medical level racial intermixture may be advantageous the evidence isn't too clear here. It made it certain it's at least neutral but it may be advantageous in increasing the children's immunities to certain kinds of diseases for. It appears that race next year and the evidence here is pretty clear. Tends to produce offspring which exceed their parental groups in vitality stature and in fertility. Thus if one wanted to argue this point you could legitimately say I think that for the vigor of a civilization for it to give its strength and vitality a conscious policy of racial

intermixture should be a stoppage for racial intermixture as a factor in the development of civilization can be viewed either as neutral just as having no discernable effect or possibly as beneficial. A fourth and very pernicious belief is that Negroes in America are inborn with a certain racial character which has been described again and again by various novelists and orators on its derogatory side. This opinion maintains that Negroes American Negroes as a group are shiftless superstitious unable to work hard that they are ignorant they have a bad smell that they are prone to crime and so on. You know the usual list and Supposedly these are innate biologically inherited racial traits. Now there are many elements which are incorrect in this opinion and quite often

the the holding of this opinion that Negroes have a particular psychological character is simply a projection from a prejudiced white man onto the negro group. Gordon Allport for example at Harvard as I once did a classic little study in which he took a group of white people. Washed downstream of the picture which had two people on the street bar one white one negro and they were having an argument. The white man is reality and the picture was holding the razor and was brandishing it. The negro and the negro was backing away from the white man and when you present this picture and maybe some of you who are teachers can repeat it in your classroom when you present this picture to a random sample of white people in America what you find is that say 30

percent. Of whites who are the least prejudiced on independent measures they receive the picture directly that is that the white man is holding the race on the other hand if you take the 30 percent who are most highly prized in the great majority of them somehow perceive or create perception in their mind that the razor jumps from him. White man into the hand of the negro simply I suppose because it is so ingrained in them that Negroes carry razors and will attack white men with it. So the point I wish to make first of all is just that much of the stuff that is said about the so-called American Negro character is simply a projection from the white man onto the negro. Now even so there are certain facts which do back up the stereotype the negro crime rate for

example is indeed higher than the white crime rate and as James Baldwin and so on many Richard Wright many other writers have stablished of course it is impossible for them the American Negro to go through the humiliating constantly degrading experiences of being prejudiced and discriminated against without developing certain psychological traits with which he which with which he can defend himself against the hatred of the outer world. But this reaction if you wish to call it that is in no sense due to or caused by racial qualities. Thus for example if one takes the problem of crime it is quite clear that the higher crime rate of negroes in America can in no sense be explained on a racial basis let me give just two examples of this.

In one study in which I inducted we selected from group of young children. Often we selected a sample of Negro children with the beginning of the study. We're nine years old. And. Had another group of white girl. Now both of these groups lived in Cambridge and Somerville Massachusetts which are aside from the fact that Harvard and MIT are there. They are literally slums I mean the whole place is just one big slum and at the time the study was done. They had the highest crime rate of any cities in America. Now in doing this we were concerned with. Number of factors that might be related to the causes or the origins of crime and of course has many many other studies have done. We found numerous correlations. The lower your social class the more likely you are to become criminal or if you come from a broken home or a home filled with conflict. The more likely you are to be a criminal

or if your father's a criminal the more likely you are to become criminal and so on. All of these being social or psychological factors in the person's environment. Well what we did in looking at this we found that on the average of these children as I said the stuff again they were 9 years old and they have been traced now to the point where their average age is 30. And we have a pretty full record of observations on the children and of records of the number of crimes they've committed and the number of alcoholics in the study and so on. Now the results of this if you're just a negro. Straight up and hurried to the White Room. I can't give you exact percentages but within this slum lower class area about 60 percent. Of the negroes have some sort of criminal record for one type or another as opposed to 40 percent of the whites you know these are

not necessarily serious crimes for the crimes that occurred some time over this. 21 year period of the negroes of the hogs on the way 15 percent were judged to be hell Holik. By certain arbitrary standards that is committed into a mental hospital or arrests for drunkenness for membership in AA and about 6 percent on became psychotic. That is true definition here was that they were committed to a mental hospital or a diagnosis of psychosis of the whites 9 percent getting off of hauling by age 30 and about three percent had become. So I bought something to lease results straight out. It would look like the intelligence test studies that as he grows more. Criminal and pleas for more all the more psychotic. So now the difficulty in this is the same difficulty

that there was in the intelligence test studies that is that there was a failure if one just looked at it that way there would be a failure to take into account the really important cause of the factors. So consequently what we did was take the New York children and then from the larger group of white children we had we matched the children so that each child came from a similar social background as we would take a lower class negro child who happened to have a. Say a loving mother. Of color was gone criminal. And he was matched to a white boy who had that same card back when this was the difference between the negro in the white groups completely washes out the point is in other words if you stick a white child into the culturally and economically socially deprived out of spirit which more often characterizes the negro root in America if you put a white child into that kind of environment of course he

