Raceme

“ True it is, in the meantime, that the negro race has a strong instinct of devotion and veneration, and this may be seen by the people's eyes, which have a peculiar, kind, faithful, and affectionate expression, which I like, and which reminds me of that beautiful expression in the eye of the dog: true is it also, that they have a natural tendency to subordination to the white race, and to obey their higher intelligence ”

“ I never knew of any distinction on account of the color of the flesh of a human being. Indeed, when I think of what the colored people have been made to suffer at the hands of their supposedly superior race, every time I look a colored brother in the face I blush for the crimes that my race has committed against his race. ”

“ Thus, in a negro, a very black and lustrous skin, clear bright eyes, white teeth, and a general conformity to the normal or average negro features are decidedly pleasant even to Europeans when once the ordinary standard has become familiar; [2] while in a European the same eyes and teeth are admired, but a white skin, a rosy complexion, and moderate conformity to the ideal Aryan type are demanded. Each is alike pretty after its own kind, though naturally the race to which we each ourselves belong possesses in most cases the greatest attractiveness to each of us individually. ”

“ By State laws and the decision of the Supreme Court they belong to the negro or the American-African race. By the law of nature they belong, either to the Anglo-American race, or are a race within themselves. It is no longer a doubtful question; their constant increase in numbers shows that they are engenesic, and capable of maintaining within themselves a race of their own. Can such a people as this mixed race, imbued with the instincts, capabilities, and ambitions common to their white blood, be forever thrust back upon the negro race? ”

“ When a particular phenomenon occurs rarely, the probabilities are strong against the recurrence of it. Having heard the craniological and other objections to the supposed identity of the negro and white races, I came to the opinion long ago in Africa, and I have seen no reason to change it, that whether they are of one race or not there is no original or congenital difference of capacity between them, any more than there is between a black horse and a black dog and a white horse and a white dog. ”

“ What is the real meaning of Race; what has, in the past, been the law of race development, and what lessons has the past history of race development to teach the rising Negro people?
When we thus come to inquire into the essential difference of races we find it hard to come at once to any definite conclusion. Many criteria of race differences have in the past been proposed, as color, hair, cranial measurements and language. And manifestly, in each of these respects, human beings differ widely. ”

“ Thus he has shown that the characteristic physiognomy of the Negro is found to occur and disappear by nice gradations in strict accordance with the differences of climate throughout the African Continent.
The tendency to variety is very manifest, even from facts under our daily observation. Individuals are common among European nations, who exhibit some one or more of the traits of the Negro, as, for example, his woolly hair, thick lips, &c. Among the Negro races have been born individuals of a perfectly white colour. ”

“ My eyes opened upon a group of silent forms, seated around me in the gravity and quietude of Orientals--all more or less like the first stranger; the same mantling wings, the same fashion of garment, the same sphinx-like faces, with the deep dark eyes and red man's colour; above all, the same type of race--race akin to man's, but infinitely stronger of form and grandeur of aspect--and inspiring the same unutterable feeling of dread. Yet each countenance was mild and tranquil, and even kindly in expression. ”

“ The complexion is in general less black, the nose less flat, the lips less protruding, the hair less woolly, the dolichocephaly and prognathism less marked—in a word, the salient features of the Negro race less prominent than elsewhere. ”

“ For example, the type of the negro race is marked by black skin, frizzly hair, white teeth, flat nose, projecting lips, and prominent jaw. That part of Anthropology which concerns itself with races and their sub-divisions is called Ethnology. ”

“ The origin of the African race has provoked more criticism than any other of the various races of man on the globe. Speculation has exhausted itself in trying to account for the Negro’s color, features, and hair, that distinguish him in such a marked manner from the rest of the human family. ”

“ Perhaps you are not aware that among the white race the finest grained skins generally belong to persons of dark complexion. This, as a characteristic of the black race, I think might be accepted as some compensation for the coarse woolly hair. ”

“ It is a comprehensive study, written in an interesting style and leading logically up to the conclusion that the solution of the race problem lies in dealing with each man according to his merits, regardless of color, and leaving the ultimate relation of the races to nature and the sovereign powers.
“The author’s general knowledge of ordinary historical facts seems, on the whole, adequate, but some mistakes have crept in. The negro is present only as a lay-figure. The style is terse and interesting, and the book has a good index.” Carl Russell Fish. ”

“ The immediate effect upon the negro was wonderful, the flitting to and fro of masked horses and faces struck terror to the race, and any belated negro on the road at night who saw us coming never stood on the order of his going. ”

“ But the eye soon becomes accustomed to the black skin and the thick lip, and the ear to the broken patois which is the nearest approach to English which the ordinary negro ever makes. When one has been a week among them, the novelty is all gone. It is only by an exercise of memory and intellect that one is enabled to think of them as a strange race. ”

“ I noticed one unusually striking figure, a stunted negro with a pock-marked face who wore a gaudy yellow handkerchief bound about his head and heavy gold rings in his ears. I observed this sportsman looking hard at me and was a little nonplussed to see him apparently draw the attention of the man at his side to me. The negro's companion was a swarthy, lissom young fellow with handsome features and a pair of bold black eyes. The negro nudged him and broke into a torrent of words. ”

“ Between these two extremes is an almost innumerable variety of mixed races, each having its own peculiar designation, indicating the precise proportion of European, Indian, and negro blood in their veins, each marked with its own peculiar physical, intellectual, and moral characteristics; and each finding its chief boast in the nearness of its relation to the white race, and looking down with contempt upon those a shade darker than its own. ”

