CHAPTER III

{62}

THE INTERRELATION OF RACES

We have seen that from a purely biological point of view the concept of race unity breaks down. The multitude of genealogical lines, the diversity of individual and family types contained in each race is so great that no race can be considered as a unit. Furthermore, similarities between neighboring races and, in regard to function, even between distant races are so great that individuals cannot be assigned with certainty to one group or another.

Nevertheless, race consciousness exists and we have to investigate its source. It is customary to speak of an instinctive race consciousness. Even Romain Rolland says of it, “Ce vieux levain d’antipathie instinctive, qui couve au fond des cœurs de tous les hommes du Nord pour les hommes du Midi.”

The feeling between Whites and Negroes in our country is decidedly of this character. There is an immediate feeling of contrast that is expressed {63} in the popular conviction of the superiority of the White race. Very generally the feeling extends even to cases in which the Negro admixture is very slight and in which there is no certainty of the racial position of the individual. Proof of this are the numerous divorce suits based on alleged Negro descent. In this case the popular belief in the possible reversion of the offspring to a pure Negro type may be a determinant. This consideration does not enter in law suits instituted to set aside adoption of children on account of their racial descent; or in the difficulties experienced by child-placing agencies which endeavor to find homes for children of suspected Negro descent,--no matter how little this may be expressed in their outer appearance.

It is necessary to make clear to ourselves what we mean when we speak of instinctive race consciousness.

We have to inquire whether race consciousness and race antipathies are truly instinctive or whether they are established by habits developed in childhood.

The fundamental characteristic of race consciousness and race antipathy is the feeling that we belong to a definite racial group. The results which we have reached in regard to the lack of clarity of the concept of race induces us to inquire whether these feelings are universal and whether {64} other types of groups develop analogous feelings of contrast.

Race consciousness differs considerably in intensity. In the United States, taken as a whole, the feeling of aloofness between White and Negro is strongest. On the Pacific coast it is locally almost equalled by the feeling of the Whites against Asiatics. I have been told by those familiar with conditions in Humboldt County, California, that the White settlers will readily eat with Negroes, but not with Indians. In general, feeling of aversion to the Indian is rather slight. There is even a marked tendency of individuals with admixture of Indian blood to be proud of their ancestry.

Race feeling between Whites, Negroes, and Indians in Brazil seems to be quite different from what it is among ourselves. On the coast there is a large Negro population. The admixture of Indian is also quite marked. The discrimination between these three races is very much less than it is among ourselves, and the social obstacles for race mixture or for social advancement are not marked. Similar conditions prevail on the island of Santo Domingo between Spaniards and Negroes. Perhaps it would be too much to claim that in these cases race consciousness is nonexistent; it is certainly much less pronounced than among ourselves. {65}

If it is true that race antipathy among different groups of mankind takes distinctive forms and expresses itself with varying intensity, we may doubt whether we are dealing with an instinctive phenomenon.

It will be found advantageous to investigate similar phenomena in the animal world. We know the peculiar antipathies between certain animals, such as dog and cat, horse and camel. These are organically determined, although they may be individually overcome. They might be considered analogous to the feeling between races if we had the same instinctive hostility or fear between individuals of different human races; but this has never been observed. On the contrary, under favorable conditions the reaction seems to be one of friendly curiosity.

Conditions analogous to those found in racial groups occur in animal societies. Gregarious animals live either in open or in closed societies. Open societies are those in which any outside individual may join a herd. They are found among mammals and birds, but particularly among fishes, insects, and other lower animals. A swarm of mosquitoes, a shoal of fish keep together but do not exclude newcomers of the same species, sometimes even of other species. Herds of ruminants are often organized under leaders but may not exclude newcomers. The behavior of animals {66} that occupy a definite area as their feeding ground is quite different. They treat every newcomer as an enemy and while he may succeed in gaining admission after a number of combats, the first endeavor of the herd is to drive away or to kill the intruder. Many herds of monkeys are said to behave in this way. Penguins on their breeding places will drive away stray visitors, while admitting their neighbors. The best known example is that of the Pariah dogs of Oriental towns. The dogs of one street will not admit one from another street and the stranger is killed by them if he does not beat a hasty retreat. The most perfect forms of closed societies are found in the insect states. Ants of the same hill recognize one another by the scent of the hill and attack every strange ant. Even insects of another species, if only they participate in the scent of the particular hill, are welcomed. Sameness of species does not decide the attitude towards the individual. Participation in the most characteristic trait of the individual hill is the feature by which membership in the group is determined.

The groups do not need to be related by descent. They may be thrown together by accident. Nevertheless, according to the habits of the species, they will form a closed society.

In primitive human society every tribe forms a {67} closed society. It behaves like the Oriental Pariah dogs.

