An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (Black and African-American Studies) Volume 1
By:
Gunnar Myrdal
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Gunnar Myrdal belongs in a category with Alexis de Tocqueville and J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur--non-American authors who have written essential works on the American character. In 1954, the Swedish-born Myrdal delivered this massive (and massively influential) book on the status of American blacks. It is a somewhat depressing account of segregation and lynch law, but it is also full of optimism. Myrdal's hopefulness appears to have been justified. Black Americans still face many problems, but their place in American life has much improved, thanks to a near-complete revolution in racial attitudes among whites and a highly successful civil rights movement. If we learn about the present by reading about the past, then An American Dilemma has much to teach us today, especially about how far the United States has come.
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Monumental - but not without flaws - The importance of this book cannot be overstated - it is still the most exhaustive effort to date to document every aspect of the black American condition, from medical history to birth rates to the black church and social clubs. Myrdal systematically shreds the institutions of segregation and racial indocrination. As for providing groundwork for changing these systems, however, he falls short. Myrdal is too vague in his theories of white morality and causation of black poverty and never draws solid conclusions. There is also no mention of actual contact or conversation with any black people - Myrdal fails to see blacks as much more than a palimpsest of the white experience. I think he would have done better to push the white psyche aside and interact more with the focus of his study. Ralph Ellison noted, "Can a people live and develop over three hundred years simply by _reacting_? Are American Negroes simply the creation of white men, or have they at least helped to create themselves out of what they found around them?"
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Thoughtful and Thought-Provoking - Writing against the backdrop of WWII, Myrdal confronted the contradiction between the US belief "All men are created equal" and the reality that African-Americans earned less for the same work as whites, lived in atrocious conditions, died at an earlier age. He argues that if Americans had believed that God made some poor, others rich, this contradiction could have been acceptable. But because Americans believed "all men are equal," the fact that African-Americans were manifestly living in worse conditions lead US society to seek a justification in the doctrine of racial inferiority. This book grasped the contradiction in US society, and foresaw that change was imminent, but Myrdal did not see that it was those under-educated and overworked African-American men and women themselves who would form the backbone of Civil Rights Movement. He expected that the white elites in power would have to change in order for the situation of African-Americans to improve. One reason this book is relevant today is Myrdal's theory of cumulative causation, which suggests that government intervention will be necessary to reverse the tendency of white race prejudice to maintain a low standard of living for African-Americans. In days where economic theories attacking the logic of affirmative action are widespread, here is an eloquent statement of the logic behind the original ideas for affirmative action.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Myrdal's Analysis Too Important to be Ignored - During the long course of our studies of social trends that undermine our collective humanity, we have frequently come across significant research studies that provide critical keys to our understanding. Such is the case with AN AMERICAN DILEMMA: THE NEGRO PROBLEM AND MODERN DEMOCRACY. The Swedish researcher Gunnar Myrdal, under a grant sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation, produced this landmark study which was published in 1944 by Harper and Row publishers. Some fifty years after its publication AN AMERICAN DILEMMA still stands as perhaps the most comprehensive, and unsettling, analysis of America's relationship with its African members. At nearly 1500 pages, including footnotes and index, Myrdal's study is awesomely comprehensive. Disturbing revelation follows revelation as the scientist, trained in economics, explores every imaginable aspect of Negro life and at various times even proposes methods by which America might eventually relieve itself of its longstanding "problem." From the beginning of this country's history, at the heart of America's ethnic crisis lies the very real potential of sustained and systematic planning to manage Blacks as a material resource as opposed to human beings in all their potential. I will take this thought further to state that Myrdal's study stands as a virtual blueprint for a contemporary campaign to undermine the aspirations of the Black citizenry. The ultimate form of this repression can only be described as systematic genocide--by every definition of the word. By Myrdal's own words, his study is quite thorough, encompassing not only every aspect of Negro life but examining the varied attitudes of the dominant white majority.
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