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Land of the Free

I am one of the 14 million guilty Americans.

There are nine times as many who arc ashamed.

Why are they ashamed, why guilty?

Broad nose, full lips, kinky hair, and dark skin—all pronounce a man guilty without trial in America.

Claims of white superiority, distortion of Negro history, economic and social overlordship, and acts of violence against my race—all reveal their shame. For neither constitution, science, nor morality upholds this conduct. And the accusers stand guilty before the bar of world opinion, and those ruled guilty in America are judged innocent.

The first African slave ship to North America, the Emancipation proclamation, reconstruction and a new slavery, lynching and its more refined and later complement—the quiet, night shrouded execution of the negro who dares to protest. And always scorned, kicked, sweated lied to and about, and resented—yes! America. Oregon. Eugene, this very campus; to different degrees but at all times.

Eugene, this very campus? Unlikely: Exaggerated! you say. Not only that but when you ask what's wrong you grow wrathful at my answer And, no matter, you are almost sure to turn away with scarcely concealed relief that brotherhood week takes up but one fifty-second of the year.

It is indeed distressing that the negro who contemplates entering a mixed institution of higher learning must first investigate racial policies and the degree of inconvenience he must put up with before applying for admission.

"How do they treat Negroes?" is a question prospective negro students must ask those who know the particular college.

No-one answered this question for me before I came. But I can answer it now after a year and a half.

I had a vague impression that Oregon was fairly good—though the person who told me warned that he knew it only by hearsay. So I stepped from the train in Eugene hopeful, yet not entirely without doubts. My hopes for a new life, a life of social acceptance and equality, faded like an Indian summer before the cold grey breath of winter. I had not imagined myself chosen a king of Hearts nor admired for any intellectual moral or affable qualities I might have. No, as I said, all I wanted was the same treatment as every person in America has the right to expect.

What really brought my hopes to an end was meeting and talking to the other negroes who had attended here for, day, three years. Most expressed dissatisfaction with the indifference, the ostracism—on the whole, a civil ostracism, thermostatically regulated. Every hello, look-me-up-sometime and goodbye delivered with predetermined dispatch, they said. None of the more brutal manifestations of racial intolerance had erupted, but they had not managed to avoid the many discourtesies and humiliations that degrade the lot of negroes in America.

Shortly after my arrival, a "Picaninny Prance" sponsored by a campus organization confirmed their disregard for coloured people at the college. For several days before the event, posters caricaturing negroes occupied conspicuous places on the campus to rouse enthusiasm for the "Picaninny" theme.

Now, the students who conceived the affair and advertised It with sketches of negroes grinning insanely most likely did not intend to offer insult. Yet, I must remark, had the feelings of a people already ranked as suh-human second rate citizens been taken into account, the planners would have chosen another theme. Surely so many students would not have turned out stained black, imitating the dialect and gestures of the type of negro denied education. Since then, I have seen negro students, frustrated by an uncertain pattern of racial relations and isolation, throw in the job and pack their bags for more familiar places.

Is Oregon so unsuited to negro students that a few cannot even make adjustment, or contribute something to remove the cause of their unhappiness? This is a difficult and delicate question. Perhaps objectivity will fail me and perhaps I shall imagine hidden meanings and insults where none were intended. If you will allow for this, you may judge for yourself.

As, I assume, the purpose of Oregon's University is to educate, I will make a few observations on how we stand in the classroom first.

At the outset I want to say emphatically that my own relations (and as far as I know, those of other negroes) with Instructors (lecturers. Ed) have with few exceptions been satisfactory. When so many of the faculty can be fair and understanding, a strong foundation exists for launching an overall improvement in campus relations.

When I have explained why many negroes appear unresponsive in the classroom, I will note some specific examples showing times when instructors have reinforced this behaviour. But the attitude of instructors is the least worry we have.

No doubt some negroes seem mentally backward and emotionally passive in the classroom because they are just that. Bui their ratio to the total number of negro students, is no greater than in any other group. Our apparent lesser fluency when it does assert itself, can be traced to two causes. First, many of us come from social backgrounds in which the negro is seen and heard only at the pleasure of whites, with opportunities for physical presence more frequent than those for self-expression. A past of segregation and suppression of civil liberties influences profoundly the attitude of negroes and their ability to play a vocal part in the predominantly white classrooms, Yeura stamped with the hostility of whites and sometimes disfigured by the poverty of homes—and more often, of whole communities—cannot be shaken off upon entering a classroom.

Again, we often maintain silence because we fear to confirm, no matter how mistakenly, the label of inherent stupidity glibly attached to us.

We'll say that a point in the lecture remains obscure. A question occurs to one of us. But is it a good or bad question—will it cast Us in an intelligent or stupid light. "Isn't that just like a dumb nigger?" rings in our ears. So time passes and we try to summon up courage to pose the question; the instructor passes to another part of the lecture, and it is too late to ask.

One professor explained the negroes dependence on menial labour—boot blacking, portering, stevedoring and the like—in a novel, infuriating way. "Fewer whites are engaged in the lower order of manual jobs in proportion to negroes" he told his class "because negroes have a monopoly of these jobs." At this point he remembered a negro present. "Oh, nothing personal intended, of course."

On another occasion, more offensive, a professor persisted in refering to coloured people as darkies. Finally a negro student could no longer stand this implied inferiority, and asked his professor to refrain from using the word. "Where I come from, darky is an accepted term," the professor said. "No-one in this class seems to object." "Well, I object," "and if you continue to use the word, I'm going to quit the class."

He quit.

I myself have experienced unpleasantness with an instructor, though he probably didn't realise the effects of his attitude and actions. Or rather, didn't care to realise the effects.

The instructor, following the argument of the textbook, had been trying to imply the mental inferiority of the negro, with only enough qualifications in his argument to remain on safe grounds. After class, I approached the instructor to present a refutation and register a protest.

"I don't think you've taken all the factors into consideration ..." I began.

"No, of course not."

"The attitude of the poor ..." was as far as I got again.

"Yes. I see your point of view."

"I wish you'd emphasise ..." I ventured.

"Yes, I quite understand. Now, was there anything else you wanted?"

Yet, I repeat, you would gather, a wrong impression if you were to think the negro on this campus feels his instructors are the main source and proponents of discrimination. The source lies beyond the campus and beyond the classroom. In fact, the chief manifestations of discrimination appear outside the classroom.

Not a single negro woman attends this University at present. One hears two reasons commonly advanced for this peculiar situation. Either or both may be correct. If the administration spoke out, rumour might disappear.

At the beginning of the fall term in 1947, Estelle Allen, a senior negro student, and a white woman student applied for a double room in the University dormitory. During the spring term. Estelle had roomed with another white woman without any objections being raised. Now Estellc's friend was entering this University; the two had become friends in Portland.

But the director of dormitories declined their application for a double room. The University had now prohibited mixed rooming among women, she told Estelle. Not satisfied with this explanation. Estelle took her case to the president of the University. He blamed some Portland mothers, who after hearing of the mixed rooming during the spring, had forced him to issue a directive prohibiting the continuance of this policy.

The president of an American university admitted taking orders from a small bigotted pressure group. Again, this situation pertains in the 20th century, in an institution which is supposed to be the epitome of academic fredom.

These articles will be continued in the nest issue of Salient.