acts in the same way as the negro child does and turns to crime. A second study of the same. So someone somewhere to fight was conducted by Thrasher and several others from the ologists UNIVERSITY OF PAUL. They are looking in Chicago found that certain wards are precincts and all of their OP would have a very high crime rate. And perhaps Well not by joining. But maybe here are suburbs of Chicago. There will be a low crime and what happened in some of these wards was that there was a constant turnover of the ethnic groups who live there. These were wards where humans coming in from other places would move into and then as their income went up they would see better housing in better areas of course the negro group here as we would all recognize

was not allowed to move and had to remain in the ghetto. In these studies what occurred over the years was that the Heat's very crowded and slum deteriorated areas consistently had an extremely high crime rate due to of course the general social conditions and reduce crime. Then as an influx of immigrants would come in. If I recall correctly the original influx of Germans then of Italians then poles then Southern negroes and now most recently of Puerto Ricans as these groups would come in they would come in normally with a very low crime rate that is only about 5 percent of their children would get involved of the new immigrant group as they first landed there. Only 5 percent would become involved in criminal activities after they had lived there for a while. That is when the second generation came out. The number of criminals in that generation jumped to 30 percent and by the third generations they were unfortunate enough still to be there.

The figure jumped up to 80 percent. Well the obvious conclusion. And it can be drawn from this kind of study is that regardless of whatever the biological characteristics of the poles of the Italians of the Southern negroes were what was important in determining the crime rate was in no sense their racial composition but rather the fact that they were exposed to humiliating and crime create any circumstances. Now this lesson is repeated again and again in different ways. Environment to put it succinctly environment determines or I will use what I determine that's a rather strong word. There's a strong correlation between environment and certain psychological traits and certain forms of social behavior. There is no correlation as far as we know at this point between the environment between excuse me between heredity and social behavior. Certainly to just repeat the point that I made the

floor because of caste and class discriminations the Negro in America does suffer enormous psychological burdens which accounts for in my opinion the high crime rate as a release from the pressures of his existence. And it also accounts for certain other manifestations such as the growth of evangelistic religious groups among Southern immigrants. One final belief or a fifth stereotype that needs to be mention is exactly the obvious side of this coin. That is the belief that Negroes are in some way and so however measure are somehow superior to whites in certain polity such as musical ability athletic ability or in painting writing whatever it might be. Again here are the conclusions as far as I can read the evidence are entirely neutral. That is there is no significant difference whatsoever

between the Negroes and whites in these valued psychological traits such as piano playing. For me to take a few examples in terms of basic musical ability as measured in childhood negroes of the American Negro is actually slightly inferior to the American white except in the sense of rhythm for which for some reason the American Negro is slightly better in terms of athletic ability if you measure it in terms of speed of the reflexes and amount of muscles and so on athletic ability is equally distributed throughout the population. But obviously for a deprived ethnic group a career like boxing let's say can be open to the negro and us. There are more Negroes proportionately who are channeled into this particular athletic activity or color tests show no differential between Negroes and whites whatsoever. There is no difference in workouts let us when Negro and white children have been

observed. There is no significant difference there except that in kindergarten at least Negro children tend to be for some reason or more friendly but more extroverted and they play a little bit more. No my point is a simple one that is that no argument can be made that the so-called American Negro temperament or genius whatever you wish to determine determine is either superior to or inferior to that of the American whites. Now unfortunately while each of these five stereotypes is I think quite demonstrably false. They continue to give aid and comfort to discrimination and segregation in American society. They continue to survive because because such stereotypes obviously serve a very useful function to the white group in America on the economical level.

That is if you want to take a Marxist explanation of the phenomenon it's quite clear that such beliefs historically at least have helped to sustain slavery and they have justified the treatment of the negro as a barbarian outside the human pale and thus say in a competitive labor market in the south this is naturally given the Southern white man an economic. Base for discrimination. Psychologically even if one forgot any economic factors which involved psychologically these opinions bolster the none too adequate self-esteem of many white Americans for the most common racist doctrines can give a pleasant balm to the soul of a white man who can say at least I am superior to the negro who is down the road. I think from this evidence that the task at hand is quite obvious. Yet it is also not a simple one. It's to remove all of the class and caste

distinctions which have hampered the development of the negro in the United States and which have destroyed the original a distinctive culture which existed in West Africa. Perhaps the first step in this affair is an intellectual one that that is of realizing that ninety nine percent at the minimum of racial dog is just pure nonsense. One may hope that all Americans will come to understand the statement of Franz Boas the distinguished anthropologist who once commented if we were to select the most intelligent imaginative and emotionally stable third of mankind all races would be represented. Thank you very much anyway. Are there any questions and. He. Will. Go from pizza.

