Gunnar Myrdal
An American Dilemma:
The Negro Problem and Modern
Democracy
Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Harper & Row, New York (1962)
[NOTE: The original edition was published in
1944]
This book is an extremely
influential document about the conditions under which Americans
of African descent lived during the first half of the twentieth
century. It became, in fact, the definitive study of "the
American Negro" for its time -- carefully documenting social and
economic conditions, family structure and lifestyle, political
awareness, communal institutions, religion, and an enormous
variety of other issues related to American racism. In many ways,
this lengthy study (the text is nearly 1,500 pages in all)
offered academic and political leaders useful and truthful
evidence of the enduring effects both of slavery and contemporary
racism on the part of whites. The study was, in fact,
instrumental in the Supreme Court's historic 1954 anti-
segregation decision. For that reason, its documentation of a
virtually-universal genocidal intent on the part of whites is
especially valid. Equally important is the fact that the author,
while revealing to the white intellectuals for the first time the
impact of systematic discrimination in the United States, openly
agreed with the goal of removing black people from the country,
even to the point of recommending openly how it might be
accomplished. Gunnar Myrdal was affiliated with the Institute of
International Economic Relations at the Stockholm University,
Sweden. His research was funded by the Carnegie Corporation.
The portions of text quoted here are from Chapter 7, titled
"POPULATION."
------------------------
On page 167 of the book, under the sub-heading "Ends and Means of
Population Policy," appears the following analysis (emphasis in
original):
On page 168, Myrdal further remarks that these ideas are "not
necessarily hostile" in all situations. He comments that the very
same opinion...
Toward the bottom of the same page (168), the following appears:
Regarding the difficulties posed by the "problem" of Negro
population, Myrdal states on page 170 that....
After a lengthy discussion of the reasons for promoting birth
control among people of African descent (and to a lesser extent
among poor people generally), Myrdal then endorses, on page 178
of the book, "extreme" measures in this direction:
Finally, Myrdal acknowledges the opposition to such a program
that is virtually certain to arise from the black community, and
he infers that a certain amount of deception will be needed --
primarily the use of "negro doctors and nurses" to conceal the
real goals of white society. Note especially the change in
language by which a serious attempt to "get rid of the Negroes"
suddenly is transformed into a campaign of birth planning meant
to "benefit" them (page 180):
---------------------
BACKGROUND
The chapter on "population" begins by advising that, until
about the 1930s, the growth of the black population lagged far
behind the increase in white population. Not only fertility, but
immigration as well, tended to support a phenomenal rise in the
numbers of white U.S. residents between the end of the 18th
century and the early 20th. However, birth rates among both black
and white people had fallen in the years prior to Myrdal's
research, to the point that black fertility had for the first
time become measurably higher than white. This information on
demographic trends begins on the first page of the population
chapter, page 157 (citations omitted):
At page 160 (re census figures):
Half way down the next page (page 161), Myrdal observes:
As to future trends, the author includes a veiled hint about
the potential for intervention on page 163:
At page 165, Myrdal points out the inconsistencies in various
popular beliefs about the black population:
The likely response of the black community to the introduction
of birth control is the subject of several remarks by Myrdal. The
following quote appears at the bottom of page 168, immediately
after his assertion that even "liberal" white America believes
there is going to be less prejudice as the size of the black
population diminishes:
Indeed, the very same paragraph continues (on page 169):
[T]here is no doubt
that the overwhelming majority of white Americans
desire that there be as few Negroes as possible in
America. If the Negroes could be eliminated from
America or greatly decreased in numbers, this would
meet the whites' approval -- provided that it could be
accomplished by means which are also approved.
Correspondingly, an increase of the proportion of
Negroes in the American population is commonly looked
upon as undesirable.
... is shared even by enlightened white
Americans who do not hold the common belief that
Negroes are inferior as a race. Usually it is pointed
out that Negroes fare better and meet less prejudice
when they are few in number.