In the early days of mankind our earth was thinly settled. Small groups of human beings were scattered here and there; the members of each horde were one in speech, one in customs, one in superstitious beliefs. In their habitat they roamed from place to place, following the game that furnished their subsistence, or digging roots and picking the fruits of trees and bushes to allay the pangs of hunger. They were held together by the strong bands of habit. The gain of one member of the horde was the gain of the whole group, the loss and harm done to one was loss and harm to the whole community. No one had fundamental interests at stake that were not also the interests of his fellows.

Beyond the limits of the hunting grounds lived other groups, different in speech, different in customs, perhaps even different in appearance, whose very existence was a source of danger. They preyed upon the game, they threatened inroads upon the harvest of roots and fruits. They acted in a different manner; their reasoning and feeling were unintelligible; they had no part in the interests of the horde. Thus they stood opposed to it as beings of another kind, with whom there could be no community of interest. To harm them, if {68} possible to annihilate them, was a self-evident act of self-preservation.

Thus the most primitive form of society presents to us the picture of continuous strife. The hand of each member of one horde was raised against each member of all other hordes. Always on the alert to protect himself and his kindred, man considered it an act of high merit to kill the stranger.

The tendency to form closed societies is not by any means confined to primitive tribes. It exists to a marked extent in our own civilization. Until quite recent times, and in many cases even now, the old nobility formed a closed society. The Patricians and Plebeians, Greeks and Barbarians, the gangs of our streets, Mohametans and Infidels,--and our own modern nations are in this sense closed societies that cannot exist without antagonisms.

The principles that hold societies together vary enormously, but common to all of them is the feeling of antagonism against other parallel groups.

The racial grouping differs in one respect from the societies here enumerated. While the position of an individual as a member of one of the socially determined groups is not evident, it is apparent when the grouping is made according to bodily appearance. If the belief should prevail, as it {69} once did, that all red-haired individuals have an undesirable character, they would at once be socially segregated and no red-haired person could escape from his class. The Negro who may at once be recognized by his bodily build is automatically placed in his class and not one of them can escape from the effect of being excluded from a closed group.

When individuals are to be herded together in a closed group the dominant group may proscribe for them a distinguishing symbol,--like the garb of the Medieval Jews or the stripes of the convict,--so that each individual who may otherwise have no distinguishing characteristic, may at once be assigned to his group and treated accordingly.

The assignment to a closed group may also be effected by a classifying name, like the term Dago for Italians which is intended to evoke the thought of all the supposed characteristics that are without reflection ascribed to all the members of the nation. Perhaps one of the most striking illustrations of this tendency in the present life of the United States is the assignment of anyone with a Jewish name to an undesirable group whose members are, according to the fancy of the owner, not allowed to dwell in certain buildings, not admitted in hotels or clubs and are in other ways discriminated against by the unthinking, who can see {70} in the individual solely the representative of a class.

We have seen that from a biological point of view there is no reason for drawing a clean-cut line between races, because the lines of descent in each are physiologically and psychologically diverse, and because functionally similar lines occur in all races.

The formation of the racial groups in our midst must be understood on a social basis. In a community comprising two distinct types which are socially clearly separated, the social grouping is reënforced by the outer appearance of the individuals and each is at once and automatically assigned to his own group. In other communities,--as among Mohametans or in Brazil,--where the social and racial groupings do not coincide, the result is different. The socially coherent groups are racially not uniform. Hence the assignment of an individual to a racial group does not develop as easily, the less so the more equal the groups in their social composition.

If an instinctive race antipathy existed it would find expression in sexual aversion. The free intermingling of slave owners with their female slaves and the resulting striking decrease in the number of full-blood Negroes is ample proof of the absence of any sexual antipathy. The rarity of the reverse intermixture, that of male Negroes and {71} female Whites, can be fully understood on the basis of social conditions. In view of the behavior of the male White and of the forms of mixture in other societies it does not seem likely that it is reducible to sexual antipathy. The white master sought his colored mates who had little power to resist him. The colored slave was in an entirely different position towards his mistress and to other white women.

The intermingling of Indian and White throws an interesting light upon this subject. Owing to other reasons the early intermingling between the two races was also between White males and Indian females. It was caused not by the relation of master and slave woman but by the absence of white women. The general development has been such that Mestizo women--that is, those of Indian-White descent--are liable to marry Whites. Their descendants gradually pass out of the Indian population unless economic privileges, such as the right to hold valuable lands belonging to the Indians, serve as an attraction to the Indian community. The men, on the other hand, are more liable to marry Indian or Mestizo women and remain in the tribe. The male descendants of Mestizo women who no longer belong to a segregated group marry freely among the Whites, while the male descendants of Mestizo men are ordinarily not in the same position. {72}

There is no doubt that the strangeness of a foreign racial type plays an important rôle in these relations. The ideal of beauty of a person who is growing up in an exclusively White society is different from that of a Negro who lives in a Negro society and the sharper the social division between the groups, the later in life intimate social contacts occur, the greater also may be the separation created by the differences of ideals of form.

