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Author : Gregory John Walter
Title : The menace of color
Year : 1925

Link download : Gregory_John_Walter_-_The_menace_of_color.zip

Preface. The narrowing of the world by the improvement of transport in the last century has created increased difficulty in the relations between the different races of mankind. We are warned that civilization is endangered by the rising tide of colour ; and the progress of humanity is embarrassed by the rising tide of colour prejudice. I discussed some of the main issues in the Presidential Address to the Geographical Section of the British Association at its meeting at Toronto in August, 1924. The attempt to treat such complex problems in a short address was attended by the difficulty that some opposing evidence and important qualifications could not be mentioned. Some of the statements must have appeared dogmatic, and others due to ignorance of essential facts. Courteous criticisms in the American press have remarked the omission of reference to the northward migration of the Negroes, which was due to a second difficulty. The address had to be printed in June, and the information regarding that migration available in Britain was so contradictory that I withdrew the paragraph on that subject until I could make personal enquiries in the United States. In view of the imperfections inevitable in so brief a statement, I have adopted the repeated suggestion to treat the subject at greater length. The discussion of racial problems in different lands involves the use of terms by which it is easy to give offence. In some parts of America members of the Negro race object to that name and prefer to be called People of Colour; while elsewhere that term is applied only to halfcastes. "Negro," however, is now being generally used in the literature of the race, and I therefore adopt it. For some reason "Negress" is so strongly resented-though the feminine suffix is not regarded as derogatory in Empress or Duchess-that I have avoided the word. ...