Race Relations

I. World PerspectivesG. Franklin Edwards

BIBLIOGRAPHY

II. Social-psychological AspectsThomas F. Pettigrew

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I WORLD PERSPECTIVES

The term “race relations” refers to those forms of behavior which arise from the contacts and resulting interaction of people with varied physical and cultural characteristics. As defined by Robert E. Park (1939), the concept refers to all relationships which are capable of producing race conflict and race consciousness and which determine the relative status of groups in the community.

It should be noted that differences in physical and genetic traits are important in contributing to the observed ecological, economic, social, and political relationships which constitute the subject matter of race relations. However, since contacts among people of diverse racial origins have usually involved groups with markedly variant technologies, patterns of social organization, political systems, and religious beliefs and values, the biological aspect of race has usually been interpreted as reinforcing these other differences rather than as a primary, independent factor in the observed behavior. Expressed in other terms, the association of people belonging to different racial groups also involves the association of groups with different cultural characteristics.

Related concepts. A distinction should be made between the usage of the term “race relations,” which refers to the social processes and social structures arising from the contacts of different racial groups, and other related usages. The term is variously employed to cover forms of intergroup, interethnic, and majority-minority relationships. In these latter usages, race may or may not be a significant variable in the behavior under question. In general, these cognate concepts, though often used synonymously with that of race relations, encompass other forms of behavior as well.

In the United States since World War ii, the concept “intergroup relations” has been employed widely to cover forms of organized group relations involving tensions, conflict, and group adjustments. These include, in addition to Negro-white relationships, the interaction of religious groups and of organizations representing different economic strata. The major analytical focus in this area of study is upon such social-psychological phenomena as prejudice, discrimination, power relations, leadership roles and strategies, and the impact these make upon group relations and community change.

Although the concept “ethnic relations” is often employed to cover what traditionally is studied as race relations, it is not limited to analyses involving people with different racial characteristics. Ethnic groups are separated from others among whom they live by distinctive characteristics which provide a consciousness of difference [SeeEthnic Groups]. Besides race, the differentiating features may be religion, language, nationality, or some combination of these, which provide the ethnic group with a strong in-group feeling. In parts of Canada, for example, conflict and acutely self-conscious behavior characterize the relationship between the English-speaking and French-speaking communities, whose people are of the same racial origin but vary in language, religion, national origin, and traditional behavior.

Minorities are ethnic or racial groups that occupy subordinate positions in the communities where they reside [SeeMinorities]. In addition to segregation from other members of the community because of some racial, social, or cultural characteristic, they often suffer severe political restrictions. Their status is characterized by accommodation. The rearrangement of political boundaries so that people with different cultural traits are brought within a common national state is one source of the origin of minority groups. The realignment of national boundaries in the Balkan states following World War I is a classic instance of this process. In more recent times, following the end of British colonial rule in India, the emergence, owing to religious differences, of India arid Pakistan as separate states—the former predominantly Hindu and the latter Muslim—has witnessed the continued presence of Muslim minorities in India and Hindu minorities in Pakistan.

While these related terms can refer to behavior which is shaped by a wide variety of group characteristics, they are sometimes used to describe and analyze phenomena in which race does play an important part. In the United States, for example, the relations of Negroes and whites are conceptualized variously as intergroup, interethnic, and majority-minority relations.

European colonization

If we leave aside the early migrations of primitive peoples, the era of race relations can be said to have begun with the overseas expansion of the major European powers from the fifteenth century onward. Over the following centuries England, France, Spain, and Portugal colonized the Americas and, with the addition of Dutch and Scottish traders, the Far East. The early settlement of the Dutch in South Africa was followed in the nineteenth century by the division of the African continent among the major European powers.

Economic expansion was the primary, but not exclusive, motive for the establishment of foreign settlements and for other contacts of Europeans with indigenous peoples in various parts of the world. Following the industrial revolution it was the need for raw materials and markets which led to the exploitation of non-European labor in different parts of the world and to the forms of social and political control which characterized the relations of European and non-European peoples.

E. Franklin Frazier (1957) distinguished three major types of racial and cultural frontiers created by this overseas expansion of European civilization : (1) those in which Europeans founded rather substantial permanent settlements (the United States, Latin America—including Mexico, Central America, South America, the West Indies and the Guianas—South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand); (2) the tropical dependencies, where Europeans were unable to form permanent settlements on a substantial scale (Africa south of the Sahara, southeast Asia, and the Pacific islands of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia); (3) the older civilizations of Asia (China and Japan), which constitute a relatively recent frontier. The relationships of Europeans with non-European peoples varied according to the type of frontier. Philip Mason (1954) enumerated three factors as having an important influence upon the race relations pattern which developed in each area: the type of climate and territory, the level of the dominated race’s civilization, and the attitude of the colonial power.

In the United States, where climate was propitious for white settlement, two very distinctive patterns developed as a result of variations in a complex of factors—land and climate, type of production, and labor requirements. In the northern section of the country, climate, soil type, and rainfall led to the development of small farm units, fishing, and small industries, the labor requirements of which could be met by family members or free workers. In the South, however, the climate and terrain favored the production of staple crops and a system of plantation agriculture, for which a more abundant supply of cheap labor was necessary. After unsuccessful attempts to enslave the native Indians and to use indentured workers, the labor problem was solved by importing several million Africans as slaves over a period of two centuries. The status of Negroes as slaves throughout this period and their continued residence in the South following emancipation help to explain why race relations in the United States have traditionally been regarded as a “southern problem.”

A pattern similar to that noted in the American South may be observed in other parts of the world where plantation agriculture developed—Jamaica, Brazil, and Java, to name only a few areas, as well as in South Africa, where mining also became an important industry. These areas he in the tropics or subtropics, where climate is not conducive to the heavy settlement of whites and therefore precludes the employment of free white labor on an extensive scale. The need to assure a stable labor supply resulted in the exploitation of native people through low wages, forced labor, or enslavement. In Latin America and the West Indies, as in the United States, slave labor was brought from Africa. After the abolition of slavery in the Western world in the nineteenth century, cheap labor was brought from India and China, and the exploitation of native workers was continued. Negroes in the United States continued to be exploited as farm tenants by their white landlords.

