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¦"THE women of Baltimore have enough confidence in the cleanliness of Negro women to intrust to them the care of their children and the preparation of food for themselves and their families. Pies and cakes stirred by black hands are relished at the tables of our "best people." Strangely enough, these same "best people" resent greatly trying on coats Negroes have touched, wearing gloves Negroes have tried on, or buying hosiery that Negroes have examined. So strongly do they feel on this subject that they have recently brought enough pressure to bear on Baltimore's department stores to compel them to prohibit the few Negroes who have money enough to be able to buy first-class goods the privilege of spending their money as they wish. It is too much to expect consistency when it comes to race prejudice.
The desire "to keep the nigger in his place" seems to be founded upon the idea that if the "niggers" are down the whites are up. The old slave psychology, kicked out of the door, has come back through the window and is unquestioned master of our household. It is easier to outlaw an institution than a state of mind. The white man all over the country still thinks of the Negro as his born servant. Some of my friends protest to me that they have no prejudice. They really love Lottie and Tillie. Yes, at the wash tub or in the kitchen.
Everybody in the South and North is glad that slavery as an institution has gone. We know that the Negro is of greater benefit and causes less trouble free than he did as a slave. We recognize the fact that slavery was economically unprofitable and morally degrading to both blacks and whites. What is true of slavery as an institution is true of slavery as social compulsion.
It is evident that no man is made wiser by. another man's ignorance, no man is
to suffer wrong without malice is well expressed by the statement of Booker T. Washington, engraved on his statue at Tuskegee, "I will not allow any man to drag1 me down so low as to make me hate him."
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