THE JEWISH NEWS

Page Six

Friday, January 22, 1943

Class Consciousness and Race Prejudice

By FRANZ BOAS

This article by the late Dr. Franz Boas, professor of anthropology at
Columbia University, was his last statement on the subject of race preju-
dice. The Jewish News is privileged to reprint it in collaboration with
the Christian Register of Boston, Mass,.

I

the summer of 1914 when I taught
1 anthropology in Berkeley at the Univer-
sity of California I spoke of the sources of
race prejudice. At the end of one of these
lectures a student came up to me and said
that I had convinced him of the unreason-
ableness of the arguments brought forward
for an innate race antipathy. He accompani-
ed me on my way home and when we passed
some Japanese he suddenly broke out in
great passion, saying, "How I hate these
Japanese! It makes my blood boil to see
them on our farms and in our cities!" Could
we have a better example than this to prove
that such antipathies are based on emotion,
not on reason?

A little later (I believe it was in Oregon
or Washington) , I got into a conversation
with a fellow traveler in a Pullman car. He
spoke about the lumber industry and said,
"Would you believe it? There is not a single
white man among the lumbermen?" I asked,
"What are they?" and he replied, "They are
all Swedes and Norwegians." I was unable to
convince him that they were white men like
himself. In his opinion their habits of life
were distinctive racial characteristics.

An Incident of Prejudice
Against Jews

Still another little incident strikes me as
highly characteristic. In 1897 I was traveling
with a pack train in the mountains of British
Columbia and camped at night near a rather
Isolated Indian home. I do not remember
how the conversation happened to turn that
way, but the Indian, speaking through an
interpreter, remarked, "The Jews are a bad
people. They cheat us Indians." I asked,
"Have you ever seen a Jew?" No, he had not,
and had never had any dealings with one,
"but that is what they say." That those who
actually exploited him were Scotch and
half-breeds did not influence his opinion.
Evidently reasoned thinking has little to
do with race antipathies. Then, what are the
reasons for its existence and its strength?
I do not believe that its sources can be
understood if we confine ourselves to the
racial aspect and do not consider other class
conflicts. In very primitive societies in which

LATE DR. FRANZ BOAS

Prof. Boas, who died in New York on Dec. 21 at the age of 84, was
born in Westphalia, Germany. He was recognized as the Dean of Ameri-
can anthropologists. He had contributed more than any living scholar
to the scientific refutation of the myth of racial superiority.
—The Editor

NEXT WEEK'S FEATURE:

The Case of Jacob Goldstein

A brilliant evaluation by the noted Jewish
writer, MARIE SYRKIN, of one Jew's
psychological reactions to anti-Semitism.
The Jewish News offers this article to its
readers through the courtesy of "Common
Ground."

all individuals of the same sex follow the
same occupations and participate in the same
culture, there is no class conflict, only a
certain conflict between the sexes which is
moderated by their mutual interdependence
and common interests. Antagonism is directed
against strangers, because they are potential
enemies.

The Tendency to Proscribe
Intermarriage

Within such tribes we find the nearest.
approach to a classless society -. A division in
"classes may develop in various ways. When
one tribe conquers another, or attains in some
other way a position of prestige in a union
Of two tribes, their differentiation of occupa-
tion may lead to differences in economic
status and these lead to the formation of
classes; this tends to reach its highest de-
velopment in our civilization. How far the
introduction of the machine in almost all
aspects of modern life may countract this
tendency does not need to be discussed here.

When such classes differ in their habits we
find commonly a disapproval of intermar-
riage, a tendency to transfer differences that
have arisen on social grounds to assumed
biological differences as though the differ-
ence's between the groups were determined
by their descent, not by the conditions under
which they have grown up. The tendency to
proscribe intermarriage is common to most
of these groups, no matter whether they are
based on economic, religious, or political con-
siderations. Such intermarriages may entail
serious social difficulties and may be first of
all shunned for such reasons, but they have
been frequently transferred into the biologi-
cal field.