Variation in colonial policies

The variation in approach to race relations by the European powers may be represented here by the dissimilar attitudes and practices of the English and Portuguese toward native peoples in the Americas, and by the contrasting patterns of the French and Portuguese, on the one hand, and the English and Dutch, on the other, in Africa.

In the English colonies in the United States, the establishment of permanent settlements favored the importation of white women in substantial numbers. The colonists did not intermarry with the Indians and were socially distant from both Indians and Negroes. Although moral conflict was engendered by the effort to reconcile the tenets of Protestantism with slave holding, as slavery became institutionalized in response to increasing labor demands, it was rationalized and justified by ideologies based upon the conception that the blacks were inferior. The argument most frequently made was that since black men were biologically inferior, slavery was a natural state that was of value to slaves and masters alike; the conception that the institution was ordained by God was often added. Following the emancipation of the slaves, social distance between the races was maintained by a variety of devices. Thus, in the South there developed a caste-like system which was supported by legislation and state constitutions; Negroes not only were regarded as socially unequal but also became the victims of economic and political discrimination.

The pattern of relations which developed in Brazil is in contrast with that of the United States. The Portuguese, although holding Negroes as slaves until 1888, manifested a different attitude toward both Negroes and the native Indians (Freyre 1933; Pierson 1942). As Roman Catholics, they proselytized to convert both slaves and Indians to their religion, intermarried with them, and, following the emancipation, recognized the potentiality of members of these other racial groups to assume important positions as Brazilians. Brazilian society today is characterized by a marked absence of prejudice and discrimination based upon color and thus has no race problem of the type found in the United States.

The colonial policy of France and Portugal with regard to their African territories was one of eventual assimilation. Whenever educational and economic achievement justified it, Africans in the French and Portuguese colonies could expect to transfer from the status of subjects to that of citizens and to be governed by the laws of the metropolitan community rather than by the customary sanctions of local councils. In general, there was never any serious consideration of independent status for the colonies of these countries; it was expected that in time they would become a part of Greater France or Greater Portugal.

The English approach did not contemplate the evolution of African subjects, or those of the southeast Asia territories, to the status of citizens of the mother country. In contrast with the policies of France and Portugal, the long-range English objective was the independence of colonies as they became ready for self-government. In most English colonies the practice of indirect rule was followed. Parallel institutions were developed for the governance of Englishmen and native subjects, and native Africans were governed by their own institutions, with native rulers accountable to representatives of the English government. Under such an arrangement, there was little social mixing, and discrimination in wage payments to native laborers and free white laborers was practiced.

The extreme expression of separation of colonists and natives occurred in South Africa, where, during the early history of the colony, the Dutch Afrikaners, with the encouragement and sanction of the Dutch Reformed church, developed a policy of rigid segregation of the native Hottentots and Bantus. Later, the East Indians who came to the area and the Cape Coloured people—a hybrid population resulting from the mixture of Afrikaners and natives—were also subjected to social and moral isolation. The segregation of colonists and natives is expressed in residential patterns; under the present-day policy of apartheid, native peoples are forced to live in designated compounds, apart from the descendants of the European settlers. Even in the large urban areas such as Durban (Kuper et al. 1958), the areas where non-Europeans may live are delimited. The English in South Africa have accommodated their policies to accord with those of the politically dominant Dutch party, especially with regard to segregation in social life. The English approach, however, is tempered by the humanitarian approach of missionaries and the more cosmopolitan views of the English in general, so that it is less restrictive than that of the Afrikaners in the provision of education and welfare services.

The approaches described as characteristic of the French and Portuguese, and those of the English and Dutch, must be taken as ideal descriptions. In reality, some variation in practice existed among each of these powers from one colony to another. The French in Algeria, for example, prior to the independence of that country, departed to a considerable extent from the assimilationist doctrine, owing mainly to the presence of large numbers of Muslims in the Algerian population. The English in Kenya, it should be observed, were much less restrictive toward the natives than they were in South Africa.

Patterns of contact

In those parts of the world where Europeans settled or had extensive contacts with native peoples, a number of fairly uniform patterns and changes may be observed. One of these is demographic. The presence of Europeans exposed natives to a large number of infectious diseases to which they had little or no immunity, such as tuberculosis, syphilis, smallpox, and measles. Heavy losses of population from these diseases occurred among the native Indians of the Americas and the West Indies, the Maoris of New Zealand, and native populations in Australia and other countries.

After the native population acquired some immunity and public health measures and medical care had been improved, population decline was arrested by the lowering of mortality rates. There followed a period of sharp population increase as birth rates remained constant or increased and mortality continued to be reduced. The Indian population of the United States (now a little over half a million, according to the 1960 census) has, after suffering heavy losses from disease and warfare, increased to a point approximating the estimated number during the pre-Columbian period (Carr-Saunders 1936, p. 300; compare Palmer 1948, p. 261). Among the Maori and other natives of New Zealand and Australia the same tendencies are observed (Price 1950, chapters 8 and 9; compare Carr-Saunders 1936, p. 296). Where native populations have increased, there is often a struggle on their part, especially in plantation areas, for an adequate food supply. Pre-emption of much of the best land by Europeans has resulted in food shortages and an acute struggle for existence.

Although disease was a primary contributor to the decimation of population among native peoples during the early period of their contacts with whites, it was not the only cause of population decline; the introduction of firearms also played a part. In some instances, as in encounters with Indian tribes of the Americas, the Tasmanians, the Hottentots of South Africa, and numerous other groups, the European settlers used firearms to inflict severe losses upon the natives before conquering them. Firearms, moreover, made warfare among native groups more destructive and contributed to the more extensive killing of wild animals, an important source of food. The suffering experienced by the Plains Indians of the United States as a result of the virtual elimination of the buffalo illustrates the point.

