The guardian. [volume] (Boston, Mass.) 1901-1960, 1947-11-22
LIE RIGHT no Have scoUNpRELs

defense. Look at Enstenw Look at Carver" Look
at Toscanni" "0f cours eJews Cor Italians blacks)
must be all right"
They mean well, these defenders But their approach
is wrong Their approach is bad. What minority
group wants the right to have geniuses among them
but the right to have fools and scoundrewthout being
condemned group. Every group has about the
proportion of wrongdoers But when wrongdoers belong
to minority their number is magnifed in the minds of
other people. Each individual wrongdoer multiplied by
the number of his whole group Minorties would gladly
give up the reflected glory of their great men, only the
world didn't burden them with the gnominy of their
scoundreIs. Both types belong to mankind whole
and mankind whole may share the well
the honor.
Moreover the presence of great men who represent
minority group does not prove that perfect equality
walls Great will out, and above the handicap
of discrimination of oppression Such handicaps
just another hurdle and genses become accustomed
to high hurdles. The average member of a minority
with only moderate talents may not do well under
Unfair conditions the genius. He may have to give up
his ambition to be doctor because he can't get into
medical school which keeps outexcept for few excep
ons-students of certain religious origins Or he may
find scientific laboratories closed to him his color is not
right But if his ambition is aconsuming if he knows
beyond all argument that mis- destiny lies III certain
direction, then it likely that he will find his way in
that direction Unbreakabe resolution is one of the char
acteristics of genius
That doesn't make the lot OF the man of average
talents any better And when the average talents
is member of minority, he is doubly unfortunate. He
doesn't benefit in any practical way from the geniuses
who happen be his brohers-n-blood Yet at the same
time he harmed by those of his brothersn-bood who
happen to be scoundrels.
What minorities need therefore, is the right to have
natural number of low-down rotters among them The
law of averages allows any group certain percentage of
antisocal characters. Heritage and environment
strong every household matter what language
is spoken there. Environment does not only the
roundings within the family circle general social
vironment also has its effect Not the effect all
people, of Here where the personal equation
in again Not all members of aristocratic families
for instance goodfornothngs whose main occupa-
ton keeping divorce lawyers busy Some have managed
to keep plenty of red corpusces alive in their blue blood
In the same way not all children who grow up in shanty
town are predsposed to criminay. Nor all those
brought up immigrant homes where tradition pulls one
way and street life another Only very small percentage
of these children ever goes wrong.
Yet when, as grown-ups, they do go wrong and get
their in the paper the whole group they represent
is stamped with the scarlet letter of shame How many
readers there who do not at identify the origin
of culprit by his mention of his color and
mentally connect him and his group?
Where a member of the majority group is concerned,
that connection is not drawn Does the fact that
born in Boston reflect badly every Bostonian
Does the threecentury American origin of forger cast
doubt on the integrity all three-century Americans?
SO the difference between the privileges enjoyed by
majority groups and the privileges allowed minority
groups resolves itself into the right to have scoundres
among them. The right to have scientists and artists
benefactors of socety-s not greatly different.
Scientists and artists treated individuals and
thought of individuals except when their are
drawn into conversation evidence in favor of a
magned minority group But law voators, in the minds
of people who read about them in the newspapers
usually not thought of individuals The law accords
them the right to be considered Individually but the law
cannot control the mental processes of the millions pf
good people who make up countrys population There
way of forcing people to break in their ownmnds
the link between a scoundrel whose name betrays a
particular origin and all other people of that origin
Breaking the link depends the intelligence and the
good will of the majority groups who individuals to
themselves and who remain individuals to Others untalned
by any msbehavior their origin may be guilty
Of
1t is a strange slogan: Give the right to have
scoundres among Yet turning that slogan into reality
will make the rmest cornerstone for democratic struc
ture.
(The above article taken from the Saturday
Revew of Literature, October g. 1915 Permission to
reprint was granted Full credit due The Saturday Re-
view and the author of The Right to Have Scoundres