NEGRO LIFE IN THE CITY OF HARLEM

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 37, 27 February 1937, Page 17

NEGRO LIFE IN THE CITY OF HARLEM

The White Man's Conventions are Defiriitely Observed, Amid Contradictions, both G)mic and Tragie, which Make the City a Modern Ghetto.

rjHE CITY OF JNEW YOllK oovers more than the island of Manhattan, writes Geoffrey Gorer in the Fortnightly, London. Rovmd the nari'ow core of white Englishspeaking Americans there is a city of Germans, another of Italians, a third of Pol'es, and a fourth of Gubans ; there are villages of Chinese and Yugoslavs; there |ire smalier settlements wher© only. Yiddish qnd French are spoken j but the bigge&t of theae cities within a city ia Harlem, the home of the hiew Sork xSfegro. The lnhabitanta oould with some justice be called the original Americans. for at any rate one lihe of their ancCstry has been ia the Unjted Stntes longer than any groiip'of white Americans of simiiar size. Most 'of the negroes came to the' United fe'tates in the" 17th .and 18th cCUturies, most of the white© in the'niiddle of the 19th. and even laterj there is not, however, a Negro Sociai Jbtegjister based on ancestryf and no si^veship has so far been set up in rivalry to the Mayiiower. Architecturally, Harlem appears "far more European than the other parts of New York. The change in atmosphere from Southern New York ia striking. There ie less trafiSp, less noise, less show of hurry: lite is not envisaged as a continual rush to catch a. train which is just leavihg; people have time to saunter along the streets. The contact of Harlem with the rest of New York is fajrly slight. The greater number of its inhabitantc pass their lives without reference to the whitesj in many instances, if they keep clear of the law, without any contact at 'all. Not only do the Negroes have practically.no contact with white people; they withdraw from white society as complefely as white society -iHthdraws from them. l'he Negroes are, not unnaturally, excessively ruce-conscious ] and this race-consciousness takes the form of a snobbish exclnsivenqss, which is at least at^ strong as that of the whites. Harlem society is the hardest in the whole of the Umted StateB for a i'oreigjner to enter j it is far easier for a visitpr to gst into Park Aveniue thah into atrivpr'a Row. ' Of course there are a certain number of Negroes who enjOy the company of whites who lik© Negroes (these lattcr are ignomi* nously termed by both races ',iig-chasers,'> ; but they gre exceptiona for both cammuuities. t • The much talked of Harlem night life is completely paradoxical. The whites come to Harlem to have fun with the Negroes, and in the piaces they go to you will never see n Negro except as entertainer or waiter. A few Negroes may be hired as make-believe guestsj you will practically never find a Negro plpyihg in the piaces whites frequent. The piaces the Negroes go to for their own pleasure would disappoint the eeekere after illicit thrills j they are cheap and extremely eedate, with, oq. the whole, very little drinking or love-making. The Negroes compenpate for the racial inferiority which is imposed upon them by the whites by subdividing themselves into a niimber of mutually exelusive groups. There are practically no Negroes who cannot find a portion oi their race about whom they can feel themselves superjor. This system of mutual euperiority is undoubtedly a necessary psychological support for the Negroes' anenviable position in a predominently white civillsation; it is also very useful for the whites, for it eplits the Negroes' feeling of eolidarity, and prevents them uniting to re-

sist the oppression und unjust teeatment of which they are continuai victims. The first eign ih a Negro that He or she wishejj to be considered better than his fellows ia hia clothes. The ordinary Negro weare clothes of bright coiours and gaudy p&tterna which would look outrageoua on a wfiite, but which go admirably with their whole appearauce; but the Negro with aocial pretentiohs looks on auch clothes as a sjgu of a lack of culture, and instead of the parrq£ reds and gre'ens and electric bluee, he will dress in gieys and browns. The ordinary Negro in his everyday life revolts aguinut and parodies the standards of his white neighbours— punctuality, . carefulness with xhoney, reepect .-for the conventions, degalised eex; the Negro who wishes to rise socially oii the tother Uand respects these whiter conventions. ©ven more etrorigly thUn'the whitesthemselves. Then, when a Negro is soberly dressed, circumspect 'in his behaviour, respctable and sedate in his home liffe, with an increasing banking account, and with con* versationai fiuency on cuitured subjeqts — literature, the arts, politips—he is 'ready for society; perhaps he will even have hisname

