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Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1039
ing,” for white America and the Negro people will generally make for a soft-pedaling
of such adverse facts in the interracial situations as offer little prospect of becoming
changed within a reasonable time. This minimization or suppression of discouraging
facts may occur when they refer to either the white or the Negro group. At the same
time encouraging signs will be unduly played up. Practically the whole literature on
the Negro, as on all other social problems, is influenced by this tendency.®
This optimistic bias may work against the Negro or for him. It may be connected
with a radical or a conservative inclination. In some respects this tendency will gain
strength as people’s interest in reforms increases j they do want to believe in them. A
skeptical conservative is, sometimes, more likely to face facts as they are, than is a
fervent liberal. On the other hand, a conservative is interested in presenting actual
conditions in a favorable light, while the reformer takes his very start in revealing
unfavorable facts. The tendencies here cross each other in a most complicated pattern.
The majority of people do resist having matters which they regard as unfortunate
depicted as hopelessly closed. They usually do not want, either, to be confronted with
demands for fundamental reforms in deeply ingrained social usages. The reluctance
on the part of many Negro and white social scientists to accept the term “caste” to
describe the white-Negro relationship—^and the remarkable charge of emotion invested
in this minor terminological question—^apparently has part of its explanation in the
common dislike of a term which carries associations of permanency to an institution
incompatible with the American Creed and in the unwillingness to face a demand for
fundamental reforms.
The optimistic bias becomes strengthened, paradoxically enough, by the scientist’s
own critical sense and his demand for foolproof evidence. The burden of proof is
upon those who assert that things are bad in our society; it is not the other way around.
Unfortunate facts are usually more difficult to observe and ascertain, as so many of the
persons in control have strong interests in hiding them. The scientist in his struggle
to detect truth will be on his guard against making statements which are unwarranted.
His very urge to objectivity will thus induce him to picture reality as more pleasant
than it is.
(e) The Scale of Isolation^lntegration, In the Introduction we pointed out the
opportune interests and factual circumstances which must make both white and Negro
scientists inclined to treat the Negro problem in isolation from the total complex of
problems in American civilization.^ The maximum integration represents absence
from bias along this line. Objectivity is reached the more completely an investigator
is able to interrelate the Negro problem with the total economic, social, political,
judicial and broadly cultural life of the nation.
*An illustration on a high level of an adjustment to the general demand for a “happy
end” is Lord Bryce’s famous study of American local and national politics, The American
Commonwealth^ published in 1893 and republished in 1910 and 1919. Bryce had to engage
in a close investigation of many deeply disturbing phases of American public life, and the
greatness of his work is due largely to his successful effort never to shun the facts and never
to present his conclusions in uncertain terms. But in short paragraphs sprinkled throughout
his text he played up the reform tendencies somewhat. This became visible when, in later
editions, he could retain most of his text unchanged—^including the optimistic forecasts
about “impending” reforms.
® Introduction, Section 4.
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