...as we shall presently see, all white
Americans agree that, if the Negro is to be eliminated,
he must be eliminated slowly so as not to hurt any
living individual Negroes. Therefore, the dominant
American valuation is that the Negro should be
eliminated from the American scene, but
slowly.
In our further discussion of the means in
Negro population policy we ought start out from the
desire of the politically dominant white population to
get rid of the Negroes. This is a goal difficult to
reach by approved means, and the desire has never been
translated into action directly, and probably never
will be. All the most obvious means go strongly against
the American Creed. The Negroes cannot be killed off.
Compulsory deportation would infringe upon personal
liberty in such a radical fashion that it is excluded.
Voluntary exportation of Negroes could not be carried
on extensively because of unwillingness on the part of
recipient nations as well as on the part of the
American Negroes themselves, who usually do not want to
leave the country but prefer to stay and fight it out
here. Neither is it possible to effectuate the goal by
keeping up the Negro death rate. A high death rate is
an unhumanitarian and undemocratic way to restrict the
Negro population and, in addition, expensive to society
and dangerous to the white population. The only
possible way of decreasing Negro population is by means
of controlling fertility. But as we shall find, even
birth control -- for Negroes as well as for whites --
will, in practice, have to be considered primarily as a
means to other ends than that of decreasing the Negro
population.
If caste with all its consequences were to
disappear, there would, from these viewpoints, be no
more need for birth control among Negroes than among
whites. But the general reasons for family limitation
would remain, and they would have a strength depending
upon the extent to which society was reformed to become
a more favorable environment for families with
children. Until these reforms are carried out, and as
long as the burden of caste is laid upon American
Negroes, even an extreme birth control program is
warranted by reasons of individual and social
welfare.
The activity of the birth control
movement's workers, the Southern whites, and the Negro
leaders -- all with the same aim of spreading birth
control among Negroes -- promises a great development
of the movement in the future.....
A ... serious difficulty is that of
educating Southern Negroes to the advantages of birth
control. Negroes, on the whole, have all the prejudices
against it that other poor, ignorant, superstitious
people have. More serious is the fact that even when
they do accept it, they are not very efficient in
obeying instructions and sometimes they come to feel
that it is a fake. An intensive educational campaign is
needed, giving special recognition to the prejudices
and ignorance of the people whom the campaign is to
benefit. The use of Negro doctors and nurses is
essential.
There were about 17 times as many Negroes
in the United States in 1940 as there were in 1790,
when the first census was taken, but in the same period
the white population increased 37 times... Negroes were
19.3 per cent of the American population in 1790, but
only 9.8 per cent in 1940.... [The relative change in
proportion] has been governed by the national increase
of the two population stocks, by expansion of the
territorial limits of the United States and by
immigration.
Despite the errors in the data, it is
possible to derive the following tentative conclusions:
(1) that Negroes, like whites, are not reproducing
themselves so rapidly as they used to, (2) that
probably their rate is now higher than that of the
whites, and (3) that this differential is a new
phenomenon, at least in so far as it is significant. If
such a differential continues into the future and if it
is not fully compensated for by immigration of whites,
the proportion of Negroes in the American population
may be expected to rise, though slowly.
...Negroes are no longer reproducing
themselves at a lower rate than whites. In fact, the
figures suggest that they are reproducing themselves
more -- thus reversing the position they held in 1930
and before.
It must be remembered, however, that future
change in fertility and mortality will change the
entire pattern.
Popular theories on the growth of the Negro
population in America have been diverse. At times it
has been claimed that Negroes "breed like rabbits," and
that they will ultimately crowd out the whites if they
are not deported or their procreation restricted. At
other times it has been pronounced that they are a
"dying race," bound to lose out in the "struggle for
survival."
... I have never met a Negro who drew the
conclusion from this that a decrease of the American
Negro population would be advantageous.
...almost every Negro, who is brought to
think about the problem, wants the Negro population to
be as large as possible.
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