Papers of the American Negro Academy. (The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers, No. 18-19.)Grimké, Archibald Henry
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Papers of the American Negro Academy. (The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers, No. 18-19.)
Grimké, Archibald Henry
African Americans -- Congresses
The effect that is produced in consequence of this state of things on
the morals of the men of the lower world, is distinctly and decidedly
bad. Such conditions, such a situation, could not possibly produce a
different effect so long as human nature is what it is. And the human
nature of each race is essentially the same. The morals of the men of
the two worlds will be found at any given time to be almost exactly
alike in almost every particular. For the morals of the men of the lower
world are in truth a close imitation of those of the men of the upper
world—closest not where those morals are at their best, but where they
are at their worst. This will be found to be the case every time. So
that it happens that where the morals of the men of the upper world are
bad, those of the men of the lower world will not be merely bad, but
very bad. There follows naturally, inevitably, under these circumstances
and in consequence of these conditions, widespread debauchery of the
morals of the women of the lower race. And for this there is absolutely
no help, no remedy, just so long as the law and public opinion maintain
such a demoralizing state of things.
If there exists no affinity between the men of the lower world and the
women of the upper world, there does then exist a vital connection
between the masculine morals of the two worlds. These morals are in
constant interaction, one upon the other. When the moral barometer falls
in the upper world, it falls directly in the lower one also. And as the
storm of sensuality passes over both worlds simultaneously, its
devastating effects will always fall heaviest on the lower one where the
women of that world form the center of its greatest activity. Whatever
figure the moral barometer registers in the lower world, it will
register a corresponding one in the upper, and this whether the
barometer be rising or falling. If the moral movement be downward in the
lower world, it will be downward in the upper, and if it be upward in
the upper, it will be upward in the lower and vice versa.
In view of the vital connection then between the morals of the two races
the moral regeneration of either must of necessity include both. At one
and the same time the work ought to start in each and proceed along
parallel lines in both. The starting-point for each is the abolition of
the double moral standard, and the substitution in law and in public
opinion of a single one, applicable alike to the conduct of both.
Otherwise every reformatory movement is from the beginning doomed to
failure, to come to naught in the end. For the roots of the moral evil
which exists under present conditions and by virtue of them cannot be
extirpated without first changing those conditions.
The morals of the two races in default of such change of conditions must
sink in consequence from bad to worse. They cannot possibly rise in
spite of such conditions.
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