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The common practice, in analyses of race relations, is to assume that race prejudice and intolerance are identical social facts. For instance, Dr. Ruth Benedict says:
Traditional Anglo-Saxon intolerance is a local and temporal culture-trait like any other…. In this country it is obviously not an intolerance directed against a mixture of blood of biologically far-separated races, for upon occasion excitement mounts as high against the Irish Catholic in Boston, or the Italian in New England mill towns, as against the Oriental in California.
We may illustrate this point further. According to Ellsworth Faris:
The conflict between Jews everywhere and those among whom they live is a racial conflict. That the Jews belong to a separate biological race is doubtful and perhaps not true. Nevertheless the conflict is sociologically racial, for they are regarded as a separate race, are treated as a separate race, and hold themselves together as if they were a separate race.
The conclusion here is explicit: there is no difference between anti-Semitism and race prejudice.
We may think of intolerance as a suppressive attitude and of race prejudice as a limiting attitude. Anti-Semitism is an attitude directed against the Jews because they are Jews, while race prejudice is an attitude directed against Negroes because they want to be something other than Negroes. The Jew, to the intolerant, is an enemy within the society; but the Negro, to the race-prejudiced, is a friend in his place. As Joshua Trachtenberg points out, the Jew “is alien, not to this or that land, but to all Western society, alien in his habits, his pursuits, his interests, his character, his very blood. Wherever he lives he is a creature apart. He is the archdegenerate of the world, infecting its literature, its art, its music, its politics and economics with the subtle poison of his insidious influence, ripping out its moral foundation stone by stone until it will collapse in his hands.” Thus to the intolerant dominant group the Jew is not only an alien but also an aggressor against the society itself. “The Jew was the adversary without peer of Christendom, and ipso facto he was to be classed with all who sought destruction of the Church and Christian society, whether they attacked from within or from without.”
This conception of the Jews as a guest-folk perverting and even damning the hospitality of their host has been turned to violent hospitality against them. Indeed, intolerance seems to contain an element of reciprocation, since the persecutor, irritated by the intractability or even the assumed destructive potentialities of the persecuted, tends also to feel tormented and persecuted. One anti-Semite has been quoted as saying: “While we pray for the Jews, they persecute and curse us!” The Jews are thus conceived to be more than passively divisive; they are also charged with hating and betraying the society in which they live.
In the United State we may consider the white Southerners and the Northerners as two nationalities of the same race, the Southerners being the subordinate group. The cultural difference in the South, with its peculiar economic pattern, gives it a sufficient basis for the development of nationalism. Although its attempts to form a separate and independent nation have been frustrated, its nationalistic fires still smolder. The Civil War, of course, was not an interracial strife; Negro slavery merely constituted a part of the essential circumstances about which the two nationalities struggled. We should have expected the white people of the North to take sides with the Southern whites, had the conflict been a nationalistic conflict between blacks and whites of the area.
The reason for this should probably not be sought in some “consciousness of kind” instinct, but rather in the political-class situation of the colored people. In our secular, exploitative system few, if any, economic conflicts between ruling political classes can be as dangerous as a conflict between one of these classes and a proletarian group. The white nationalities of South Africa, for instance, and implacably decided on their common purpose of exploiting the natives; this is their basic interest, and their internationality problems must not so divide them as to defeat it. It is a similar passion, which on little agitation wells up in the capitalist ruling classes, regardless of nationality, against organized proletarian movements. Adolf Hitler, with some considerable success, attempted to exploit it even in the very heat of his world-wide international conflict.
The Jews in the United States and probably in most parts of Europe do not constitute a subordinate nationality; neither do Roman Catholics. But in Palestine the Jews are a nationality group which cultivates, Zionism, its nationalism, apparently with the intent of achieving national dominance in that country. The positive behavior aspect of nationalism, it should be remembered, is international and imperialistic aggression.
Probably the reason why the United States does not have so serious a subordinate-nationality problem as most continental European countries is that it did not develop in a similar matrix of international conflict. To be sure, its peculiar institutions and economic base—especially the relative fluidity of its social-status system – are contributing influences. The United States, like most American countries, is a nation of immigrants. It is English-speaking without being British. The French in Louisiana have less reason to be nationalistic than the French in Canada; in Canada the British and the French tend to be subnationalities reflecting the nationalistic rivalries of their parent countries.