In intertribal wars it hap-
pens that either one tribe is
conquered by another, or
that the one subjects itself
in some way to the protec-
tion of the other. Such was
presumably the origin of
the relation between the Ro-
man patricians and plebians
who were certainly biologic-
ally of the same descent and
still were forbidded to inter-
marry until the plebians,
after long fights, gained
that right. Such was certain-
ly the division of aristocracy
a n d common people i n
Europe which was in time
translated into an assumed
difference in descent. It
does happen in cases of this
kind that there is an actual
difference in type between
the conquering people and
the conquered, which may
be continued for a long time
when intermarriage is f or-
bidden. This occurs particul-
arly when the vanquished
group is enslaved or kept in
a position of social and eco-
nomic inferiority. The rela-
tion between the Spaniard
and the Indians of the And-
ean plateaus, those between
our own people and the
Negroes, in countries in
which caste systems prevail
or prevailed between the
castes are of this type.

Group Loyalty—The Result
of Our Bringing-Up

We must remember in all these cases that
the difference in descent is not the primary
cause and that the prejudice of one group
against the other is merely emphasized and
kept in force for a longer period because the
social difference is made more striking by
the ease with which a member of the socially
inferior group is recognized. It is the same
in those cases in which a member of the
socially inferior group is compelled to wear
some kind of a mark by which he can be
recognized, such as the yellow band of the
Jew, or by being forbidden to wear the cost-
ume of the socially superior group. It cannot
be overemphasized that the contempt with
which these groups are treated is primarily
social, and only accidentally emphasized by
difference in bodily form, and that the con-
clusion that the inferior group belongs to an
inferior race is merely a rationalization of
our behavior.
We forget too often that the group to
which we belong and to which we are loyal
is not a matter of reasoning choice, but a
result of our bringing-up. It would be absurd
to assume that in Catholic , Protestant,
Mohammedan, or Buddhist countries every-
body adheres to his religion on account of
reasoned thought. He follows the religious
body in which he has grown up and. if he
thinks at all, his reasons are invented to justi-
fy his position. The same may be said, al-
though perhaps to a lesser extent, of politi-
cal parties. Their geographic distribution
shows also the power of traditional local,
thought and individual thinking and the
same rationalizing tendency to justify one's
position.

Strong Emotional Appeal
of Our "Manners"

We forget too often that we feel first and
then explain our feeling by rationalizing.
This may be observed in particular in what
we call "good manners", by which we dif-
ferentiate all too readily those who do not
belong to our class. For a man to keep his
hat on in a house, particularly in company
with ladies, to eat with a knife, to smack
his lips, to clean his hands at the table after
eating, to wear clothing of a very unusual
cut,land particularly to perform any act that
in our society is considered immodest, is more
fatal to his social position than ignorance and
stupidity. Our "manners" have a strong emo-
tional appeal, but it is easily seen that the
explanation of what we call good manners
is always based on rationalization and on
the demand for conformity. Actions that are
opposed to customary behavior of our social
group cannot be performed without over-
coming a strong inner resistance. It does not
help us to be aware that other societies may
have entirely different standards, to which
they conform, that are equally illogical and
founded entirely on their emotional or, if
you will, esthetic appeal in a society that de-
mands uniformity. It might be said that rac-
ial antipathies are partly based on the fact
that unusual appearance shows a lack of con-
formity. Prounounced ugliness is often a soc-
ial stigma. The dark pigmentation of the
Negro, the slant of the Mongol eye, strikes
the European as a lack of conformity that
is unreasonably resented. A famous African
explorer told me once that when he was
bathing with African Negroes in a river near
the Congo he felt immodestly naked and
ashamed of his white skin.
If we ask the question whether there is
any valid scientific proof for the contention
that different races have any kind of geneti-
cally determined, constitutional disabilities or
abilities, we can safely say that we have no
evidence supporting this view. T eery race has
its mentally strong and weak _.ndividuals, its
great intellects and its idiots, its men and
women of strong and weak will power. The
existence of any pure race with special en-
dowments is a myth, as is the belief that
there are races all of whose members are

foredoomedto
_ __ eternal inferiority.

