University of Virginia Library

Our Heritage

The following letter, like the initial letter
on the barber shop situation, has brought to
our attention an unhappy situation which
needs correction:

Mrs. Carmen Clements

Mrs. Clements has raised an embarrassingly
profound question in her last sentence. There
is no doubt in our minds that the problem lies
in "the system," and that the barber-beautician
imbroglio is just an outward manifestation
thereof. That answer, however, leads
directly to two further questions: what is "the
system" and how do you fight it?

In its broadest sense "the system" is a
heritage. It is a heritage which is so inborn, so
ingrown, and so inbred that it is immeasurable.
It is a heritage by which no part of this
country is untainted, and it is a heritage which
this country has in common with many others.
It is a heritage which, in its most rudimentary
stages, grew from individual man's basic and
innate desire to elevate himself above others.

Given that the world is filled with men
who vary in their physical appearances in
certain patterns, this heritage, at its worst,
teaches that there are variations in men, other
than the visible ones, which nevertheless fit
into the same pattern; further, it insists that
these other variations are, like the visible ones,
inborn, innate, unalterable, and, if weaknesses,
insurmountable.

Given that the world is filled with men
who vary in their physical appearances in
certain patterns, this heritage, at its best,
teaches that those visible variations are a more
legitimate basis for evaluating individual members
of a pattern than are any of the non-visible
variations.

In either case, at its worst or at its best,
the heritage teaches that members of a given
pattern are, because of their membership in
that pattern, automatically superior or inferior
to members of other patterns in a given
situation.

The patterns are, obviously enough, races,
the heritage is racism.

Racism is nothing new - it's as old as man
himself. Instances of active racism are present
throughout history, from Biblical times to the
present; it has not confined its "benefits" to
any one race; rather all have been ascendant at
one time or another.

The fact that all have been ascendant at
one time or another in itself seems to deny
the validity of the heritage as described above
"at its worst," although it fails to satisfy
many members of a race-now-ascendant-and-determined-to-stay-that-way.
That leaves the
heritage as described above "at its best" -
that the physical distinctions of a race are a
better basis for judging its individuals than are
their other variations - to be answered to.
Since judgment on the basis of one group's
physical distinctions relative to another's is
necessarily a value judgment, it becomes a
simple matter of "who's on top now," which
gets us right back to man's basic and innate
desire to elevate himself above others.

It is from the force of that desire that the
problems derive. It seems that the drive to
gain some sort of ascendancy and security
therein is one of man's strongest motives. It
seems that some men's whole existence thrives
on the knowledge that there is someone (the
more the merrier) below them on the "ladder."
The strength of the drive for them is
such that nothing is important enough to
allow those "down" to come "up." The drive
often takes precedence even over what men
pretend are the forces that ultimately govern
their lives, whether those forces be ones of a
religion which teaches that all men are equal
in the eyes of the Lord, or of a belief in a
principle which teaches that all men are equal
in the eyes of the law, or whether they be
ones of a natural repugnance (which is too
easily suppressed) to one man's gaining at
another's expense.

The point is that "the system" is history,
from which no one is immune. In this country
it manifests itself between the Caucasian race
and all others, of which the largest is the
Negro race. In Charlottesville it manifests
itself in white beauticians who will not train
Negroes or in a hospital which provides hair
care for white patients only. The white race is
ascendant now, the Negro race is struggling
out of suppression, the white race as a whole
is determined to keep it there - it's the
modern chapter of a highly repetitive history
book; it's the "natural course of events" - it's
just as disgusting now as it was when the Jews
were in the Egypt of the pharaohs, but how
do you fight it?

It's apparent that no one has found a
successful way to fight "the system" yet, and
we doubt that anyone ever will. To fight it
successfully - to extinguish it - would be to
establish an unprecedented order on this
earth. That order would be very close to a
Utopia, which, we fear, is not destined for this
earth.

But that does not mean it's worthless to
try. If we chisel a little here, and a little there,
a great deal of success can be attained where
total success is impossible. Even a little
success is worth the trouble, especially for
those who benefit from it.

So whom, indeed, do we boycott? We
cannot boycott the system, so we must settle
for boycotting its products. If we boycott its
products with success, we are that much
closer to the system itself, which, although
ineradicable, is suppressible in a given time
and place. Would that the University, and
Charlottesville, and Virginia, and the United
States were such places.

In the meantime, however, we, too, are
waiting for a report from the hospital. Are
Negro patients indeed not offered the same
service in the area of hair care as are their
white roommates? If so, is it because of
unavailability of equipment or unavailability
of personnel who are willing/able to provide
the same service for all? If it is so, we suggest
that the situation be rectified or the rates
lowered for those whose current rates won't
buy the rights or privileges that the same rates
buy for others.