A second observed phenomenon growing out of the contacts of Europeans and native peoples is the formation of mixed-blood, or hybrid, populations. Wherever the races have met, miscegenation has occurred and new population types and culture groups have been formed. A classic instance of race mixing has occurred in Hawaii, where, over time, the native Hawaiians of Polynesian extraction, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Puerto Ricans, Filipinos, Koreans, Negroes, and other Caucasian and Oriental people have intermarried or otherwise mixed to produce new population types (Adams 1937; Lind 1938).

Race mixture has produced people who are marginal in both their physical and cultural characteristics—hence the term “half-caste” (Dover 1939). On the southeast Asian and Pacific frontiers the mixture has resulted in various Eurasian groups; in South Africa the Cape Coloured are the product of the admixture of the Dutch Boers and native Hottentots; in Latin America the union of the Spanish and the Portuguese with the Indians of the South American mainland resulted in the mestizos; and in the United States the mulatto population is the product of the mixture of white Americans and Negro slaves. These marginal populations not only are physically different from the parent populations but they also live in two cultural worlds. They are not fully accepted by the Europeans, and they, in turn, do not fully identify with the natives. Their intermediate position in the social structure makes them extremely self-conscious (Stonequist 1937).

The argument that these marginal people are biologically superior to natives (Reuter 1918) has been rejected, not only because it runs counter to genetic findings but also because it can be shown that the alleged superiority of these groups over indigenous populations results from greater access to available opportunities and social contacts (Wirth & Goldhamer 1944, p. 335). In the United States, for example, many of the mulattoes became free persons, chiefly through manumission, prior to the general emancipation of the slaves in 1863; thus they were able to become literate, purchase property, and develop stable families. With the formation of Negro communities following the emancipation, the mulatto was able to occupy leadership roles in politics and the professions. Since the large-scale urbanization of the Negro population and the resulting broadened opportunities for education, the mulatto no longer enjoys a virtual monopoly over status positions in the Negro community (Edwards 1959).

A third outgrowth of the contacts of Europeans and native peoples is the modification of the social organization of the latter. In general, the Europeans’ superiority in technology and scientific knowledge resulted in new methods of cultivation and work relationships which served to change the prevailing pattern of most native groups. In those areas where industrialization has developed and a wage system of payment is used, the communal relationships and close kinship ties of native people built around agriculture have been undermined (Wilson 1936).

European values and ideologies have had an impact on the social relationships of native people and have produced considerable conflict and alienation. In the diffusion of such values, the missionaries, who lived in intimate relationship with the natives, played a significant role. Their teaching of Christianity to native groups introduced an ethic of individualism which disoriented converts from customary communal ties and often produced in-tratribal conflicts by challenging the moral basis upon which tribal life rested (Schapera 1940). The provision of welfare services often served a similar end. The mission schools made many students disenchanted with native life, and the introduction of modern scientific health practices and beliefs seriously challenged native magic and witchcraft.

Some students have abstracted from the history of race relations a sequence of changes which occurs from the time of initial contact until assimilation or some form of accommodation is reached. Park (1926), for example, in his “race relations cycle” theory, refers to the following pattern which he thought progressive and irreversible: initial contact, competition, accommodation, and eventual assimilation or amalgamation. It should be noted, however, that although most students recognize that uniformities and similarities do exist, there is nonetheless a disposition to question attempts to develop a patterned sequence which applies to all situations in which different racial and cultural groups have associated (Berry 1951).

Contemporary problems

Contemporary interest in race relations centers on developments since the end of World War n, particularly on events in Africa and in the United States. The concern with race relations today, however, is universalistic and transcends local areas and the particularism of the people involved. The United Nations, founded in 1946 as an instrument of international cooperation and peace, is dedicated to the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. These principles nurtured the rising tide of anticolonialism and nationalism which, during the following two decades, resulted in the emergence of many new nations in Africa and the Near East; 32 of these emergent nations are in Africa south of the Sahara.

The new relationships between the white people of the former colonial powers and the colored people of the new nations are, of course, matters of race relations as well as of world economics, politics, and geography.

The transformation from former colonial territories to nation-states has produced changes in the social structures of the new states, although not everywhere in the same fashion. There has developed, moreover, a sense of power and national identity as black men serve as heads of state and succeed to important positions formerly occupied by representatives of the colonial powers. This sense of power and identity is expressed in a highly self-conscious literature which began as an expression of protest against colonial rule. A foremost aspect of this literature is an emphasis upon the concept “Negritude,” which was developed initially and most fully by the writers of French West Africa. “The theory of Negritude,” Balandier (1956, p. 150) points out, “appears as an exaltation of African-Negro specificity, as a kind of highly elaborated counter-racism.”

South Africa

While most of the countries of west and east Africa have become independent, events have moved in an opposite direction for native peoples of South Africa. In the Republic of South Africa, the policy of apartheid was established in 1948 by the Nationalist party, which is devoted to the doctrine of white supremacy and which has been in power continuously. Apartheid, in essence, has the objective of maintaining the domination of three million whites over eleven million natives through physical separation of the races, both in residential areas and in places of public accommodation.

In 1959, the apartheid policy was extended by the passage of the Bantu Self-Governing Act. On the theory that each group could develop to its fullest capacity in its own homeland and that the Bantus were not a homogeneous people, eight reserves, or Bantustans, were established as homelands for the natives. Three million native Africans who lived in urban communities, some of whom were three generations removed from native life, were no longer regarded as permanent residents of such areas. They were, rather, to be considered as belonging to Bantu areas and would be interchangeable with residents of the Bantustans as the labor market required.

Although the restrictive character of life in South Africa is rationalized in terms of “separate development“and “peaceful coexistence“of the races, its results have severely penalized the non-white groups through land limitations, restrictions on freedom of movement, and differential voting privileges and expenditures for education, health, and other welfare measures. Although apartheid has been criticized within the republic by the National Union of South African Students, the South African Institute of Race Relations, the Women’s Defense of the Constitutional League (the Black Sash), and the Christian church (excluding the Dutch Reformed church), it has been rigorously enforced. There have been some riots by natives in protest against this regime, but so far such efforts have resulted only in heavy losses of life. To many observers, South Africa is a police state (Bunting 1964).

