Mydral's Assumptions on Race Relations: A Conceptual Commentary

Myrdal's thesis with regard to race relations in American society is examined conceptually to bring out its underlying normative assumptions concerning the nature of social integration and of social change. An alternate interpretation of race relations in American society is offered, based upon assumptions that are more structural and less normative in character. PARTICULARLY since 1954, almost all attempts to treat members of "racial" minorities according to universalistic standards of citizenship have met with a storm of opposition in southern states. While this opposition was not unexpected or unforeseen, the prognosis for race relations and for culture change more generally in the South depends largely upon the meaning ascribed to it. This paper comments on a view, advanced most cogently by Gunnar Myrdal in 19441, that the opposition has its source in a value dilemma with respect to race relations, in American society. Myrdal's thesis has become so well institutionalized among sociologists that its assumptions have never been systematically examined, to my knowledge. Attention rather has been centered on issues of methodology raised chiefly by Myrdal's repudiation of "disinterested social science"2 or on issues of substance lending themselves to statistical test: notably the hypothesis of a differential rank order of discrimination between whites and nonwhites3; and the hypothesis of "moral discomfort" in the practice of racial segregation4. By contrast, this paper attempts a conceptual rather than empirical analysis of the Myrdal hypothesis. The first part examines the assumptions which underlie Myrdal's concept of American culture as a "dilemma" with respect to race relations. The second examines the assumptions of his dynamic analysis, and suggests an alternate way to interpret the dynamics of race relations in American society, given assumptions concerning social integration and social process different from those which he employed. AMERICAN CULTURE AS A DILEMMA In making a "comprehensive study of the Negro in America", it was perhaps inevitable that Myrdal should have been struck by the existence in American society of two irreconcilable sets of values, in respect to "race" and "race" relations. One set emphasized the inherent equality of individuals in terms of their "racial" origins, and the moral desirability of minimizing "race" as criterion for avoidance-acceptance relations. The other set emphasized the inherent superiority of one "racial" group over another, and the moral desirability of maximizing "race" as criterion for avoidance-acceptance relations. Myrdal conceptualized the relationship between these two sets of values in terms of generality-specificity. To the first set, he ascribed the authority of what he called the American Creed, saying that it operated on "the general plane ... where the American thinks, talks, and acts under the influence of high national and Christian pre* The writer is indebted to Professor Samuel DuB. Cook, Atlanta University, and to Professor David Riesman, Harvard University, for helpful comments and suggestions. They are in no sense responsible, however, for the views expressed here. I Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York: Harper Bros. 1944), 2 vols. 2 See for example, G. Nettler, "A Note on Myrdal's 'Notes onFacts and Valuations' ' , American Sociological Review, 9 (1944) pp. 686-8; C. C. Bowman, "Polarities and the Impairment of Science", American Sociological Review, 15 (1950) p. 482. 3 For example, L. M. Killian and C. M. Grigg, "Rank Orders of Discrimination of Negroes and Whites in a Southern City", Social Forces, 39 (March 1961), pp. 235-9; E. E. Edmunds, "The Myrdalian Thesis: Rank Order of Discrimination", Phylon, 15 (1954), pp. 297-303. 4 See E. Q. Campbell, "Moral Discomfort and Racial Segregation-An Examination of the Myrdal Hypothesis", Social Forces 39 (March 1961), pp. 228-