White Souls?

Eesides the basic discriminatory patterns negroes must contend with the stereotyped prejudices that set them apart, and served to justify the perpetuation of inequalities. Sociologists are familiar with many of them negroes all.

Here on campus a few whites have told me in all seriousness that negroes make good athletes because of innate superiority of muscular coordination.

At a campus function not long ago, attended by several townspeople, a city churchman approached me with a proposition illustrating the negro stereotype—and discrimination. "Say." he questioned, "could you gel enough of your men on campus together to form a quarter?"

"What for?" I ask.

"Our church would like a negro quartet. You wouldn't be expected to join, of course, and we'd supply you with pocket-money," the recruiter said.

The ugliness of stereotyping lurks behind the pseudo-amiability of the mummy and granddaddy negro character assignments of white community. For the negro, life in not just one happy minstrel-show enacted to the appreciative applause of Caucasians.

An incident at the Greyhound bus station some months ago bears out this point. Two other negro students and I were buying tickets to Portland when accosted by a grimy Caucasian, who was dressed suitably for a rag-collectors' Jamboree.