St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1947-11-14

sANAARs
When we agreed to limit the arti-
Gle to some Of the things Mrs. Stee-
fel has learned about interracial
problems from other people" she
agreed.
make II clear" she insisted,
that no one should say he works
for the Negroes or for other mi
norities. For me to say that l do
would be not only preSumptuous,
but unwise.
II haven't the physical, In
tellectual or spiritual expert
fence Of a Negro and neither
has any other white person.
We work with Negroes. And
we work against unconscious
patterns Of escape, indifer-
enee and aggression in the ma
jOrity groups.
These patterns are the sources
Of the problem, and they can't be
met without getting TO know the
hurt the other fellow feels"
Mrs. Steefel first learned some
thing about the way Negroes feel
when she was seven years old, and
living in Cambridge, Mass. Her
father died, and she moved with
her family into a neighborhood
where there were a good many Ne
gToes. She went to a public school
with Negro children.
Children tend TO conceal n
lot less than their parents do"
Mrs. Steefel said. Their hurt
tends to come to the surface
more often and more Visibly.
They don't have n sense Of RAJ
cial difference-they're too
yOung-aRd they show to a
contemporary an inner bitter,
discouraged feeling that their
parents express to each other
at home.
Children don't know 1t as u race
problem, but they do know pain,
humiliation and fear when they see
1t.
"a seven-year-old tells another
seven-y ear-old about this hurt in
words just as clear and lucid as
sunlight. You don't have to go to
a book to get that kind Of knowl-
edge"
Later, when Mrs. Steefel worked
in Boston with the Children's Aid
society, she saw another aspect Of
the problem. There she said, II
saw some Of the sociological i'm
plications Of what 1t costs to repair
some Of this stupid blindness.
Il learned some Of what Mr..
William SeabrOn Of the Min
neapOlis Urban League teaches
so beautifully with his charts
and lectures. That is--the vi
ciOus circle-that when you
keep a man, skilled or not, from
using his high skill In employ
ment, he and his entire family
is hurt and the community too
is deprived, because neither he
nor his children can make their
fullest contribution.
80 that at 10, doing social work
to work my way through college,
| learned arguments for fair en-
ployment practices just as at seven
/ learned what 1t does to people to
have the cards stacked against
them"
When she came TO Minneapolis,
Mrs. Steefel said, she became aware
of the general problem at the Uni
versity where her husband is a pro-
fessOr Of history.
Il saw the segregation Of Jew
ish students socially, and even from
the faculty and student leaders l
heard thoughtless anti-Semitic talk.
| am glad to say that there is far
less Of that here now than there
was 25 years ago.
Incidentally. my husband is
Jewish-Rot in religion but eth
ieaIly and BY tradition. We and
our children are very proud Of
that heritage. We have always
taught our children the value
Of both sides Of their JudAistie-
Christian inheritance
along with that has gone the
burden for them and for ourselves
Of adjusting to the community's
prejudices and tendencies toward
segregation. We have all tried to
feel that this has been another OPP
portunity to learn skillS In dealing
GAL q.