down for an apartment in Stiriver'e Row or Sugar Hill. These are the derisive names given to the streets by those who do not inhabit them. In Striver'a '-ttbw it is really only wealth that counts; wealth that manifests itgllf in huge chandeliers, in life-size marble sfatues, in gold-stamped velvet curtains and potted palms. Some of the over-c*0«ded interiors seera' with their expensive fufnitur© like visions of a lost world, Here ie society in the deadest sense of the word : formal entertainments, liveried servants, heart-burn-ings over invitations which have or have not been sent. Sugar Hill. on the other hand, has less luxury and mere taste;. the furnishing is simpler and more modern; many of the apartments have pleashnt contemporary paintings, or African Negro carvings ; Sugar Hill is the aristocrcacy of intelligence. And when a Negro has made the grade', has got into one of the two societies, what

theuP Then he talks and ne talkb ahU ii« talks. VVitli us Auglo-baxoiia hap sunli to so low ahd . utilitarian a levcl that we cannot see that if cah'also be an aim m ltaelx, bkt the Negroes tnjuy taxxiug and iisteupxg to good taxk j and «ih-o thqy jbake euucalxou aua what is cunsiaeiCd to ue culture serxousiy, 'uiexr taik u> ixsuUUy outu exxtextumxug aua wexi-xxixorxuea. " T'hvy ua- . turahy oover ah euUiiuuui' vaxxety oi top^a, but tnere ia oue topic wnich ovJrtopu Aua jpefmeate all . the rest — the Jopio ut Laca. ~ ia xt poisioie ior Negroea aua wxutea to pnders^na one another^ is it possiMe for them Over .trust one another f L»o they ever teJi onb'_enother the truthP it aeema to me , ' tfiSfc the/ /practically never . do. Nearly all Anierican N egroee a^e on .the, dxen8ive . ugainst whitea and wxil tell/hem as httle ea possibioj and 5 Whsfe fhey da tell thhin wiU amost certainly he-fsjaei- Time- and again 1 have heaid; Negroes recount, how they have xobbed otf whites with faise information, jfhis lyiug is a form . of self-def enoea pi protectiou xruiu iuocKeiy, oiten qtute unneceasaxy wxth the xndivxduai, though juatified .wxtn tne race; 1 hav© heard Negroea whom ' l^t.hought wexe hxy irienaa boast that they had hdver reaily g|iveu tuexr oohfidence to a .white uian, • ' - • ^.lougsias the dxscu^sxou of the relatxon* ahip er wuxte and coiouxea goes the dxscuasxou oi the pecaixar attauutts ; the pahi aud iuthre ox the XNegroes aa a rqce. .v^hat js tue pxeseht aua pbtehtuxx oontriuutiou oi the ^Negroes to worxu ciatureP is tnole the potu axonity, oi an Oxoxusxveiy Nqgxo ai'tr' * f ' nx' qniy oue sectioxx Oi iu.uiericttn N egio life xs theie any tra.ee of Africa( aua that ia ia tiwif xehgloh, partxcuiaxiy xn tho odu secta which atuact the pooreet Negroes. hronx wnat i couia see of tue ''cohjur xuen'' aua "wise women" a certain amoun/ pl (VV est . African tecnaique has been preseived, Pf-obabxy througn later contact witn Jamaica wnere the Atnoan, particulariy Ashantx, tx.adiuon naa been pieaerved, And with these Atrican remnants the latter-dayr N^grd niagicians empfoy all the deyices of Eufo- . pean superetxtxon, Cnristiau and pagan, epUituaust and occuitist. With smaii Tacgi vaxxations, the JN.egyo trades oix ihe fear and credualxtxes ot his ieUows in the same w^y as the white charlatah. Heiigion is probably ihe greatest ihto* grating xoroe amohg the Harlem ' Negroes, and greater unity can be got through a ie* iigious movemeat than in any other way. Wnen 1 waa in xN.ew York the Negro with the greatest influence (as opposed to Joe Louis, - tn© boxer. who was a uuxversai hero with his photo in every home) was Jb'ather Hivlne. h ather Hivine could exaot implicit obediehce from his large congfegation and ha wai using this solid masa of voterg politically, threatenihg over tha radio that they wpula all vote the way he.told theui, aud that he alone could forecast how a quai'ter of a mii* lio'n people would vote. . It is difficult to fofesee the futhie of the American Negro Logically he ihould have none, except as an American ; the colour bar i$ a stupid anachronism, which prevehtl, not inter-breeding, but an equal wage for equal work. But people are not logical, and until the American people regard a man's qualities and actions, rather than his parente and the colour of his skin, Harlem is likely to continue as a sort of modern ghetto, with all the contradictions, comic "and tragic, that such an institution inevitably. produces today. - - — :