THE COLOUR LINE
Caste and Class in a Southern Town. By John Dollard. (Yale University Press : Oxford University Press. t6s.)
DR. DOLLARD reminds us that, in some ways, his book is based on the famous study of the Lynds, Middletown, and his indebtedness is obvious enough. But his theme and methods fully absolve him from any charge of slavish imitation. First of all, " Southerntown " is much smaller than Muncie, Indiana, the " Middletown " of the earlier book. Much more important is the difference between middle and south. In Muncie, there were obvious difficulties in the way of the investigator, as there might be in Oxford or Paisley. But in " Southerntown " these difficulties were immensely increased. In Indiana, the class barriers lay between the investigator and some of the views and problems of the proletariat. But in Southerntown there was another barrier, the barrier of caste ; the ruling class was not merely economically dominant ; it was white ; the ruled were not merely economically at the mercy of the rulers ; they were black and at their mercy in almost all ways. The rulers of Muncie could, if they chose, put economic screws on a rebel, more or less effectually. In Southerntown they could do that and, if thoroughly provoked, kill him ; in some cases, burn him alive. They could whip him, castrate him ; if a woman was concerned, rape her. For the black man or woman, faced with the claims of the ruling caste, had no rights that either society or the State could be relied on to protect. Society might (we have here a story of a policeman who took the part of a black driver against a white), but it might not. As Dr. Dollard is careful to point out, Southerntown is not a " mean " town for Negroes. It has no record of lynching or of systematic bullying. But it is in the South, in the Black Belt, where the Negro must know his place, and that place is where it is most convenient for the white man to have him.
Hence arises the greatest difficulty for the investigator. For if he takes all his information from the Negroes he is not only written down as a " nigger lover " (more disgraceful than being a " nigger hater"), he is in very grave danger of being misled. On the other hand, the whites can know very little of the blacks, since the barriers they erect are too high to be seen over. The Negroes have better opportunities of observing the whites, for they are often servants ; they are almost always employees, and they have far more interest in studying their masters than the masters have in studying them. The Negroes must act a part if they are to rank as " good niggers " and the whites need not act a part in return. A mistake on one side is just a mistake ; it may cost money or time. A mistake on the other side may be fatal. With few exceptions, there cannot be intimacy, and those exceptions are, if not denied, at least frowned on. Most of all is " intimacy " in its special sense frowned on, yet Dr. Dollard gives reason for believing that sexual intercourse (nowadays without necessary consequence in the form of children) is still fairly common or, at any rate, is much in the minds of the rulers and ruled. The general belief that any Negro woman is " easy " is a social factor of great importance and, it is suggested, the Negro woman often regards the white woman as her worst enemy because she suspects the white woman of sexual jealousy. And, at the same time, the Negro woman feels that by breaking down the caste barrier in so complete a fashion she is avenging her race. On the other hand, Dr. Dollard shows us how bitter is the lot of a Negro who cannot protect his women from white attack or seduction. Dr. Dollard also suggests that some of the bitterness of caste feeling is due to the prevalent superstition about Negro sexual potency, a belief likely to stir resentment among a dominant race priding itself on its masculinity. Not merely rape or threatened rape of white women by black men, but the fear of sexual competition even in the negative form of the existence of the superior black lies behind some of the mass sadism of lynching. On all this side of his subject Dr. Dollard writes as a psycho- analyst, but with great caution and hesitation. Yet the existence of such beliefs, of a morbid interest in and envy of Negro sexuality, occurs in America. (It appears in the linguistic errors susceptible of sexual interpretation attributed to Negroes by many popular stories, one of the less unprintable of which is printed here.)
On certain popular beliefs Dr. Dollard throws some cold water. He doubts whether it is true that the greatest Negro haters are, in fact, the poor whites on the same economic level ; he thinks the climbing middle-class with a class- as well as a caste-bias are more determined to keep the Negro in his place than the poor white who is in roughly the same place himself. On colour prejudice in general, on the anthropological and psychological significance of the taboos on eating together, calling a Negro "Mr." or " Mrs. " or not being called " Sir " by a Negro, Dr. Dollard has much of interest to say. To abolish these taboos (like that which made it necessary for two federal officials, one white, one black, to talk behind drawn blinds lest they should shock southern susceptibilities in a Washington office) would be, in fact, to turn southern society inside out—and unless you are willing to do that, mere condemnation is out of place. The whites live in a society they have patterned in this fashion and to which they force the blacks to conform. After this book one understands Scottsboro better, or the sudden spasm of anger witnessed in an acquaintance from the south when his car was held up in Washington by a black traffic cop, a spasm all the more striking in that it was the reaction of a
scientist who was also a priest. D. W. BROGAN.
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