often by speech.”
The senator straightened up instantly. He smiled triumphantly and replied with an air of finality, “Well, that settles the argument. I knew you would finally come to the truth.” And he rose as if to go.
“But, in this instance,” Dixon queried archly, “might not an acknowledgment of inferiority prove a certain superiority?”
“Inferiority proving superiority!” shouted the other, dropping back into his seat. “What are you saying, anyway?”
“Doesn’t the case of the sexes explain this seeming paradox? The average male human, as you will admit, is egotistic. The more that woman, the weaker, humors this trait, the better she serves her own interest; similarly, the average white man’s weak point is his color egotism, and the more the Negro humors this failing, the more he serves his own interest. The greater the self-interest of the woman, the more credulous she appears to tales of masculine prowess; the greater the self-interest of the Negro, the more he flatters the white man’s egotism. Now, sir, who is cleverer, the fooled or the one who fools?”
The other did not reply.
Dixon continued: “I’ll give you an illustration. A friend of mine, a doctor, told me he was one day in a bar-room in Chicago when a man whom he instantly recognized as a Southerner, by his dress and manner, entered. Lounging in a corner was a Negro, one of those human beings who elect to live by their wits. No sooner had the Southerner ordered his drink than the Negro walked up and looking at him admiringly, said gushingly, “What a pretty white man! Say, boss, yo’ is from Mizzourah, ain’t yo’?”
“Yes,” confirmed the other, much flattered at this open admiration, “an’ wheh ah yo’ fum?”
“Oh, boss, how kain yo’ ast me dat?” said the Negro in mock indignation, eagerly eyeing the white man’s glass. Then he wheedled, “Say, boss, I’ll have a ‘gin an’ rass,’ too,” (raspberry wine and gin, a favorite drink among certain classes in Missouri). The Negro had the drink, and the white man in paying pulled out a large roll of bills. The sight of so much money fired the Negro’s eloquence. He redoubled his flatteries, telling his host how the Northern ‘niggers’ were ‘biggity,’ how they thought themselves ‘as good as a white folks,’ and when he had his victim flattered to the seventh heaven of delight, he sprang a hard luck story. The result was several more ‘gin-an-rasses’ and a dollar!”
Dixon related the incident in a breezy manner, but the senator failed to see any humor in it.
“From what you say,” he objected coldly, “the white man must have been very ignorant. And then might not a ‘nig——’ Negro permit himself to be thus flattered by a white man?”
“Possibly. But this story, and similar ones I could tell you, prove that acknowledgment of inferiority often means self-interest. The case of Booker T. Washington, however, proves a better example. Washington got along well in the South because he knew just how to tickle the color-vanity of the whites. Had he shown the more assertive spirit of DuBois, he would not have done so well in the South. But, I am opposed to this policy of trying to gain by subterfuge or blandishment, that which is one’s divine right!”
Silence for a few moments. The passenger appeared to be thinking deeply. Then he asked, “But how are you going to account for this? A Negro thinks himself superior to other Negroes in proportion to his amount of Caucasian blood. Isn’t that an instinctive acknowledgment of inferiority?”
“It is true,” conceded Dixon, “that many lighter-skinned Negroes do look down on their darker brothers. Many others shun them, too, from economic necessity; that is, they can earn more by passing for white. But, in the first instance, can’t we find a similar thing among the whites? Mark you, I am not defending this inexcusable ignorance among so-called Negroes. I have always held that the man who protests against a thing should be the last man to practice it. In the United States a premium is set upon Caucasian blood (of course, I use the term figuratively), hence, some mixed bloods believe themselves of superior caste. In the United States, due to the absence of a nobility, a premium is set upon Mayflower descent, and many persons so descended pride themselves upon their superiority due to ancestry—blue-bloods—F. F. V.’s, yea, even from the dark-skinned Pocahontas. And the analogy we might draw from Europe and its nobility is too evident to need further comment. Then it must be remembered that there is considerable rivalry between the brunettes and the blondes. I have heard rather heated arguments between white women of these types as to their respective merits. Blondes, having the lesser amount of pigment, are supposed to be the more virtuous, which, perhaps accounts for the large number of chemical blondes among women of your race…. and mine, too.”
“But those among us who have an infusion of Caucasian blood have nothing to boast of since such are in the position of children who have been abandoned by one of their parents. Then, too, whenever such are discovered among the whites they are always unceremoniously thrust out. In my opinion the Negro who plumes himself upon his white descent simply does not think.”
The bell had begun to ring just as Dixon was finishing, and he went in to answer the call. He was very glad of the interruption and remained away, hoping thereby to break off the argument, but the senator, it appears, had no such intention, for when Dixon ten minutes later had occasion to re-enter the room he was immediately assailed with:
“There is another important point of Negro inferiority. The features of the Caucasian are more pleasing, not only to the Caucasian, but to the Negroes, judging from their own comments. No one would ever think of comparing the physiognomy of a Negro with that of an Adonis or an Aphrodite.
The white man’s native sense of beauty will never permit him to modify his ideals.” He paused, then added with conviction : “The Negro’s physiognomy will ever make him un-pleasing to the white man.”
Dixon thought of telling him that this matter of physiognomy was the cause of all the trouble, but replied, instead: “The features of the Caucasian are, as a rule, more pleasing only to his own eye for each human variety, except when imbued with the thoughts of another people, as the Negro in the New World, considers its facial casts the standard. Darwin, in his ‘Descent of Man,’ says that when the Negro boys on the east coast of Africa saw Burton, the explorer, they cried out:
“ ‘Look at the white man! Does he not look like a white ape?’
“Winwood Reade said that the Negroes on the Western Coast admired a very black skin more than one of a lighter tint. Agbebi, a West African scientist, says in his paper before the Races Congress (here Dixon consulted his notebook):
“ ‘The unsophisticated African entertains an aversion to white people, and when accidentally or unexpectedly meeting a white man, he turns or takes to his heels, it is because he feels that he has come upon some unusual or unearthly creature, some hobgoblin or ghost or sprite, and that an aquiline nose, scant lips, and cat-like eyes afflict him.’
“Dan Crawford, the famous African missionary, tells of an instance where a number of Negro women in Central Africa, on seeing a white man for the first time, nearly broke down a doorway in their frantic haste to escape. The Yoruba word for white man is not complimentary. It means ‘peeled man.’ Stanley, the explorer, said that when he returned from the wilds of Africa he found the complexions of Europeans ghastly ‘after so long gazing on rich black and richer bronze.’ ”
The brakeman, passing by, peered into the room, but only greeted Dixon and went on.
When he was gone Dixon continued: “Oriental ideas of beauty are also different from ours. The Japanese do not like the noses and eyes of the Caucasian, which happen to be the very parts of Japanese physiognomy the Caucasians like least. Now, as Von Luschan asks, ‘Which of these races is right, since both are highly artistic?’ ”
“But,” protested the senator, rather lamely, “since the white race is the super—most developed one, its standard of beauty ought to be accepted as the universal one.”
Dixon noted with satisfaction the other’s hesitation at the word ‘superior.’ He responded:
“Environment