The Enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 192?-1930, 1927-03-25
By Robert Whitaker, Los Angeles

The article by l.. l.. Richardson
appearing recently in your paper
under the title ''Negro Students Dis
play Amazing Ignorance of Famous
Negro Characters" forcibly remind
ed me of an experience which | had
in Seattle which indicated the ig-
norance of the type set forth in the
article named is by no means con-
fined to folks of the Negro race.
"Who is David Starr Jordan" !
asked group of Seattle students,
chiefly of grammar school grades,
but including number of high
school students. The question was
followed by absolute silence on the
part of the young folks. Yet the
question was asked in a Seattle
church where DR.. Jordan had spoken
not more than year or two before.
"What is that Mountain" | asked
a school teacher with whom ! was
travelling in northern California in
the early summer of 1898, indicat-
ing as | asked the question a big,
black butte off to the southwest.
And she actually answered, without
batting an eyolash: 4 don't know; it
isn't in our county,
"Have you any data on Puget
Sound?" ! inquired Of the assistant
librarian at a college library in
southern California. She moved over
toward the card index and as she
did so she smiled at me quizzically
and said: "Let me see! Where is
Puget. Sound?"
"Tell me what the Bible story is?"
I asked of young man, perhaps 30
years of age, at Y. NJ. C. A. confer
ence in the Northwest. He was
Y. M. C. A. secretary. Yet he was
baffled by the question, as were all
the rest of the group, all of them
Y. M. c. A. secretaries. Not one of
them knew how to give the Bible
story, as a whole, in a simple, con-
nected, graphic fashion.
To my mind the failure last re-
cited was the most significant of all.
II might slip the minds of body of
active young persons as to just who
was back of a certain name, even
though the name had been known to
them before. A geographical unit like
Puget Sound, might be obscure as
to its location on an instant's de-
mand. So, also, one fairly well in
formed with respect 20 many matters
might have failed to identify a sum-
nit of only local interest inasmuch
as it lay outside Of the immediate
local environment.
The more serious matter is that
very few of us have anything like
coherent knowledge of the things
which concern US most. Ninety-nine
Bible readers out of hundred do
not know the Bible, even the sur
face of it, so as to visualize the
book as whole.
"How many of you can visualize
the history of the United States?" |
asked a student group on Puget
Sound. And | explained to them
what | meant by the word visual
ize." 81 mean, how many of you can
see it, as you see the outline of
your city or your neighborhood" ]
said. And they all confessed ignor-
ance and incompetence with respect
to what ought to have been known
to every one there.
II is worth something to find that
young Negroes have some acquain-
lance with the famous folks of their
own race, especially those who are
doing significant things today. But
whatever such knowledge may be
worth, it is of incidental value COM
pared with the wisdom, strangely
lacking among whites and blacks
alike, of the factors which have had
to do with creating the world in
which we live and our own present
relations to it.
American ignorance of America
is one of the most appalling facts of
our time. II is for this reason that
we Americans make such fools of
ourselves, or allow others to make
such fools of us, in reference both
to our home problems and our rela-
tons with foreign peoples. George
Bernard Shaw has remarked that
hundred per cent AmNicanism"
as far as he had observed it was usu-
ally about 90 per cent provincial
boobery. That is, it represents no
real acquaintance with America and
the forces which have made Amer
lea what it is, but only provincial
prejudice. "Buncombe," as you
may know, is from Buncombe Coun-
ty, North Carolina, where more than
a century ago, when the Negro issue
was becoming "a stone of stumbling
and rock of offense" in American
politics, an ignorant representative
from that region made flamboyant
speech concerning the Missouri COM
promise and when taken to task for
his political pifae answered boldly
that he was talking for Buncombe. y
So are most Americans who discuss
world issues today on the side OF
what is called "Americanism," talk
ing for Buncombe"; that is, for some
regional group or interest and not