Racism - A Short History - George M Fredrickson.pdf - WNLibrary

intellectual and emotional development” and that there
was “no reliable evidence that disadvantageous effects are
produced” by race crossing. The most important reason for
the repudiation of eugenic racism, one prominent geneticist
concluded, was “the revulsion of educated people in
the United States and England to Nazi race doctrines and
their use in justifying the extermination of the Jews.” 49
Within the United States, there was a growing realization
among those concerned with international relations
that Jim Crow not only was analogous to Nazi treatment
of the Jews and thus morally indefensible but was also contrary
to the national interest. The Commission to Study
the International Organization of the Peace reported in
1944 that “the cancerous Negro situation in our country
gives fodder to enemy propaganda and makes our ideals
stick like dry bread in the throat.... Through revulsion
against Nazi doctrines, we may, however, hope to speed up
the process of bringing our own practices in each nation
more in conformity with our professed ideals.” 50 During
the same year, Gunnar Myrdal endorsed such hopes in his
seminal study of black-white relations in the United States,
An American Dilemma: “The War is crucial for the future of
the Negro, and the Negro problem is crucial in the War.
There is bound to be a redefinition of the Negro’s status in
America as a result of this War.” It was a central theme of
his book that “not since Reconstruction has there been more
reason to anticipate fundamental changes in American race relations,
changes which will involve a development toward the
American ideals.” 51
The conjunction of the Cold War and the decolonization
of Asia and Africa created enormous practical incen-
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