9. My desires are never adjusted to the present "social system"; they are constantly out of harmony with the practices of our so-called democracy, as these practices relate to the Negro.
10. If this question means what I think it does, space will not permit an intelligent answer.
11. A hyper-sensitiveness in regard to the subject Negro; a tendency to see racial antagonism as a motive of conduct in every act of white persons when perhaps it is sometimes absent; a hesitancy about entering public places or approaching individuals for fear of rebuff or insult; a withdrawal into a Negro world in which almost every thought and act are colored by a racial aspect before a humanitarian one, are some of the mental complexes experienced in a greater or less degree by almost every colored person.
Question: Do you believe that Negroes are prejudiced against white persons?
Answers:
1. Some are, but the prejudice is due to nurture rather than to nature.
2. Prejudice means pre-judgment. Negroes come into the world to find most white persons disliking them. They grow up in an atmosphere where they find whites ready to insult them because of the color Nature saw fit to give them. Therefore, knowledge, not prejudice, causes Negroes to dislike whites. Human beings, and even dumb animals, love only those who love them. The average Negro is, however, quick to drop this defensive attitude when he meets a fair-minded white person. Perhaps too easily, as he is often taken advantage of by shrewd whites disguised as friends.
3. I do not believe that Negroes are inherently prejudiced against the white race. Personally, I have absolutely no such prejudice. I do not believe that the white race is inherently prejudiced against the Negro, but that it is wholly a feeling stimulated by social opinion which can be modified and controlled. I put in evidence the facts: First, when social pressure is removed, white women marry Negro men, and white men marry Negro women. Second, the superior always shows prejudice against the inferior, whether superiority is claimed on basis of wealth, culture, birth, or position. The prejudices of inferior against superior is never so pronounced as that of superior against inferior. Natural antipathy is mutually reciprocal. Third, some white persons are less influenced by it than others. Fourth, race antagonism as such is scarcely discernible where Latin civilization and the Catholic religion are in control. Fifth, it does not exist in the Mohammedan dispensation. Sixth, the experience of thousands of Negro soldiers in France proves its comparative absence. Seventh, race prejudice seems to be principally the vice of the Teuton and the Anglo-Saxon, which must be subject to ultimate control. It will not be quite so strong among Germans as it was before the war.
4. I do not believe that Negroes as a race are prejudiced against white people, although I am conscious of an increasing prejudice against white people on the part of many individual Negroes, especially educated colored women who live in the South and resent keenly the indiscriminate approaches of white men.
5. Many Negroes are cynical of all the professions of white men. They often express their hatred of white people openly. I think, however, that feeling is more prevalent among the younger Negroes than among the older ones.