The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1931-11-12
COlored People Are
EverybOdy's People

NSVhllnued aIIOm page One.)
more Indian than African, and a
still larger number more Caucasian
than African. In some cases, too, we
discover among Us all but perfect
types of Orientals resulting from
the race admixture undergone by
our ancestors and from more recent
amalgamation.
All Kinds of Blood
II must be difficult, then, to con-
duct school, to establish a church
or to promote business with people
handicapped by all of these traits
and temperaments.
Persons often complain that col
ored people do not get along well to-
gether. How can they when they
have so many differences and diver
gences of interests? They are not
race. The only thing they have in
common is suffering from oppres.
sion, but that has not yet proved to
be a force strong enough to drive
/ them together and hold them in line
for something constructive. In the
case of the West Indian and the
African of more racial purity there
is some hope.
Everybody's People
When you attend a meeting of
so-called colored people and find ii
breaking up in an uproar, as | saw
a committee recently do. you come
away discouraged about "our peo-
pie" but they are not "our people,"
They are everybody's people. Their
disputes often result from the fact
that some one who is more white
than black sees the thing altogether
from the Caucasian point of view;
another who is more Indian than
African can not appreciate the
thought of the others; and still an
other with a Chinese strain answers
the call of the blood and shows him
self to the contrary notwithstand-
ing The affair ends, then, in an
interracial squabble; and their fool
hardness is charged to the account
of African temperament.
Ever since the "colored people"
have been In the Western World,
therefore, this so-called race has
been repeatedly attacked by other
races for doing or for not doing
what they themselves have done or
have failed to do. Shortcomings,
which are attributed to the "colored
people," have never been discover
ed among the natives of Africa. For
example, sexual promiscuity, and its
coneomitant social diseases, which
are often charged to the account of
the American Negroes are not
found in native Africa. These are
special contributions of the whites
to Negroes" Polygamy is practiced
in Africa in certain places; but is
not general, for only the rich and
well-to-do can indulge in it, and
whenever it is practiced the wives
are decidedly loyal to the husband.
Emotional Religion
These so-called American colored
people are also censured by the 9TH
ers as being too emotionally religi-
Gus, but their religion and their
method of giving expression to their
emotions were taken over from
these other races" with which they
have come into contact. On account
of advancement in education most
of the others have developed out of
such religious practices in which
the "colored people" in their I'M
enlightened condition still find en-
JOyH6Hl, DuI Liiey are meIeiy uoluS
what they were once taught to do
by those whom they have initiated
in America.
This situation then, presents Sc
rious problem. Neither the whites
nor the so-called colored people ever
think about it. They boast of know
ing very much about this race"
but the fact is that they have not
even begun to study it; and, there
fore, so far as this question is con-
cerned, they have gone along in all
but perfect ignorance of problem
which must be scientifically studied
before the uplift of these people be-
comes possible.
Some of us would do well to read
E. A. Hootons new book, up from
the Ape" in which he treats the
Negro along with the others as a
product of race admixture. In his
chapter on who's Who of the
Races" he says that when races
come into contact with one another
they may sometimes fight, but they
always interbreed. This Is the way
we have got where We are today.