Racial conditions in South Africa are so much at variance with the movement toward freedom and independence of subject peoples throughout the world that they have become the object of world discussion and reaction. Discussion of the problems has been carried on in the United Nations almost continuously since 1946, when the Indian government protested the treatment of Indians in the Union under the Asiatic Land Tenure Act and the reprisals which followed their passive resistance campaigns. The question of South Africa’s mandate over South-West Africa also came before the United Nations in 1946, and it has been a matter of continuous concern since 1948, when apartheid policies were introduced into the territory by the Nationalist government. In 1960 Liberia and Ethiopia petitioned the International Court of Justice, asking the court to find that South Africa had violated its obligation in administration of the South-West African territory and requesting that an order be entered to have discriminatory practices cease. In 1966 the court ruled that it had no jurisdiction in the matter. This decision was unexpected, in view of the careful legal preparation that had gone into the petition, which was supported by the United States.

United States

In the United States much progress has been made since the end of World War n in improving the position of racial minorities. Although the spotlight has been on the status of Negro-Americans, who constitute the largest and the most active group working for change, Mexican-Americans, American Indians, and Orientals have also benefited from antidiscriminatory legislation.

In the 1880s and 1890s, segregation became legalized in the South through the passage of various “Jim Crow” laws and changes in state constitutions which were subsequently upheld by Supreme Court decisions; for example, in the precedent-setting case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) the Court held that state laws requiring racial segregation were constitutional so long as “separate but equal” facilities were provided. Separate institutions were operated for the two major racial groups, separate facilities were maintained in places of public accommodation, racial intermarriage was forbidden, and the right of suffrage was effectively nullified through legislation and practice. Thus the rights guaranteed Negroes through passage of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the constitution in the period between 1865 and 1870 were undermined. Furthermore, in the northern cities, to which Negroes migrated in large numbers during World War i and immediately thereafter, large Negro ghettos were formed as a result of discriminatory practices in housing and employment. While segregation in the southern states was based upon both law and custom, in the North de facto segregation resulted from discriminatory actions of groups and individuals.

In the 1930s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People initiated a series of court cases asking that facilities for Negroes be made equal to those provided whites in those states maintaining separate institutions for the two groups. These cases met with some success in terms of improving specific segregated facilities. However, in the 1940s the “separate but equal” theory was rejected by Negro leaders (and gradually by the courts), on the ground that, in practice, segregated facilities never actually provide equal conditions and opportunities. Petitions were entered for Negro plaintiffs on the theory that exclusion from publicly operated institutions and facilities on account of race is a denial of the citizenship rights that had been guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution. In 1954, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (347 U.S. 483), the Supreme Court held that admission to institutions of public education could not be denied on account of race and ordered those states maintaining separate educational systems to proceed with “all deliberate speed” to desegregate them. This decision was a landmark in the American Negro’s struggle for equality; in effect, it nullified the position taken in Plessy v. Ferguson and provided the precedent for public policy in many areas other than education.

By court decisions and executive orders, the public policy of the United States has outlawed segregation in interstate travel on common carriers, the armed forces, public educational institutions, and places of public accommodation. The Negro’s right to participate in the formerly “all-white” primary elections in the southern states was affirmed in 1944. Although these court decisions and orders have created new norms, they have not eliminated the fundamental disabilities from which the masses of Negroes suffer. Counterdevices such as intimidation and violence are still effectively employed to deny many citizenship rights to Negroes.

In what has been termed the “Negro Revolution,” Negroes have provided most of the effective leadership. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading Negro organization in the struggle for Negro civil rights over the past half century, was at first joined by such newly formed groups as the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Although predominantly Negro in composition, these groups had white membership and were the beneficiaries of financial support from the white community. A corps of young Negro leaders emerged, the most celebrated of whom was the Reverend Martin Luther King—a Baptist minister and leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The principle of nonviolent resistance espoused by Dr. King, and by the Negro movement in general, owed much to the teachings of Mohandas Gandhi. From 1958, nonviolent demonstrations were held in numerous American cities by various groups for the purpose of presenting the enemy with a moral confrontation over the injustices suffered by Negroes. These demonstrations resulted in imprisonment for thousands of Negroes and their white allies and captured the attention of the nation.

So long as the civil rights movement was focused upon the elimination of racial discrimination in public accommodations and differential participation in programs supported by government funds, the organizations spearheading the movement were highly unified. This was expressed through frequent meetings of the Civil Rights Leadership Conference in which heads of the major organizations participated. Judicial proceedings and direct action, moreover, were appropriate techniques for the achievement of the stated objectives, and there was a consensus regarding their use. This period of unity can be said to have lasted at least through 1963, and perhaps through 1964.

As greater attention became focused on the elimination of discrimination in housing and employment and the further implementation of school desegregation and voting rights, the movement lost some of its former cohesiveness, and new ideologies and tactics began to be advocated by some of the groups. The doctrine of “black power” was advanced by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and supported by the Congress of Racial Equality. This doctrine called for a mobilization of the economic and political power of the Negro community as solutions to the Negro’s problems and as a way of providing a sense of racial identity and self-respect. It repudiated the idea that white support of and inclusion as members of Negro organizations were essential to success and viewed past alliances with whites as having contributed to the Negro’s present status. Although the doctrine did not repudiate nonviolence as a technique, it asserted that violence was justified in some situations.

In 1967 the foremost exponent of “black power” was Stokely Carmichael, a young Negro college graduate and the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Carmichael pointed to the employment of Negroes as soldiers in the Vietnam war as further evidence of the general maltreatment of Negroes by the “white establishment”: while Negroes suffered discrimination at home, they were being used in disproportionate numbers in a war in which they could have no interest.

