Howard University Digital Howard @ Howard University Graduate School Publications Graduate School 1-1-1942 The oH ward University Studies in the Social Sciences: THE REACTION OF NEGRO PUBLICATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS TO GERMAN ANTI-SEMITISM Graduate School Follow this and additional works at: http://dh.howard.edu/gs_pub Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation School, Graduate, "The oH ward University Studies in the Social Sciences: THE REACTION OF NEGRO PUBLICATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS TO GERMAN ANTI-SEMITISM" (1942). Graduate School Publications. 4. http://dh.howard.edu/gs_pub/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate School Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Volume III Number 2 THE REACTION OF NEGRO PUBLICATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS TO GERMAN ANTI-SEMITISM BY LUNABELLE WEDLOCK, M. A. THE GRADUATE SCHOOL Howard University Washington, D. C. 1942 THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Volume III Number 2 THE REACTION OF NEGRO PUBLICATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS TO GERMAN ANTI-SEMITISM BY LUNABELLE WEDLOCK, M. A. THE GRADUATE SCHOOL HOWARD UNIVERSITY WASHINGTON, D. C. 1943 Copyright 1942 by THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY Printed in the United States of America H i-i THE GRADUATE SCHOOL THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES HOWARD UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION ALAIN L. LOCKE Chairman (1940-41) RALPH J. BUNCHE W. O. BROWN CHARLES H. WESLEY MEMBERS OF THE DIVISION Ralph J. Bunche, Professor of Political Science; Walter Dyson, Professor of History; E. Franklin Frazier, Professor of Sociology; Abram L. Harris, Professor of Ecnomics; Alain L. Locke, Professor of Philosophy; Rayford W. Logan, Professor of History; Charles H. Wesley, Professor of History; W. O. Brown, Associate Professor of Sociology; Edward E. Lewis, Associate Professor of Economics; Wil­ liam L. Hansberry, Assistant Professor of History; Jesse W. Lewis, Assistant Professor of Commerce and Finance; William B. West, Assistant Professor of Commerce and Finance; Eric Williams, Assistant Professor in Social Sci­ ences; Lloyd H. Bailer, Instructor in Economics; Emmett E. Dorsey, Instructor in Political Science; G. Franklin Edwards, Instructor in Sociology; H. Naylor Fitzhugh, Instructor in Commerce and Finance; Eugene C. Holmes, Instructor in Philosophy; H. O. Lewis, Instructor in History; Williston H. Lofton, Instructor in History; Emmett D. Preston, Jr., Instructor in History; Frank M. Snowden, In­ structor in Classics; Harry J. Walker, Instructor in Soci­ ology ; George W. Brown, Professional Lecturer in History; John H. Herz, Professional Lecturer in Political Science. Volume III Number 2 THE REACTION OF NEGRO PUBLICATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS TO GERMAN ANTI-SEMITISM TABLE OF CONTENTS C hapter P age FOREWORD—R a l ph J. B u n c iie ____ __ 7 INTRODUCTION _________________________________ 11 I. Minority Group Attitudes and Prejudices______ 13 Status and Attitudes of the Negro Minority in the United States_________________________ 15 Spheres of Jewish-Negro Relationships____ __ 22 II. The Reports of Negro Newspapers Concerning the Anti-Semitic Drive in Germany.___ __________ 31 The Denunciation or Defense of German Anti- Semitism by Negro Publications____________ 80 The Conception of the Role of Anti-Semitism in Nazi Tactics by Negro Publications_________ 86 III. Comparisons by Negro Publications of the Plight of the Jews in Germany with that of the Negro in America_________________________________ 91 IV. Negro Anti-Semitism as a Manifestation of Negro Middle-Class Thinking and Aspirations______ 116 Geographical Differentiations Apparent in Negro Publications_________ 119 The Effect of the Policies of the Publishers on the Attitudes of Negro Newspapers............... 192 Political Affiliations in General Position in Negro Society Apparent Wealth Race-Consciousness and Attitudes V. General Fallacies in the Viewpoints of Negro Pub­ lications Toward Anti-Semitism in Germany.... 194 The True Comparison and Contrast between the Plight of Negroes in America and that of Jews in Germany________ ________________ 201 CONCLUSION________________________________ ____ 207 FOREWORD Race has become the handmaiden of politics in the mod­ ern world. The evil political genius finds in race an indis­ pensable tool. Hitler has amply demonstrated how effec­ tively, for political purposes, the flames of racial hatred may be fanned and exploited. The creation of a racial scapegoat provides for frustrated and insecure peoples an illusion of escape from their troubles. No people in the world today is immune from the con­ tagion of racial stereotypes and race hatred. Even the most forlorn victims of race bias invent their own derogatory stereotypes for other groups. The scorned can also scorn; the hated, hate. Racial emotions are easily generated and race hatred is capable