The Negro walks on eggshells

Imagine, if you can, your skin not white but black. Imagine your present job, education and income the same, but your family shades of brown.

The same things bother you. You worry over the possibility of war, you complain about taxes, you pay the rent and grocery bill, and you work for the health and welfare of your family.

Then how different are you from other men? Are you different?

You will soon discover that the most annoying fact of color is the ambiguity of the role you play in life. You don’t feel different, yet you are treated differently. You can’t justify the treatment accorded you, but you must live and cope with white justification.

For instance:

If you are a man, regardless of your efforts, promotion will come slowly — if at all. Fellow workers are polite, perhaps friendly, but always at arm’s length. Association ends at 5 o’clock.

You are stuck at the bottom of the ladder — not because of what you do but because you are a Negro.

If you are a woman, doors open to you that remain closed to your husband or your brother.

Your children present a special problem. In addition to washing, mending, cooking and healing little hurts, sometimes early in their lives, you must explain the taunts of Johnny Whiteboy.

Could you explain that there’s nothing wrong with being black?

Could you explain that there’s nothing wrong with being black? Will they believe you instead of Johnny?

You fight back tears and maybe anger because you know there’s no way to protect them. You pray that somehow your strength will be transmitted to them.

You decide between explaining the problems they will meet or letting the problems explain themselves. In either case you wonder if you chose the right path.

If you are a child, you wish your parents had straight hair or white skin without really understanding why. Your own lips seem too thick, your hair too curly, your skin too dark. You fight if anyone calls you black, especially if the description fits your color.

Black seems ugly to the Negro child. Good things happen only to the white. Television and movies support this childhood notion.

Adult or child, after the first rude awakening, you will always be conscious of what you are and who you are. Mistakes are twice as embarrassing because people identify them with your color.

Your individuality seems always overshadowed by your color. Achievements? Not remarkable in themselves, but remarkable because you are a Negro.

The Negro community puts a high value on Negroes in mediocre jobs usually held by whites.

As an adult Negro, you live in two worlds: the white world where you make your living; the black world where you make your friends.

Poorly dressed or ill-mannered people, if Negro, you feel reflect on you personally.

These are only a few of the many problems faced by the Negro daily. How does he react inwardly? How would you react?

At times he hates himself, his family, and the world around him. He wants to strike back at the invisible standard that sets him apart. And at the same time he wants to bury his head and pretend that the standard doesn’t exist.

The very word Negro seems to identify not his race but his social status.

The everyday problems of every man are special problems to him.

Finding an apartment means steeling himself against the first expression that greets his ring of a doorbell.

Job hunting means preparing to answer questions remote from the position, or getting a quick answer: “Sorry, it’s filled.”

He is tired of being cast in a stereotype mold. He is weary of people talking about slums and segregation and of white liberals constantly picking his brain. He wants more action and less talk even when he realizes that little action will be taken without talk.

Demonstrations embarrass him, yet he’s glad to see them come.

He is confused by the confusion created by his existence and resentful that the white world resents him. The paternalistic attitude of well-meaning whites distorts his own concept of his worth.

More than anything else he wants to live just as others live; to make honest mistakes and receive honest objections.

The psychological distance between the American Negro and the idea of democracy fuels his continued resentment of his status in American society.

He is taught the value of freedom and asked to settle for less.

Little wonder the delinquency, the resentment, the demonstrations and the revolt.

Despite all of this, somehow, he must find understanding and purpose in his life. He must protect his family as best he can from the psychological damage of extremes. On one side, the pitfall of self-hatred; on the other, hatred of the white.

The Negro walks on eggshells. The miracle of it all is his endurance.