This more militant position of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Congress of Racial Equality was rejected by the NAACP and the Urban League, the older and larger Negro civil rights organizations, which, throughout their history, have been allied with liberal elements of the white community. For these groups, “black power” was a racist and separatist doctrine. They regarded it as an unworkable principle that was not calculated to further the cause of Negro rights. The doctrine also ran counter to the nonviolent ideology of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the other major civil rights organization.

In addition to impairing the unity of the civil rights organizations, the “black power” doctrine had resulted, by 1967, in a reduction of the financial support furnished the civil rights movement by whites, with the heaviest losses experienced by the more militant groups. The doctrine, moreover, had provided the rationale for open resistance by reactionary whites in what was described at the time as the “white backlash.” This upsurge of white prejudice as a counterforce to Negro militancy was believed to have contributed to the success of reactionary politicians in the elections of 1966.

The federal government has played a significant role in advancing the cause of Negro rights, not only through court decisions and executive orders but also through legislation. In 1957 Congress passed the first civil rights legislation since 1875; this act, among other things, established the Civil Rights Commission to investigate and make recommendations on racial conditions. This was followed by the civil rights laws of 1960 and 1964. The 1964 act, which is the broadest in its coverage, has titles referring to voting rights, public accommodations, public facilities, public education, and employment opportunities. Among the sanctions it authorizes, upon the finding of discriminatory conduct, is the withholding from state and local districts of funds for federally assisted programs. Its provisions on voting have been reinforced and expanded by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The efforts of both Negro groups and the federal government have been affected by world conditions and world opinion, as well as by the internal changes affecting minorities. The position of the Negro in the United States is obviously inconsistent with the ideologies of freedom and equality which characterize the postwar world. Furthermore, it is embarrassing to the United States government to participate in United Nations discussions and actions on colonial and minority group problems as long as discrimination is practiced within its own boundaries. Since the United Nations now includes a large number of representatives of colored peoples, the United States has become increasingly sensitive to their opinions of its racial problems. The riots occurring in American cities are known in all parts of the world and are used for propaganda purposes in the cold war.

Great Britain

Although the major interest in race relations today is in Africa and the United States, some attention is directed to the course of race relations in Britain, where, in the postwar years, large numbers of East Indians, Pakistanis, and West Indians have settled in English cities. With the increasing density of these groups, prejudice and discrimination have been practiced against them, and riots have occurred (Glass 1960). The reaction of the English toward these newcomers is not greatly different from that manifested by whites to the migration of Negroes to northern cities in the United States at the end of World War i, and the British government has been forced to pass legislation limiting the number and type of Commonwealth immigrants.

Race relations in the modern world are based upon color as well as upon social and cultural differences. The actions of former colonial peoples in the Near East and Middle East can be interpreted as a revolt of “colored” people against white domination. In a similar sense, the conflict between the Chinese communists and the Western powers involves color differences between the antagonists as well as variations in ideology. The Asian-African conferences, the first of which was held at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, have brought together a wide variety of people who share a common consciousness of being different in color from their former rulers. Thus the question of race relations has become increasingly international, and it is no longer possible for governments to claim that their racial problems are of purely domestic concern.

G. Franklin Edwards

[Directly related are the entriesAssimilation; Constitutional law, article oncivil rights; Minorities; Prejudice; Segregation. Other relevant material may be found inColonialism; Race; Slavery; and in the biographies ofDubois; Fanon; Frazier; Park.]

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Park, Robert E. (1926) 1950 The Race Relations Cycle. Pages 149–151 in Robert E. Park, Collected Papers of Robert Ezra Park. Volume 1: Race and Culture. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press.

Park, Robert E. (1939) 1950 The Nature of Race Relations. Pages 81–116 in Robert E. Park, Collected Papers of Robert Ezra Park. Volume 1: Race and Culture. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press.

Parsons, Talcott; and Clark, Kenneth (editors) 1966 The Negro American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Pierson, Donald (1942) 1947 Negroes in Brazil: A Study of Race Contact at Bahia. Univ. of Chicago Press.

Price, A. Grenfell 1950 White Settlers and Native Peoples: An Historical Study of Racial Contacts Between English-speaking Whites and Aboriginal Peoples in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Cambridge Univ. Press.

Reuter, Edward B. 1918 The Mulatto in the United States. Boston: Badger.

Richmond, Anthony H. 1954 Colour Prejudice in Britain: A Study of West Indian Workers in Liverpool, 1941-1951. London: Routledge.

Schapera, Isaac (1940) 1941 Married Life in an African Tribe. New York: Sheridan.

Silberman, Charles E. 1964 Crisis in Black and White. New York: Random House.

Simpson, George E.; and Yinger, J. Milton (1953) 1965 Racial and Cultural Minorities: An Analysis of Prejudice and Discrimination. 3d ed. New York: Harper.

Stonequist, Everett V. (1937) 1961 The Marginal Man: A Study in Personality and Culture Conflict. New York: Russell.

Thompson, Edgar T. (editor) 1939 Race Relations and the Race Problem: A Definition and an Analysis. Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press.

Thompson, Edgar T.; and Hughes, Everett C. (editors) 1958 Race: Individual and Collective Behavior. Glencoe, III.: Free Press.

Van Den Berghe, Pierre L. 1965 South Africa: A Study in Conflict. Middletown, Conn:. Wesleyan Univ. Press.

Williams, Robin M. Jr. 1964 Strangers Next Door: Ethnic Relations in American Communities. Engle-wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Wilson, Monica(hunter) (1936) 1961 Reaction to Conquest: Effects of Contact With Europeans on the Pondo of South Africa. 2d ed. Oxford Univ. Press. ? The first edition was published under the author’s maiden name.

Wirth, Louis; and Goldhamer, Herbert 1944 The Hybrid and the Problem of Miscegenation. Pages 249–369 in Otto Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American Negro. 3d ed. New York: Harper.

Young, Whitney M. Jr. 1964 To Be Equal. New York: McGraw-Hill.

II SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

“The problem of the Twentieth Century,” wrote W. E. B. DuBois prophetically in 1903, “is the problem of the color line.” And, to be sure, together with related concerns it is the problem of the twentieth century. In an era of rising expectations, “the color line” is often the salient common element underlying a diversity of other major concerns—from colonialism to poverty and war.

