St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1945-08-24


the power and energy therein
convey the impression that the Am
erican Negro in the minority state
in which he exists in the United
States should go out to invent
things that would create trouble
here in his native land, it is evil
dent that the ability to think along
these lines is far more productive
and tangible in concrete results
than a lot of talking to a white man
to make him change an already pre-
conceived notion of what a Negro
is and how to handle him.
Too Much Emphasis on Social Work
In fact there seems to be much
danger in the increased attention
our educators are giving the fields
of race relations and social work
as the career medium for our young
men and women coming out of high
schools and colleges throughout the
land. It should be clear that Jim
crow and segregation exist only so
long as they are profitable. The
white merchant who refuses to sell
Negro woman a hat in his store
does so because his white customers
will buy Is times as many as a
Negro woman would buy. The same
goes for the restauranteur who re-
fuses to serve colored and does a
landslide business on whites who
want to eat some place where Ne
groes are not.
Race relationships are touchy
these days. The need for someone
to be liaison man or woman be-
tween an irascible white man and
the Negro is pretty apparent. But
l don't think it makes much sense
to make complete business out of
it because the people engaged in
such work look for such jobs to last
and are not inclined to really solve
problems where such solution is
possible. They would rather gloss
it over, irritate, and keep alive the
issues that keep them on good pay
ing jobs. 1t seems to me that no
one has yet taken the trouble and
time to find out why we have such
extremes in our economic structure
that find college graduates in
sociology, history, music and other
"soft cultural Subjects" red cap
ping, or in the case of women, nurs-
ing some white woman's child for
$500 a week.
A Person Has to Eat, You Know
1t should be easy to discern that
the kid who comes out of school
with his degree in any of the SUBJ
jects mentioned, logically expects to
be employed in that field. When he
goes to a dozen or more places to
get a job and he is turned down
for various reasons, among them
color or unavailability of the posi-
ton, he or she has to eat and as he
is honest, he seeks the next thing
that he can do which nine times out
of ten is an unskilled job that calls
for neither thought nor prior prepa-
ration. There should be an in
sistence on the part of those Ne
groes who have assumed the leader
ship of the race for more technical
courses in the Negro schools.
The mind of Negro youth should
be conditioned for careers involv-
ing knowledge of technical skills
and trades. The army has solved a
great part of the problem for us
already. If We let it slip, We are
nothing but fools. The thousands
upon thousands of Negro boys who,
during the period they spent in the
armed forces learned a variety of
trades and skills through compul-
sorry measures peculiar to the mill
tary, should be our bulwark for
building greater corps of skilled
technical people. The thousands
upon thousands of Negroes who
learned automotive mechanics, how
to operate bulldozers, cranes, pile
drivers, how to survey, and the
technical skills involved in the build
ing and maintenance of airplanes
and other instruments of war should
be augmented by thousands of Ne
gro graduates of technical and
scientific courses who will join their
effort with those of our fighting
men in building for peace and prog
ress. The Atomic bomb, again I
say, should remain as a lesson in
objectivity for those of US who in
sist that the Negroes best bet lies
in professions where he talks or
writes and does no work with his
hands.
The easy money and gay social
life, that goes with social work and
protest jobs, has destroyed the
pioneer spirit of the present day
Negro college graduate. We should
start now to deemphasize this
leadership, by stressing productive
opportunities in the scientific and
business field. Here is where the