Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1928-03-10
PLANETARY WISDOM
(Farmville, Va, Leader)

"A copy OIL IHe NiCilIiloiu iahcl,
a negro paper, edited by negro
eul,or, has just come to our desk
and it contains a series Of very
strong and very we'll written edi-
torials on the pressing race ques-
ton.
The &editor begins with certain
strain of delicious humor for which
his race is famous and which lies
at the bottom of popular negro
minstrels.
The butt our contemporaries wit
is "Chief Cook" of the "Pamonkey
Indians" The Planet derides the
big chief" because he says that,
rather than be classed as negro,
he would tie milestone around his
neck and jump into the James
River. The Planet regards this as
mock heroic and is hugely amused,
saying that when the big chief takes
the jump, all employers ought to
be asked to give their negro en-
ployees a holiday to witness the
spectacle.
The Planets ideas coincide ex-
actly with our own. The editor is
in favor of race purity and be-
ieves in calling negro negro
and dislikes the sentimental and
non-committal word "colored."
He realizes that there is no more
disgrace in the word negro" than
in the words "Jew," German" or
"Englishman." E~s.-ss& $50 Sc
The editor makes very strong
plea that the rule should work both
ways; he shows no small contempt
for "Chief Cook" and the "Pa-
monkey Indians" and says that TIE
negroes do not wish these hybrids
dumped into their race any more
than do the white people wish it in
theirs.
The Planet complains of the
racial integrity legislation because
of its tendency to class everyone
not white, or Indian, as negro. One
drop of negro blood makes a negro
even if the man be red-headed and
blue-eyed and our contemporary
thinks that negro should be man
or woman of pure African blood
and not mixture of white, Indian,
and negro. If we understood our
contemporary correctly it would
make three, or possibly four, classes
of our population. First, the white
man, who may have one-sixteenth
Indian blood, and second, negroes
or persons of pure African blood,
and third, Indians, people with a
certain percentage of Indian blood
and no negro blood. A fourth
class might be the general mixture
of the three races running all the
way from near-whites to- mulattoes.
We have always believed the way
to attain race purity is to convince
both white and negro races that
their race has it's fine characters
tics when pure bred but that
mixed race is apt to have the vices
of both races and the virtues of
neither.
The Planet attempts to raise two
constitutional questions, one that
the new racial integrity law would
contravene the prohibition of the
Constitution against ex post facto
laws. The editor does not seem to
be familiar with the rule of law
which confines the term sex post
facto" to criminal statutes; there
is nothing in the Constitution
against retroactive laws. He also
quotes the Fourteenth Amendment
of the Federal Constitution against
denying to any person equal pro-
lection of the law. This is more
difficult question, but it hardly
seems to us that the protection of
a race as such comes under the
term "deny to any person" 1t is
strange that we of this State re-
sented so vigorously generation
ago, the domination of the negroes
not then fit for political rights, and
that we now resent sitting in the
same railway car with them, and
yet that certain church people are
opposing measures which would tend
to keep both the white and negro
race pure. We are glad to see that
our friend the Planet has the same
ideas about keeping the negro race
pure as most of us have about the
white race, and we think that true
remedy is to educate both races to
the dangers of a mixed race and
the Importance of keeping their
race Dure