Important as it is, however, social scientists typically view race relations (the social interactions between any two or more socially or biologically defined “races”) as merely a particularly potent special case of intergroup relations (the social interactions between any two or more identifiable groups). Concepts and principles which are helpful in understanding relations between racial groups should be of value in understanding intergroup relations in general. Indeed, scientists find this contention repeatedly borne out as the study of these phenomena progresses.

Broadly speaking, all intergroup relations are conditioned by four interrelated classes of factors: historical, sociocultural, individual, and situational (adapted from Allport 1954). The first set relates to the unique history of the groups and especially the history of the direct contact between the groups. Thus, no one can fully appreciate the highly patterned “group relations” of the Republic of South Africa without a thorough grounding in the peculiar and complex history of the relations between the Africans, Afrikaners, Coloureds, English, and Indians who inhabit that troubled land.

The second general class of variables relates to the sociocultural setting of the intergroup contact. Here a myriad of cultural, economic, political, demographic, and ecological factors come into play. Often these variables can predict at a gross level the status and change in group relations over different geographical areas; for example, in the southern United States, a variety of indexes of Negro-white conflict and harmony—from lynching to the desegregation of public facilities—can be reliably predicted from county to county by the use of such demographic variables as the percentages of Negro and urban residents in an area (Pettigrew & Cramer 1959).

Individual factors constitute a third broad category. Deep-seated personality dispositions toward outgroup prejudice, as documented by the research on authoritarianism (Adorno et al. 1950), are important considerations. But so, too, are less deeply rooted personality needs to conform and gain social approval, needs which also lead to outgroup rejection when it is the ingroup sanctioned “thing to do.” Likewise, individual phenomenology must be considered, for intergroup behavior is often determined less by objective realities than by the perceptions of these realities. Such perceptions can be shaped by political ideologies and “racial” myths or merely by the individual’s need to perceive the situation selectively.

The final category—the face-to-face intergroup situation—provides the vital structure connecting these various levels. It is here that the historical, sociocultural, and individual factors come to a focus and, conditioned by the particular characteristics of the situation, produce intergroup relations as such. Hence, this article concentrates on an analysis of the intergroup situation.

Intergroup contact

A fundamental issue of intergroup and race relations concerns the effects of contact. Some writers maintain that increased contact between groups of markedly different values and origins will lead only to heightened conflict; others hold that increased contact between such groups will decrease prejudice and fear and lead to greater intergroup harmony. Social science evidence supports neither extreme. Increased interaction, whether of individuals or groups, intensifies and magnifies the processes already underway. Hence, more intergroup contact can result in either greater prejudice and rejection or greater respect and acceptance, depending upon the situation in which it occurs. The basic task, then, is to specify the situational conditions under which contact leads to distrust and those under which it leads to trust.

Gordon Allport (1954), in his review of the relevant research, concluded that four characteristics of the contact situation are of the utmost importance. Prejudice and conflict are lessened when the two groups possess equal status, seek common goals, are cooperatively dependent upon each other, and interact with the positive support of authorities, law, or custom. Instances throughout the world of intergroup conflict where these situational conditions are not met come readily to mind: caste contact in India, Greek-Turkish contact on Cyprus, racial contact in South Africa. But more solid evidence must come from controlled research. And opportunities for this research abound in a nation such as the United States where intergroup patterns are undergoing extensive alterations.

Research evidence

Thus, Allport’s contact principles can be seen in operation in a series of studies of newly desegregated situations. Ira N. Brophy (1945) found that white American merchant seamen tended to hold racial attitudes in direct relation to the number of voyages they had taken with equal-status Negro American seamen: the more desegregated the voyages, the more positive their attitudes. Similarly, William M. Kephart (1957) noted that white Philadelphia policemen who had personally worked with Negro policemen were far more favorable toward the further desegregation of their force than other white policemen.

Such intergroup bonds built through optimal contact situations can even withstand severe crises. For instance, while Negro and white mobs raged during the Detroit race riot of 1943, desegregated co-workers, university students, and neighbors of long standing peacefully carried on their lives side by side (Lee & Humphrey 1943).

Mention of neighborhood desegregation introduces the most solid research evidence available. Repeated studies have found that racially desegregated living in pubhc housing developments that meet all four of Allport’s contact criteria sharply reduces intergroup prejudice among both Negro and white neighbors (Deutsch & Collins 1951; Wilner et al. 1955; Works 1961). In addition, these studies demonstrate that living in segregated, but otherwise identical, housing developments structures intergroup contact in such a manner that intergroup bitterness is, if anything, enhanced. The segregated or desegregated pattern of the housing developments fixes a social climate that in turn influences the intergroup expectations, behavior, and attitudes of the occupants. D. M. Wilner and his associates (1955, p. 107) concluded: “Contact and the perceived social climate tend to reinforce each other when their influence operates in the same direction and to cancel each other out when their influence works in opposite directions.”

In such instances historical and sociocultural factors intersect with the intergroup situation. Consider a comparable study of a multigroup neighborhood in Durban, South Africa (Russell 1961). The area afforded a rare South African example of close contact between Coloureds and Indians, both of relatively high occupational status, and Caucasians; and the situation did enable whites to develop somewhat more positive attitudes toward their non-white neighbors. Yet the whites in this unusual situation were defensive about their intergroup contacts, some even attempting to avoid contact as much as possible. Moreover, the contact that did take place was not truly equal and reciprocal. Whites received neighborly aid from nonwhites and entered nonwhite homes far more often than the other way around. In fact, many whites rationalized their intergroup contact in terms of the mildly exploitative aspects of the relationship. Both the whites and nonwhites were fully aware that the social climate of South Africa does not support, in fact punishes, equal-status contact between races— an atmosphere which poisons true neighborliness at the core.

