Race and democratic society / Franz Boas.

  • Franz Boas
Date:
[1945]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Race and democratic society / Franz Boas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/242 page 5
    The behavior of an individual is de¬ termined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment. Race: Prejudice In large American cities, Negroes must live in quarters as sharply defined as were the ghettos of olden times. On the Pacific coast, Asiatics are regarded as aliens so undesirable that their immigration to this country is restricted by law. There are country hotels, apartment houses, and clubs that exclude Jews. To the great mass of Americans, Mexicans are “greasers”, Frenchmen “frogs”, Italians “wops.” Yet ours is a democracy which asserted at the outset that it recognized no social or political inequalities. We in America are particularly given to racial injustice and for the very reason that this country was long a haven for those who yearned to breathe a freer political air or to make the most of freer economic opportunity. Germans, Swedes, Russians, Finns, Levantines, groups of widely different de¬ scent and tradition, flock hither. They look down on one another, as close neighbors have always done from time im¬ memorial, and they are looked down on in turn by the long established “native” population. Even when the Declaration of Independence was signed there was race prejudice, and this because there were Negro slaves. In that day, slavery was justified on the supposed obvious superiority of whites over Blacks and on mental and social differences that were believed to be innate and un- jRace Prejudice from the Scientist's Angle. An interview in the Forum, August, *937-
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3