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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 17. The Mechanics of Economic Discrimination as a Practical Problem - 5. The Problem of Vocational Training - 6. The Self-Perpetuating Color Bar
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Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 391
Will ever be equipped to challenge it. If the white persons responsible for
vocational guidance are themselves just a little bit prejudiced, this will
strengthen their inclination to discourage Negro youths from entering
these vocations. At the same time, they can have good consciences and tell
themselves and others that they are absolutely unprejudiced and are acting
solely in the best interests of Negro youths. It is not their task to reform
American society but to give individual guidance. I have seen this particular
vicious circle in operation everywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line.*
6. The Self-Perpetuating Color Bar
The vicious circle of job restrictions, poverty, and all that follows with it
tends to fix the tradition that Negroes should be kept out of good jobs and
held down in unskilled, dirty, hot or otherwise undesirable work. Resi’
dential segregation and segregation at places of work hinder whites from
having personal acquaintance with Negroes and recognizing that Negroes
are much like themselves. In the eyes of white workers the Negroes easily
come to appear “different,” as a “low grade people,” and it becomes a
matter of social prestige not to work under conditions of equality with
them. The fact that Negroes actually work almost only in menial tasks
makes it more natural to look upon them in this way. The occupations they
work in tend to become declasse.
When once the white workers^ desires for social prestige become mobi-
lized against the Negroes in this way, when they have come to look upon
Negroes as different from themselves and consequently do not feel a com-
mon labor solidarity with them, “economic interests” also will back up
discrimination. By excluding Negroes from the competition for jobs, the
white workers can decrease the supply of labor in the market, hold up
wages and secure employment for themselves. To give white workers a
monopoly on all promotions is, of course, to give them a vested Interest in
job segregation.
Negroes, on their side, have to try to utilize every opening, even if it
means working for lower wages or under inferior working conditions. The
abundance of Negro labor, kept idle because of exclusionist policies, must
always be feared by white workers. If given the chance, Negroes will
accept positions as “sweatshop” competitors—something which cannot fail
to increase the resentment of the white wage earners. Sometimes they
may even work as “scabs” and so white workers get extra justification for
the feeling that Negroes represent a danger of “unfair competition.” The
Negroes react by being suspicious of the white workers and their unions.
For this reason, they are sometimes “poor union material” even if white
* For information on vocational training under the present war production program, see
Chapter 19, Section 3.
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