A further qualification attends attitude and behavior change through intergroup contact: at least in the early stages, the change is frequently limited to the specific situation involved. Thus, J. D. Loh-man and D. C. Reitzes (1952) found that white steelworkers in the northern United States generally approved of the racial desegregation of their union to the point of sharing all union facilities with Negroes and electing Negroes to high office, yet they also sternly opposed the desegregation of their all-white neighborhoods. In this case, as in many others, institutional structures limited the contact effects. Intergroup attitudes and behavior had changed in the work situation, with the support of the union organization; but these changes did not generalize to the neighborhood situation, where a community organization resisted desegregation.

In sum, intergroup contact can result in either conflict or harmony, depending upon the situa-tional conditions under which it occurs. When the contact situation involves a combination of equal status, common goals, no competition along group lines, and the support of authorities, law, or custom, improved intergroup relations are likely to result. When these conditions are not met, one of two sharply contrasting negative group stereotypes often emerges.

Two contrasting negative stereotypes

Bruno Bettelheim and Morris Janowitz (1950) have drawn a psychoanalytic distinction between outgroup stereotypes which focus upon superego concerns and those which focus upon id concerns. The superego stereotype ascribes to an entire group such personal traits as being overly ambitious, striving, crafty, clannish, shrewd, intelligent, sly, and dishonest. By contrast, the id stereotype ascribes to an entire group such personal traits as being overly unambitious, lazy, happy-go-lucky, loud, irresponsible, stupid, dirty, odoriferous, uninhibited, and hypersexed. The psychoanalytic interpretation of these distinctive, though strangely reciprocal, stereotypes is straightforward. These two types of outgroups serve in part as alter egos for the bigot; intergroup animosity in these terms is interpreted as a projection of the bigot’s own unacceptable inner impulses onto an outgroup. The prejudiced person thus personifies his own superego sins of ambition, deceit, and egotism in the first type of outgroup, and his own id sins of the flesh in the second type of outgroup (Adorno et al. 1950; Bettelheim & Janowitz 1950).

The selection of which stereotype is to be applied to various groups is determined by a complex of historical and sociocultural factors intersecting with individual factors once again at the situa-tional level of analysis. The superego stereotype is typically applied throughout the world to “middleman minorities,” that is, groups consisting largely of merchants who are structurally squeezed between the landed and the laboring classes. The id stereotype, however, is typically invoked throughout the world to apply to groups found at the bottom of the social structure.

The superego stereotype

The classic middleman situation was that of the European Jews in the Middle Ages. Barred from owning land and encouraged to handle financial matters, they assumed their intermediate status because of the special historical circumstances of the period. This story has been repeated throughout recorded history, partly because the outgroup member may actually perform better than the ingroup member in market situations requiring objectivity and impersonality; Gemeinschaft bonds, in other words, may hinder Gesellschaft relations.

Cultural and racial minorities generally occupy this middleman role, probably because they serve as ideal scapegoats, as shock absorbers that protect the elite from the masses. The history of the European Jew bears tragic witness to this buffer function. During episodic crises—from depressions to revolutions and epidemics—the Jew has served as a unifying target of temporary coalitions between landed and laboring elements. Even in relatively peaceful times the Jew has often served the elite in such invidious roles as tax collector, or he has been the object of minor frustrations and competitiveness in market dealings. Hence, the superego stereotype of the Jew as ambitious, sly, and dishonest took root. Significant, too, is the fact that this stereotype has also been applied to non-Jewish groups caught in the same middleman position. Consequently, the Chinese merchants of Malaysia and Indonesia are often called the “Jews of Asia,” and the Muslim Indian merchants of east and south Africa the “Jews of Africa.”

The id stereotype

The assignment of an impulsive id stereotype to an outgroup occurs in a wider range of intergroup situations; however, these groups are almost invariably at the bottom of the social structure and are generally far less technologically skilled than their detractors. With a history of slavery, segregation, and poverty, Negro Americans have long labored under the image of a lazy, happy-go-lucky, stupid, dirty, hypersexed people. So have the gypsies of central Europe, for centuries an outcaste group. So, too, have the poor of southern Italy. Research reveals that the view held by northern Italians of their fellow countrymen in the south is strikingly similar to the view of Negro Americans that is held by many white Americans (Battacchi 1959).

A recent example of the id stereotype has developed in Israel. Higher-status Israelis of European origins often look down on the lower-status Oriental Israelis from north Africa and Asia. The prevailing stereotype of the less technologically advanced Orientals is a familiar one. The assumed group traits are “…instability, emotionalism, impulsiveness, unreliability and incompetence …habitual lying and cheating, laziness, boastfulness, inclination to violence, uncontrolled temper, super-stitiousness, childishness, lack of cleanliness, and in general ’primitivity’ and ’lack of culture’” (Patai 1953, p. 314).

Contradictory stereotypes

Sometimes the two types of images are fused into a single contradictory stereotype. In Nazi Germany, for instance, the lack of a significant id type outgroup forced the anti-Semitic image of the Jew to do double duty. Jews had to serve as the personification of both superego and id concerns and were seen as both lazy and too striving, stupid and too intelligent. In most countries, however, bigots possess the luxury of a variety of outgroups, and more differentiated stereotypes have evolved. The prevalence of such stereotypes in the world today raises questions concerning the possibility of relatively permanent safeguards against intergroup conflict.

Institutional protections

Intergroup and race relations can always be improved; group prejudice and discrimination are by no means inevitable aspects of the human condition. Institutional mechanisms can be established to protect minorities and foster intergroup harmony, and often these institutional changes are won by the minorities themselves. Thus, in the United States, Negro Americans have achieved significant alterations through direct, nonviolent action (Pettigrew 1964). These alterations typically eliminate practices of racial segregation, a prerequisite for allowing and encouraging intergroup contact that meets Allport’s four criteria for positive change. Indeed, nationwide public opinion polls have noted major improvements in racial attitudes and linked much of this improvement to the alleviation of segregation (Hyman & Sheatsley 1964).

