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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - XI. An American Dilemma - 45. America Again at the Crossroads in the Negro Problem - 8. International Aspects - 9. Making the Peace
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ioi8 An American Dilemma
the pioneer Western countries, who had to find out everything for them-
selves. The same examples illustrate also how such backward nations can
advantageously use the newly created industrial apparatus for producing
war materials, and they illustrate, too, how they can fight with them.
Particularly as Russia cannot be reckoned on to adhere to white suprem-
acy, it is evident from these facts—^though nobody in our countries seems
to take it seriously—that within a short period the shrinking minority of
white people in our Western lands will either have to succumb or to find
ways of living on peaceful terms with colored people. If white people, for
their own preservation, attempt to reach a state in which they will be
tolerated by their colored neighbors, equality will be the most they will
be strong enough to demand.
History is never irredeemable, and there is still time to come to good
terms with colored peoples. Their race pride and race prejudice is still
mostly a defensive mental device, a secondary reaction built up to meet
the humiliations of white supremacy. This is apparent in the case of the
American Negro. It probably holds true even for other colored people
who have not yet had a taste of power. A Chinese propaganda leaflet
assures the Americans:
Chinese nationalism or race-consciousness is essentially defensive in character. It
has developed out of continuous fight for freedom, and has never been ofifensive.^^
It should be apparent that the time to come to an understanding on the
basis of equality is rapidly running out. When colored nations have once
acquired power but still sense the scorn of white superiority and racial
discrimination, they are likely to become indoctrinated by a race prejudice
much more akin to that of the whites—a race prejudice which can be
satisfied only by the whites^ humiliation and subjugation.
9. Making the Peace
Americans in general are concerned with the task of making a constructive
peace after the War. It is commonly understood that this task is fraught
with immense and unprecedented diflficultics and, particularly, that the
flagrant mismanagement of international affairs by the great democracies
in the period between the two World Wars, the devastation caused by the
Second World War, the breaking up of the state structures of Europe, and
the approaching liquidation of colonial imperialism in the Far East have
created a psychological state in mankind which, aside from all physical and
economic deficiencies, raises almost insurmountable obstacles for the peace-
makers. Americans generally recognize also that the protection of the two
oceans is gone forever, that American isolationism will never more be
possible, that America is in world politics for better or for worse, and that
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