In the United States the prestige of Americanism and the economic and political advantages available to the assimilated “foreigner” tend to lead to assimilation. In fact, in this situation of persons of different nationality we may think of them as the ‘foreign-born,” for assimilation rather than nationalism tends to be controlling social attitude. The different nationality groups are seldom regarded as subnations. Some of them, like the English and the French, rapidly lose themselves in the general population, and such groups as the Italians and Poles seek particularly shelter and sympathetic contact in national communities, so that the pains of assimilation may be more easily endured.
Unlike certain situations in Europe, no nationality group in the United States can reasonably hope to become independent and secede, while the disadvantages of gaining political recognition as a subordinate nation are apparently so great that no national group seems to desire it. In the United States, then, aggressive nationalism among minor nationalities is rather unknown. Consequently the group life of the various nationalities may be thought of as tribal rather than nationalistic conflict. As we have seen, however, in the case of such groups as the Chinese, Japanese and Mexicans, nationality problems are complicated by racial antagonisms.
Race Prejudice, Class Conflict and Nationalism:
The United States has set the pattern of Oriental exclusion for such countries as Canada and Australia. On the Pacific Coast, and in California especially, a distinct and rather involved racial situation has developed; perhaps it may be thought of as the completion of a “race-relations cycle.” Here, because of the rapid cultural advancement of these colored people, the national history of race relations has been greatly expedited. Like all racial situations, we approach this one also from the point of view of the white man’s initiative – he is the actor in chief; the Asiatics react to their best advantage.
The Asiatics came into California because there was a great demand there for their labor; they came because the relatively high wages in California enticed them. But the “pull’ was far more significant than the “push.” No matter how great the lure of higher wages, they could by no means have “invaded” the Coast if the encouragement and inducement of certain hard-pressed white employers did not facilitate it. The great wave of Asiatic common labour began to move upon the Western Hemisphere after the decline of the Negro slave trade – after 1845 especially. The West Indies, the Pacific Coast of America, and even South and East Africa received their quotas. The Asiatics came not as slaves but mainly as coolies; and gradually, among others, California and other pacific states had their Chinese and Japanese problem; Trinidad and Sough Africa, their East Indian problem; and Cuba, its Chinese problem.
These “Coolies” came mostly as contract laborers, some form of indentured-servant relationship; and ‘Wherever they were imported, they were used as substitutes for slave labor in plantation areas.” The Japanese, however, came later and probably with somewhat more personal initiative. Carey McWilliams summarizes the process of their coming;
With the conclusion of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1876 between Hawaii and the United States – which opened the islands for American capital—the sugar interests of Hawaii began to clamor for Japanese labor. As early as 1868 these interests had “practically stolen” 147 Japanese for plantation labor in the islands. Most of these initial immigrants, however, were returned to Japan in response to a sharp note of protest. The execution of the Reciprocity Treaty was followed, in 1886, by the adoption of the Hawaiian-Japanese Labour Convention. It was this agreement that, for the first time, “officially opened the doors for the immigration of Japanese laborers to the outside world.” Under the terms of the agreement approximately 180,000 Japanese were sent to Hawaii—the largest single body of workers that Japan sent to any land.
Professor H.A. Millis presents a case of labor displacements in Florin, a small town southeast of Sacramento, which has been called “the best locality in the United States for the study of Japanese agricultural life”:
The basket factory [in Florin] was established ten years ago. At first most of the employees were white women and girls of the community. They were found to be unsatisfactory in certain respects and were rapidly displaced by Japanese… It is said that the white women were difficult to manage, could not be depended upon to report for work regularly and, though paid by the piece, did not wish to work more than ten hours per day, or work overtime, or on Sundays, as it was thought the interest of the business required. In all these matters the Japanese were more acceptable to their employers, who are white men prominently connected with shipping firms in Sacramento. Paid by the piece, they formerly worked twelve to fourteen hours per day, and on Sunday, when the demand was such as to make long hours profitable. At present all the employees, except a representative of the non-resident manager, are Japanese.