of devilish manipulation by the op­ portunist and the demagogue. But whom racial hatred would destroy it first perverts and then enslaves. Europe today reveals tragically how the concept of racial superi­ ority may be employed to enslave, and ultimately destroy, not Negro but “ Aryan” peoples. Because race has become an important determinant in contemporary affairs, Miss Wedlock was encouraged to undertake this study of racial attitudes between the two most important minority groups of the United States. It is common knowledge that many members of the Negro and Jewish communities of the country share mutual dis­ like, scorn and mistrust. Many Jews exhibit the same prejudiced, stereotyped attitudes toward Negroes that are characteristic of so many members of the dominant Gentile population. Likewise, many Negroes embrace enthusiasti­ cally the anti-Jewish concepts which have attained wide currency, and adapt them to their own devices. Clearly, Jewish Negrophobism and Negro anti-Semitism are ridicu­ lous examples of “the pot calling the kettle black” . Both 8 HOWARD UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES Negroes and Jews are victims of the jaundiced racial opin­ ions of so large a part of the dominant white population. In the home, the school, the church, and in Negro society at large, the Negro child is exposed to disparaging images of the Jew in quite the same manner that the southern white child has his mind early warped with his elders’^ bemeaning conceptions of the Negro. Negro parents, teachers, professors, preachers, and business men, who would be the first to deny that there is any such thing as “ the Negro” , or that there are “ Negro traits” , generalize loosely about “ the Jew” , his disagreeable “ racial traits” , his “ sharp business practices” , his “ aggressiveness” , “ clan­ nishness” and his prejudice against Negroes. There is an undercurrent of apparent resentment among many Negroes that the Jew is better off economically, politically and so­ cially than the Negro; that the Jew is not so universally “ Jim-Crowed” as his black brother in misery. The Jew is not disliked by Negroes because he is “ white” , but because he is a “ Jew” , as the Negro conceives the Jew. The Negro, though, is not very original in his anti-Jewish stereotypes. He simply takes over, with slight refinement, the attitudes of white anti-Semites. This is not surprising, since many Negroes also adopt the white man’s concept of Negroes, and regard their black brothers with high scorn. For the Negro, certainly, anti-Semitism is a dangerous luxury. The Negro has constantly and justifiably com­ plained of the faulty racial generalisations which the white man has employed as a means of indiscriminate damning of Negro people in general. It is with stupid judgment and poor taste, therefore, that the Negro commits the identical offense in his attitudes toward another long-suffering group. I have heard upper-class Negroes say “ Some of my best friends are Jews” with the same defensive, frequently un­ thinking rationalisation that the average genteel white FOREWORD 9 person employs when he utters the apologetic “— but some of my best friends are Negroes” , or “ I never think of ‘X’ as a Negro” . It perhaps gives the Negro some comfort to know that another group in this nation is also the victim of racial antipathy. It is possible that the Negro is thus made to feel less lonely on the bottom rung of the social ladder in the knowledge that another group is there with him, or, at best, on the rung just above. One can see otherwise in­ telligent Negroes beam with pleased agreement when a white Gentile acquaintance expounds his anti-Semitic feel­ ings. Being hated and scorned is not a pleasant diet, and the unthinking Negro is not displeased at seeing others forced to share it with him. I daresay that Miss Wedlock’s greatest difficulty in composing this revealing paper was to steer clear of the tendency to accept as accurate por­ trayals some of the false conceptions of the Jew in common circulation among Negroes. There are economic conditions which relate vitally to the relations between Jews and Negroes. But the lowly economic status of the Negro as compared with the relatively high status of the Jew, the position of the Jew as landlord, re­ tailer and employer in the Negro neighborhoods, do not afford the full explanation of the prejudices harbored by Negroes against Jews. Negroes are an oppressed, frustrated people. Such a people hits always upon the simplest and most convenient explanations of its troubles. It pounces upon a scapegoat as a means of psychological escape. The Jew is handy. In Negro communities he has daily contact with Negroes in the conduct of his business. And it is safe to scorn the Jew. His powers of retaliation are less great than are those of the Gentile whites, for the Jew himself is a victim of race. 10 HOWARD UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES Miss Wedlock’s analysis of anti-Semitism in the Negro press does not profess to be a polished job.