Here again the question arises whether these influences would act in the same way if the groups were socially not separated. We can find an answer to this question solely by a consideration of conditions in countries in which there is no pronounced race feeling. It would seem that there the attractiveness of forms has a much wider range, and is not determined by pigmentation and other racial traits alone. Aversion is not expressed on racial lines but on the ground of the repulsiveness of other features. Preferences and aversions differ individually.

Unfortunately these conditions cannot be proven by actual numerical observations that would be convincing. All we can give are the results of general observations. These are, however, so striking that their validity seems well established.

Since the abolition of slavery the intermingling of Negroes and Whites has taken a curious course. {73} Legitimate and illegitimate mating between Whites and Negroes has undoubtedly decreased and we find essentially marriages among Negroes and Mulattoes. Dr. Melville J. Herskovits has collected statistics on this subject. He found that, on the average, dark individuals will marry those of dark, though slightly lighter complexion, light ones those of light, though slightly darker complexion. This indicates that there is a decided preference in the mating of those of similar color,--an expression of the transfer of our own race feeling to the colored people who live among us and

## participate in our culture. But, furthermore, the darker man marries

on the average a lighter woman. Since there is no difference in the pigmentation of the two sexes this indicates a preference on the part of the men,--another manifestation of the adoption of our valuations by the Negroes.

The effect of this selective process, if it continues for many generations, will be the passing of many of the lightest men out of the Negro community. Either they die as bachelors or they are merged in the general population. For the remainder it must inevitably lead to a darkening of the whole colored population, for the daughters of each generation, whose fathers are dark and whose mothers are light, will be darker than their {74} mothers. When they again become mothers, their children will be still darker, provided the same conditions continue. Thus there will come to be a constantly increasing intensity of Negro characteristics and a sharper contrast between the two principal races of the country.

During the time of slavery the condition was the reverse. On account of the numerous unions between White fathers and Negro mothers the new generation was lighter than their mothers. A constant lightening of the Negro population resulted and hence a lessening of the racial contrast without any modification of the descendants of white females.

An evenly mixed population can result only if the number of matings between males of one race and females of the other is equal to that of matings in the opposite direction. Otherwise the racial type of the group descended in the female line will be unstable.

When social divisions follow racial lines, as they do among ourselves, the degree of difference between racial forms is an important element in establishing racial groupings and in accentuating racial conflicts. From this point of view the present tendency is most undesirable.

Under prevailing circumstances complete freedom of matrimonial union between the two races {75} cannot be expected. The causes that operate against the unions of colored men and white women are almost as potent as in the days of slavery. Looking forward towards a lessening of the intensity of race feeling an increase of unions of white men and colored women would be desirable. The present policy of many of the Southern States tends to accentuate the lack of homogeneity of our nation.

I have tried to show in the preceding pages that the biological arguments that have been brought forward against race crossing are not convincing. Equally good reasons can be given in favor of crossings of the best elements of various races, and for closely related groups these arguments seem incontrovertible.

If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be represented. The mere fact that a person is a healthy European, or a blond European would not be proof that he would belong to this élite. Nobody has ever given proof that the mixed descendants of such a select group would be inferior.

If a selection of immigrants is to be made it should never be made by a rough racial classification, but by a careful examination of the individual and of his family history. {76}

No matter how weak the case for racial purity may be, we cannot hope easily to overcome its appeal. The individual is always ready to subordinate himself under the group to which he belongs. He expresses his feeling of solidarity by an idealization of his group and by an emotional desire for its perpetuation. As long as the social groups are racial groups we shall also encounter the desire for racial purity. When considerable racial differences are encountered in the same social group, they are disregarded unless there are introduced artificial ideals of bodily form that tend to establish new social divisions. This is occurring in some social groups in Europe and America who idealize the blond, blue-eyed type.

It follows that the “instinctive” race antipathy can be broken down, if we succeed in creating among young children social groups that are not divided according to the principle of race and which have principles of cohesion that weld the group into a whole. It will not be easy to establish such groups under the pressure of present popular feeling. Nevertheless, cultural coöperation cannot be reached without it.

Those who fear miscegenation, which I, personally, do not consider as in any way dangerous,--not for the White race or for the Negro, or for {77} mankind--may console themselves with their belief in a race consciousness, which would manifest itself in selective mating. Then matters would remain as they are.

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