The Chinese were charged with contributing to monopoly in connection with the great landlords and the railroads… Since these landed interest were among the most arden advocates of continued Chinese immigration the charge was frequently voiced that California was in danger of having a “caste system of lords and serfs” foisted upon it… The anti-Chinese element in California looked upon these “monopolists” as among the chief mainstays of the Chinese… These great landowners were regarded as worse than the plantation owners of slave days.
On the farm these extraordinarily temporary laborers economized their earnings in wages and aspired forthwith to become independent farmers. To be sure, the Asiatics were not brought to California to become farmers; they were brought or encourage to come as wage workers. Therefore, when a government survey reported:
As businessmen, also, Chinese and Japanese are out of their place. They are looked upon by other businessmen as foreign competitors, with the characteristic relationship of a struggle for markets. As H.A. Millis points out with reference to both the businessman and farmer:
Laundrymen in San Francisco and elsewhere, barbers, proprietors of small tailor shops, and others have protested when the Japanese have entered the circle of competition and cut prices or brought about a loss of patronage. The cry of “race problem” has been employed to accomplish economic ends. The growers of vegetables about Tacoma and Seattle, and the growers of berries about Los Angeles have protested ineffectively when the acreage has been increased by Japanese growers and prices have fallen.
The sporadic aggression of the employers gave considerable encouragement and stimulation to the anti-Asiatic movement among white workers, the latter may not have achieved the purpose of Asiatic exclusion so completely and it not been for their favorable alliance with Southern politics. It may seem strange that the politicians of the South, who advocate the interest of a ruling class that has fairly well subdued white labor through the widespread exploitation of black workers, should deem it advisable to take the side of the workingmen of California in their struggle against their employers’ desire to exploit cheap Oriental labor. And yet it was probably the weight of the Southern vote in Congress which made it possible for California to put over its national policy of anti-Orientalism.
The Japanese have never given up; their youthful nationalism prevents them from becoming an inconsequential people on the Coast. As one observer puts it: “The Chinese and the Hindoo may have intelligence; may have industry, but they are not aggressive, they do not seek to dominate, nor are they backed by powerful nations intent upon the domination of the Pacific Ocean, if not the world.
In some respects, race relations on the Coast are internationality relations; therefore, the relationship of whites to hindus, Chinese or Japanese have depended to some extent upon the power relationship of the parent nations of these peoples. The local attitude toward the Asiatics has been constantly involved with international treaties and diplomacy, and Japan has been the most determined nation with which the Unite States has had to deal. It is not, of course, that Japanese are more nationalistic than Americans, but rather that the Japanese have had to be aggressive in their struggle for position among the actually superior white nations. Discrimination against Japanese on the Coast naturally has been taken as insults to Japan. Moreover, as H.A. Millis observes: “[Japanese] emigrants have been treated… almost as colonists.”
The more nationalistic a people, the less will be its tendency to assimilate, the more it will tend to value its culture, especially its non-material culture, its religion. Moreover, when two highly nationalistic groups come into contact, there will be mutual fear, distrust, and intolerance. On the Coast intolerance for the Japanese has been partly due to nationalistic conflicts. As- one anti-Japanese saw it: “The irrigated part of Placer County is practically a little Japan… Controlling the land, they can perpetuate the ideas, habits, religion and loyalities of the mother country and do this indefinitely.” Difference in religion may be one basic reason for intolerance for the Chinese and Japanese. A different god implies a different system of morality. “Brotherhood,” says Marshall De Motte, an anti-Asiatic, “implies one father and cannot exist between peoples holding entirely different ideas as to the Fatherhood of God and man’s responsibility to man.”
That racial antagonism is not determined by biological, innate cultural incapacity or inferiority of the subordinate group is demonstrated by this racial situation. Sometimes it is openly admitted that the Japanese are a culturally superior people. On this very account, however, it is most difficult to exploit them and consequently they are most undesirable. “We admire their industry and cleverness, but for that very reason, being a masterful people, they are more dangerous. They are not content to work for wages as do the Chinese… but are always seeking control of the farm and of the crop.” David Warren Ryder puts it paradoxically: “Because they are orderly and not in jail, because they are thrifty and energetic, because they marry, set up homes and raise families, they are ‘dangerous’, they are a ‘menace’, they ‘threaten white supremacy.’” In fact, within limits, the greater the tendency of an exploited people to overthrow the harness of exploitation, the greater the opposition from their exploiters.
