started again." At this point the constable noticed some books in the back seat,
and asked: "You a communist or agitator?""No.""Preacher?""No."
"Teacher?""Yes, a college teacher." Then the constable said: "Boy, I ain't
heard you say 'sir' to me yet." The Negro replied: "Well, sir, I'm just trying
to get my car started so I can move on." At that point the constable hollered to
two Negroes sitting on the curb in front of a gas station: "Hey, you niggers,
come help this colored gentleman get his car started!"

Most middle-class white people find interaction with middle- and
upper-class Negroes to be uncomfortable. They are used to Negroes as
servants. When they meet one who is obviously not a servant, but who
in education and occupation and general, cultural accomplishments is
similar to themselves, they do not know how to behave. They do not
want to deny the legitimacy of the symbols of class superiority, for
that would weaken their own values about themselves. As a result, such
interaction is usually marked by rather excessive formality, and is kept
to a minimum.

Although Americans put many limitations on the behavior of white
ethnic individuals in economic competition and social interaction, they
expect that eventually ethnic differences will disappear as the various
streams of European immigrants adapt to American culture. Indeed,
Americans cut off large-scale immigration precisely because they did
not like to have large groups of strange people in the country. The
dominant cultural values all stress eventual assimilation. The good im-
migrant or son of an immigrant is the fellow who learns how to be-
come "100 per cent American."

Americans usually make exactly the opposite assumption about Ne-
groes. They do not want them to assimilate to the point of social
equality, intermarriage, and absorption into the white majority. As
Myrdal repeatedly emphasizes, this is the basic premise behind most
white reactions to Negroes. Southerners, who are more afraid of as-
similation, erect every possible barrier to Negro educational and oc-
cupational progress because they believe that such progress implies that
the day of assimilation is brought closer, and the purity of the white race
is, for them, a supreme goal in life. Northerners are less afraid of as-
similation; there are fewer Negroes among them, and the Northern
whites seem more ready to believe in the possibility of a biracial society
in which Negroes can achieve high occupations without demanding
intermarriage. Ecological segregation in the cities seems to most North-
erners adequate protection.

Thus, the dynamics of the stratification variables hasten the assimila-

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