To me. To. Be. There. Why. Can't. He. Say. That. To get a. Job in a hurry to get literally that. Tommy I'm. Pretty sure that he. Ordered. The whole thing. Well I don't know. Right. Or do you mean the negress. Sure yeah. Well I think the point is obvious that is even even before the intermixture which occurred in America because of the Southern white man going around the slave cabin behind the door. Even aside from this which as we all know was extremely common and perhaps still is common today. Aside from this before that in the developed Western Europe

particularly in Spanish and in the Italian groups also. And one was the intermingling of the Germanic groups that came down to Italy. There was a if a strong element of negro blood if one wishes to use this term which became part of the gene pool of the Western European. So that even before the supposedly pure white man came from Europe to America he was bringing with him on. Unknown to him perhaps a strong biological heritage from negro groups. Yes you know him. Oh yes very good very good. You're. Right. Yes as a matter of fact Melville Herskovitz maintains and this is debatable very debatable mount apology but he maintains that if one wanted to describe the American negro

as a race at all it would have to be a race which is a combination of the American Negro the slave negro brought up from Nigeria and then the white mixture that came in. I think I'm not I'm the historian cer would know better than I would. I think the contact with Indians came mostly when there was the movement from the border of not border the coast of southern states over into Mississippi and Louisiana. So on where there were large Indian segments who were weren't working out satisfactorily as slaves for white men there of the negroes were brought in. They were considered to be of the same social level and therefore marriage and racial in the mixture was considered to be all right. So I as far as I know I believe the the concentration of Indian negro intermarriage occurred with the movement westward and those the Black Belt states so-called you

know. Unfortunately as far as we can tell in polls which we've been taking recently and stand for the Southern racist element in the northern racist element in California is perhaps a majority that is when it comes to something like voting on repeal of the Rumford act it looks as if unfortunately unless a massive campaign is is brought about it looks as if that repeal is is going to go through. So at least in terms of my acquaintances I would say that there is well there aren't probably not quite as many really rapid races among northerners as a group have done as among southerners. However there are the people who call themselves tolerant unbiased and so on. But when it comes to any any

real contact when it comes to an issue such as housing when it comes to marriage and so on the latent racism which is there soon makes its appearance. I wonder you know that wherever one high percent of Americans are very good. Sir. Just in terms of the general human society marriage is a racist country and that there are so many who are of this majority because they are not race. Face your not reading list where the folks draw the line on building a really great example of this all court study just gave out a questionnaire about that various questions like Who would you like to order a Negro which is lived next door to an evil etc. And just park Shirley. He took the 30 percent who are most tolerant on these questionnaires are 30 percent or least hole now. It it all depends on how we define tolerance and how we define big guy.

I would agree in terms of my own experience that if we define a bigot as a person who classifies and treats people in a degrading fashion because of skin color or because of the religion or some other factor then I might guess that the 90 or 95 percent of the American population would fall into this category. They might draw the line of shooting of Medgar Evers but to as for having a nigger live next door to the boat. You know the president is in the room in the room. Jeanne is there now. And this is in the news that came with the American Negro. Well. Jean my own opinion would be and I think the best single authority on this is for analysis and his book from Uncle Tom's Cabin I believe it's called as far as I

know simply because the languages were not mutually intelligible because families were broken up by the slaveholders because tribes were eroded and broken up. I think it's probably fair to say that there was very very little carry over of much of the Negro of the African Negro tradition. There are few cultural items that are sometimes pointed to such as the wearing of bandana which is common in West Africa and also exists here a few little learned traits of that sort that might have survived. But on the whole the religion language is the music and so on. It was for God. And it's entirely different from the southern or American Negro culture which is a distinct culture I think in many ways. But it's an entirely different one from that Western. Yeah. But. You know. You know.

Well I don't think there been any real studies in the sense of you know going around interviewing people and saying are you passing on the Internet. There is. There are observations by various people. If I recall correctly I think Walter White who himself happened having white skin who was president the NAACP I believe he said at one point that every person who classifies or is classified as a negro knows of some other person who was once a negro and is now considered a white person. But it's this kind of observation. It would be it would just take a very wild and rough guess. To make any judgment. Your record is clear. We're told that you know they are all very well for the last fortnight. Right. Yeah yeah yeah.

Now. There are no laws at all here as you pointed out the Southern legislatures when they have been defining their discriminatory laws have started have finally reached the point where they have to say I think the usual phrases any discernable negro ancestry. Well this is an impossible thing really to ascertain I suppose what it's going to boil down to is that those people in America who happen to have the most dark skins the most melanin in their skins will be the residual group that will finally be called Negroes biologically the best estimate is that within about 500 years because of intermarriage there will be no one who can by skin color by dark skin color can be called a negro.