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http://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/HonoluluRecord1/articles/v4n8/Frankly%20speaking.html

Honolulu Record, September 20, 1951, vol. 4 no.8, p. 8

Frank-ly Speaking

By Frank Marshall Davis

“Unbelligerence” vs. Discrimination

Several persons have called my attention to the article on Herb Jeffries the Negro crooner, appearing in the September 3 issue of Life magazine.

Permit me to say at the outset that it is an excellent article for Life, since it paints a picture of discrimination that undoubtedly is foreign to the majority of readers of this widely circulated publication.

But despite its many good points, there is one with which I and many other Negroes disagree. It is the emphasis placed by the Life writer on the “unbelligerent” attitude of Jeffries toward racism.

Discrimination Costs $30 Billion Annually

Shortly after reading the Life story, I came across an item which said that Elmo Roper, noted public opinion analyst, had estimated that racial and religious discrimination in industry is costing the nation’s economy close to $30 billion a year.

In addition to the loss of purchasing power brought about by low wages and limited job opportunities, Roper cited the wasteful expense of maintaining segregated schools, housing, hospitals and other public facilities. He also pointed to the high cost of crime, delinquency, sickness and social maladjustment which can be traced to prejudice and discrimination.

To bring this close to home, undoubtedly the crime, delinquency and social maladjustment which shaped the lives of Palakiko aria Majors was partially the result of discrimination against non-haoles in the Territory. It is no secret that here in Hawaii, haoles often draw higher pay than non-haoles for doing the same job; low wages often lead to the breaking up of families with the resultant scarring of the lives of the children. Society then pays a high price later for the delinquency it has created through discrimination.

Although prejudice hits Jews, and in some areas Catholics, as well as all non-white groups, its chief victims because of then numbers and historic condition, are Negroes.

Tactics of “Unbelligerence” Cannot Erase Discrimination

But the cold fact is that discrimination cannot be erased through the tactics of “Unbelligerence,” no matter what the Life writer might think. I doubt that Herb Jeffries himself would advocate unbelligerence as a general weapon.

For a half-century the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has taken the lead in the fight against discrimination, and its guiding light is militancy and more militancy.

The breaking down of discrimination in education, which finds many Negroes entering universities in Dixie; the equalization of teachers’ salaries; the ending of restrictive residential covenants, and the many other gains on the civil rights front are the result of intelligent militancy instead of unbelligerence.

Doesn’t Pay To Have Segregated Schools

The Pair Employment Practices Commission, established by executive order of President Roosevelt at the start of World War II, came into being only because militant Negroes threatened a mass march on Washington. Since then many firms, which previously barred Negroes, Jews and Mexicans from jobs, have them regularly employed and several states have set up their own Fair Employment Practices Commissions.

As a result of these definitely belligerent actions by the NAACP and other organizations, many persons have come to realize that discrimination is a tremendously costly business. It doesn’t make sense for poor states such as Mississippi and Georgia and other Dixie commonwealths, to split their comparatively scarce dollars and duplicate their educational facilities just to keep two groups separate. The result is that neither group gets first class education.

Not only does the $30 billion sacrificed yearly on the altar of the god of prejudice make a mockery of democracy and hurt us in the eyes of the rest of

The world, but it is a disgraceful waste and unsound economically. It’s the same as pouring that amount of money down a rat hole.

Militancy Necessary To Bring About Improvements

Last week I spoke of a plan advanced by Dr. Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard University, to establish peace between our nation and Russia and bring up the standard of living of the rest of the world. That would require an estimated annual expenditure of $25 billion. Simple arithmetic shows that ending discrimination in America would provide not only the funds needed for worldwide rehabilitation, but would leave a total of $5 billion for domestic use, or else taxes could be reduced by that amount.

But unless you are militant about fighting discrimination, how are you going to point out these facts to the general public and thus move toward their correction?

In 1903, a Department of Commerce and Labor was created. The Department of Labor, as now constituted, was finally organized in 1913.

Profits of 30 large oil companies soared to around $1 billion in the first half of 1951. That’s a 42 per cent increase over the 1950 period.

[MR. DAVIS]