Political coalitions

Political pressures for such institutional changes frequently come about in democracies when a coalition of minorities becomes electorally powerful. For example, the dominant political party in the United States won seven out of nine presidential elections from 1932 through 1964 as a delicately balanced coalition composed of the predominant share of the nation’s Negroes, Jews, and Roman Catholics. It maintained this coalition in large part because of its achievements in establishing institutional protections of minority rights—the most heralded, perhaps, being the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Legally required changes

Appropriate and enforced laws are a principal means of institutionalizing minority acceptance. Yet some repeat the nineteenth-century dictum that “laws cannot change the hearts and minds of men.” Changes in race relations in the United States over the past century do not bear this out. A case in point is the 1945 legislation against discrimination in employment enacted by New York State. As a result of this law, many New York City department stores hired Negro Americans as sales clerks for the first time. Two investigations conducted separate tests of the effects of this law-induced desegregation. One study of white sales personnel revealed that those who had experienced the new equal-status job contact with Negroes held more favorable attitudes toward interracial interaction in the work situation (Harding & Hogrefe 1952). Once again, however, the initial effects of this contact did not extend beyond the immediate situation; equal-status clerks were not more likely to accept Negroes in eating and residential situations.

The second New York City department store study questioned customers (Saenger & Gilbert 1950). Though reactions to later questioning varied, there was a widespread acceptance of this legally required racial change. Customers were largely concerned with convenient and efficient shopping; many hesitated to challenge the fait accompli firmly established by the law; and for others the new situation was consistent with the national belief in the justice of equal opportunity for all.

Behavior and attitudes

Contrary to the old adage, then, law can change the hearts and minds of men. It does so through a vital intermediate step. Enforced law first acts to modify behavior, and this modified behavior in turn changes men’s hearts and minds. Notice that this is precisely the opposite sequence commonly believed to be the most effective method of improving intergroup relations. Persuade people to be less prejudiced through informational and good will campaigns, goes the conventional reasoning, and then their intergroup behavior will improve. To be sure, this sequence is sometimes effective, but the preponderance of social psychological evidence attests to the greater efficacy of the opposite approach. Behaving differently is more often the precursor of thinking differently.

The basic problem with exhortation as a means of bettering intergroup relations is that it does not require participants to change their behavior. If there is intergroup contact, it is generally brief and artificial. Moreover, a vast body of psychological data indicates that prejudiced individuals avoid tolerance messages altogether, deny the relevance of the messages for themselves, or find ways of twisting the meaning of the messages (Cooper & Jahoda 1947; Hyman & Sheatsley 1947).

True, antidiscrimination laws can also be “tuned out” by prejudiced individuals. But if properly enforced, such legislation has a potential for achieving behavioral change that is not possessed by exhortation. Several reasons for this are apparent. There is, of course, the threat of punishment and unfavorable publicity for recalcitrants. But more important is the “off the hook” function such laws provide. Thus, the department stores in New York City may each have been afraid to hire Negro sales personnel as long as there was no assurance that their competitors would follow suit. But the antidiscrimination law, applied to all stores, furnished this needed assurance. And, as noted in the studies previously cited, the legally established fait accompli, unlike exhortations for intergroup tolerance, generates its own acceptance. The situational face lifting it achieves is a year-round process, a constant, institutionalized reminder that intergroup harmony is the sanctioned norm. Finally, the new behavior required by the law commits the individual psychologically; for he who has publicly behaved in a new manner and been rewarded for doing so is likely to become personally committed to the intergroup change.

A microcosmic case in point

The fundamental principles underlying situational factors in intergroup relations are dramatically highlighted by an ingenious field experiment conducted by the eminent social psychologist Sherif (Oklahoma, University of …1961). Twenty young boys, of homogeneous backgrounds but previously unacquainted with one another, attended a summer camp set up for the investigation. From the start, the boys were divided into two groups— “the Rattlers” and “the Eagles.” The first stage of the experiment was designed to develop high esprit de corps within each of the groups. Totally separated from each other, the Rattlers and the Eagles engaged in a variety of satisfying experiences, and each group soon developed the pride and sense of “we-ness” characteristic of strong ingroup solidarity.

The second stage of the study brought the two groups face-to-face in a series of grimly competitive tasks, such as tug-of-war, baseball and football games, and tent pitching. In all of these contact situations only one group could win and the other had to lose. The inevitable animosity soon appeared. Derogatory songs and slogans were composed; destructive raids on “the enemy’s cabin” began; negative stereotypes developed; and even preferences for group segregation were voiced. Competitive contact had wreaked its usual havoc.

The experiment’s third stage tried to mend the damage. An approach involving more intergroup contact without competition came first. The boys met in such situations as eating good food in the same room, shooting off fireworks, and attending a motion picture. Note that all of these activities involved passive conduct without common goals or group interdependence. And, understandably, intergroup friction between the Rattlers and the Eagles did not abate; in fact, the boys employed these unfocused events as opportunities for further vilification of their hated rivals.

Next the investigators introduced carefully contrived problems that required the cooperation of both groups for their solution. Fixing the damaged water tank that supplied the entire camp, jointly raising the funds to show a favorite motion picture, and other such functionally dependent behavior achieved a striking decline in intergroup hostility. While at the close of the competitive second stage more than half of the characteristics assigned by the boys to their group rivals were sharply unfavorable, more than two-thirds of such judgments were favorable at the close of the interdependent third stage. In addition, the percentage of friendship choices across group lines multiplied fourfold.

One final result of Sherif’s intriguing investigation replicated the limited nature of the attitude change initially induced even under optimal inter-group contact conditions. The first interdependent encounters of the two camp groups by no means removed all of the bad feeling between the Rattlers and the Eagles. But as these socially sanctioned confrontations continued, the prejudice-reducing power of this type of contact accumulated.

This finding suggests that as a widespread process of institutionalized change in intergroup relations proceeds, it may well receive increasingly greater support and have increasingly greater effects upon the participants. This possibility is of special relevance to such intergroup processes as India’s efforts to end caste discrimination and the United States’ efforts to end racial segregation.

Thomas F. Pettigrew

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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