The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1931-02-05
Christianity Practised
By Colored Folk
Continued from Page u

Continued from Page u
in the town there are dozens OF
grotesque chapels, each radiating
anthropoid superstitions.. each sup
porting an oily go-getter, and each
pumping dollars out of poor people.
Further on are huge churches almost
without number most of them
foisted on the ignorant by whites
eager to clear out, and each with
its mortgage. Meanwhile, the 1907
900 Negroes of Baltimore are UNI
able to support their one small
hospital, and when they are i'll most
Of them have to turn to the whites.
Barnyaid Theology
1.-The course of this batnyard the
,Iogy lies over the whole of America.
1t is responsible for the worst cor
ruptions of our politics, and the
generally uneasy and uncomfortable
tone of American life. II gave us
Prohibition. II put Hoover into the
White House. In the South it is
solidly behind Ku Kluxery, and IL
hence manly to blame for the ex-
ploitation and ill-usage of the Ne
gro.
yet there are so-called Negro
leaders who argue gravely that it is
boon TO their own people-that
there is something mysteriously re-
filming and uplifting about itz-in
other words, that it is a merit to
keep Negroes ignorant. | only hope
that this appalling doctrine finds no
customers among the young Negroes
who now pour out of the colleges,
eager to find some way to help their
own. If they come out Methodists
and Baptists, then the situation of
the Negro in America is indeed
hopeless
Vestigc of Slavery
"But If they emerge with some
share of sound knowledge and a de-
cent respect for their own minds.
hen they will apply themselves to
combating this last and worst YES
ige of slavery. There can be no
real and general progress in the race
until it is disposed Of So long as
Negroes believe in rubbish they will
never get beyond the level of the
Southern poor whites. In other
words, they will never get beyond
he level of the most ignorant and
degraded white men now known on
Earth.
Poorest Racial Group
"Thc Negroes of the United States,
constitute the poorest racial group
taking one with another, probably
in the country. Even the Indians
-. s. show a higher average wealth.
Maybe the Mexicans are as poor as
he Negroes, but doubt 1t. :.
There is prejudice against them
so long as they are in poverty, but
as soon as they get money they may
aspire to anything. But the over
whelming majority of Negroes are
still doomed to dull and profitless
toil. Not many of them do well in
business, and ever fewer succeed in
he professions.
"A really successful Negro lawyer,
physician, banker, engineer or man
If science is still sort of miracle.
Nor are Negro artists much better
off. can think of no Negro
FAINTER or writer who makes $4,000
/, year. A few musicians perhaps
,ut that is about all
White Prejudice
part of this lack of success is
due, plainly enough, to the prejudice
Of the dominant white. He still
thinks of the Negro as congenitall,
inferior. l.. Even when a Negro
ioes manifestly superior work there
is a disposition to decry it. Every
line l print an article by a Negro
n The American Mercury certain
readers send me word that it is bad,
and ought not to have been printed
Similarly, when I sat lately to a
Negro portrait painter, number of
friends assured me that the paint
ing would be a botch. though they
had not seen it and did not know
Being White
There is little apparent tendency
among Negroes themselves to sup
port and encourage their genuinely
salient men. Normally, they seem
10 follow only two kinds of leaders:
those who try to make them salts
factory to white people and those
who try TO make monkeys of
But ! am sure that very little is
accomplished for the race by follow