In the Negro section of Harlem a further problem is arising from crosses between Negroes and Jews and Italians. These and other Mulattoes are showing a tendency toward Communism. During the World War a Communistic and racial movement was started there and a situation developed which was controlled with some difficulty, though without publicity.
The increase in the relative number of Mulattoes to Blacks is growing greater in the Northern States, as is obvious to any observer in the Negro districts of the larger cities. There can be seen many yellow and light-colored individuals, who are Negro in every other respect. Many of our dark immigrant Whites are themselves darker in color than the yellow Negroes and this enables some of these light Negroes to "pass" as Whites. This problem is one which will increase in gravity.
Evidence does not exist to show whether the number of Mulattoes being produced by primary union of Whites and Negroes is now larger than it was fifty or one hundred years ago. But evidence does exist to show that the intelligence and ability of a colored person are in pretty direct proportion to the amount of white blood he has, and that most of the positions of leadership, influence, and prominence in the Negro race are held not by real Negroes but by Mulattoes, many of whom have very little Negro blood. This is so true that to find a black Negro in a conspicuous position is a matter of comment. E.B. Reuter has calculated that a Mulatto child has a better chance than a black child to achieve prominence in the ratio of thirty-four to one.
Such a situation naturally puts a premium on white blood in the minds of Negroes, and therefore puts a prize on bastardy, discouraging any tendency to cultivate pure racial values on the part of the Blacks themselves. The black man who acquires wealth, at once wishes to show visible evidences of his affluence by acquiring a light yellow or "pink" wife, and the black girl is at a heavy discount matrimonially.
Even in adoption the same tendency is found. Child-placing societies may seek in vain to find a home for the pickaninny with black skin and curly hair, but the light-colored baby, despite other disqualifications, is eagerly adopted by darker Negro parents.
The religious world, the political world, and the educational world alike seem to have conspired to give all the rewards to the Negro with white blood and to make the bulk of the race feel that white blood is the greatest possible good for a Negro. Such a condonation of race mixture is an insidious and far-reaching menace to the racial and ethical standards of both races.
How much white blood now circulates in the veins of our Negroes cannot be told. It is generally considered, however, that at least one-third of all those classed as Negroes in the United States have, in fact, some white blood and the proportion is probably larger.
The "pass-for-white" does so purely by virtue of his physical characters which approximate those of his white ancestors. His intellectual and emotional traits may insidiously go back to his black ancestry, and may be brought into the White race in this way.
Mentally and emotionally the Negro is the product of thousands of years of evolution under the most stringent natural selection in the hot lands of Africa. He is notably lacking in just those qualities necessary for success in a modern Nordic industrial civilization, as for instance in self-control and in capacity for co-operation. Physically he is the product of the same circumstances. His tough skin gives him an advantage over the White in resisting some diseases. His lower vital capacity puts him at a disadvantage in others. Thus the Negro is liable to succumb to tuberculosis or pneumonia, and is less prone to cancer and skin affections. With the aid of white sanitation and hygiene, the Negro is holding his own, even gaining ground in the Northern cities where it was formerly supposed he would die out.
Natural selection, therefore, in view of the present vital statistics of the two races, can no longer be relied upon to solve the problem by a gradual elimination of the Negro in America. Comfort has been found in the fall of the ratio of the Negroes to the total population; but their absolute increase goes on just the same.