The reasons given by the leading colored men of Chicago for the large
amount of crime among their people are curiously confirmed by the
results of this investigation. They contend that first, the negroes in
Chicago are so limited in the choice of employment that they under-bid
each other and are forced to work for the smallest wages. This obliges
the wife and mother to go out to work and the consequent neglect of
the children leads to truancy, incorrigibility and crime. Second, that
the colored people of Chicago are obliged to pay such a high rental
that a large number of families are forced to take in lodgers, which
results in much immorality and indecency among colored people who
would otherwise remain respectable. Third, that the colored people are
forced to make their homes in and near the openly immoral districts of
the city so that the only white people many colored children ever see
are those frequenting the vice district. Fourth, the disproportionate
number of negro criminals is due to the fact that their desire for the
friendship and sympathy of the white people is often exploited by white
criminals who wish to secure shelter from the police. Some obscure
colored family, happy to render a service to a white man, takes him in
sometimes for weeks or months, and he naturally influences the colored
men with whom he associates.
[Sidenote: =Remedies Suggested=]
As remedies against the unjust discrimination against the colored man
suspected of crime, a leading attorney of the race in Chicago suggests:
(a) Generalizing against the negro should cease; the fact that one
negro is bad should not fix criminality upon the race. The race should
be judged by its best as well as by its worst types. (b) The public
press never associates the nationality of a criminal so markedly in
its account of crime as in the case of a negro. This exception is
most unjust and harmful and should not obtain. (c) The negro should
not be made the universal “scapegoat.” When a crime is committed, the
slightest pretext starts the rumor of a “negro suspect” and flaming
headlines prejudice the public mind long after the white criminal is
found.
The colored man complains of race prejudice exhibited first in the
readiness to condemn the untried negro as a criminal; second, in the
refusal to give him employment fitted to his skill and capacity; third,
in crowding the colored population into the most undesirable houses
in the city. He does not resent social ostracism, but he does make a
vigorous demand for his civil and economic rights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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