“ Anyone at all familiar with the hopes and aspirations of the colored race, as expressed, for instance, in their prolific newspaper literature, must have perceived the wonderful inspiration which they have drawn from the career of a few distinguished Europeans of partial Negro ancestry, who have felt no call, by way of social prejudice, to deny or conceal their origin, or to refuse their sympathy to those who need it so much. ”

“ To our reproach it must be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and or red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. ”

“ And here we found that while all races are equally gifted in this respect, yet its elementary conditions are not always the same in different branches of the Adamic tree. Taking the extremes in color as the representatives of a fair contrast in other respects, we have confined our investigations to the white and black races,—and with a view to our own profit, and to being fully comprehended by the reader,—these races as they exist on our own shores. ”

“ And it is not merely the demand of the white man that the Negro step aside by himself, for the Negro himself is drawing the colour line, and drawing it with as much enthusiasm as the white man. A genuine race-spirit or race-consciousness is developing. Negroes are meeting prejudice with self-development. ”

“ There is the familiar figure of the African negro, with skin so dark-brown as to be popularly called black, and black hair so naturally frizzed as to be called woolly. Nor are these the only points in which he is unlike us. Indeed, the white men who blacken their faces and friz their hair to look like negros make a very poor imitation, for the negro features are quite distinct; we well know the flat nose, wide nostrils, thick protruding lips, and, when the face is seen in profile, the remarkable projecting jaws. ”

“ Negroes, the dark race of tropical Africa, distinguished by their dark woolly hair, their black eyes, their flat noses, and their thick lips; they occupy rather a low level in the scale of humanity, and are lacking in those mental and moral qualities which have impressed the stamp of greatness on the other races that have distinguished themselves in the history of the world. ”

“ As a matter of fact we cannot take such extreme and largely fanciful stock as typifying that which we may fairly call the Negro race. In the case of no other race is so narrow a definition attempted. A "white" man may be of any color, size, or facial conformation and have endless variety of cranial measurement and physical characteristics. A "yellow" man is perhaps an even vaguer conception. ”

“ This elliptical form of the Negro's hair causes it to curl more or less tightly.
There have been repeated efforts to discover, by measurements of various kinds, further and more decisive differences which would serve as really scientific determinants of race. Gradually these efforts have been given up. To-day we realize that there are no hard and fast racial types among men. Race is a dynamic and not a static conception, and the typical races are continually changing and developing, amalgamating and differentiating. ”

“ There is, of course, no doubt that great differences exist in the physical characteristics of the races of man. The 19color of the skin, the form of the hair, and the configuration of lips and nose, distinguish the African clearly from the European. The question to decide is, What relations have these features to the mental aptitude of a race? Two points of view may be brought forward in relation to this question. First, we may claim that a race in which peculiarities are found that are characteristic of lower stages in the animal series will be in all respects of an inferior type. ”

“ They thrust a silly race pride into my face, which isn’t necessary at all and which I always resent with a race pride of my own. It has even occurred to me at times that these temperamental race differences could be quickly adjusted only by an appeal to arms, which is sillier yet. ”

“ Experience has shown that whereas immigrants from Europe can ultimately be absorbed into what we may term the [pg 252] American race, the negro, wearing the badge of his race in the pigment of his skin, is not to be absorbed. Even the octoroon is clearly distinguishable from the white. The negro race must, so far as the future can be read, remain a race apart.
The case of the Indian affords another example of the failure of two races, separated by colour and other physical markings, to fuse. ”

“ A Negro walked—not climbed—up a stem like a four-footed animal, his legs and arms straight, his feet pressed flat against it, his hands clinging round it—a feat impossible, as far as I have seen, to an European—tossed us down plenty of green nuts ”

“ RACIAL APTITUDES Such are the three races, the Alpine, the Mediterranean and the Nordic, which enter into the composition of European populations of to-day and in various combinations comprise the great bulk of white men all over the world. These races vary intellectually and morally just as they do physically. Moral, intellectual and spiritual attributes are as persistent as physical characters and are transmitted substantially unchanged from generation to generation. ”

“ Two hundred years ago there were two distinct and separate streams of human life running through this country. They stood at opposite extremes of ethnological classification: all black on the one side, all white on the other. Now, between these two extremes, an intermediate race has arisen, which is neither white nor black, neither Caucasian nor Ethiopian, and this intermediate race is constantly increasing. ”

“ Over the better feelings of the white race, dominating them, are the black shapes of contempt and repulsion towards the race once their servants, made their equals by a wordy fiction of their enemies, but still under their feet. ”

“ The upshot, as we find it to-day, is that in a magnificent country, well outside the torrid zone, and eminently suited to be the home of a white race, one person in every three is coloured, and one person in every four is physically indistinguishable from an African savage. It would be the extravagance of paradox to maintain that this is a positively desirable condition, preferable to that of a country which presents a normal uniformity of complexion. ”

“ For the similarity of suffering has produced in all lands where whites rule colored races a certain similarity of sentiment, viz.: a racial revulsion of racial feeling. The peoples of those lands begin to feel and realize that they are so subjected because they are members of races condemned as “inferior” by their Caucasian overlords. The fact presented to their minds is one of race, and in terms of race do they react to it. Put the case to any Negro by way of test and the answer will make this clear. ”