University of Virginia Library

IMMEDIACY

6. Prof. Carl G. Jung refers to what he calls the immediacy of the Negro race. The Encyclopedia Britannica calls the Negro of Africa essentially the child of the moment. Prof. Kelly Miller calls attention to the shortness of the lives of Negro institutions, organizations and enterprises. The halictus bee has an attitude that calls for the rebuilding of her colony twice a year, the Wasp once a year, while the society of the apis bee lasts from three to ten years and that of the ant as long as forty years. If the Negro race on the whole is characterized by a short range vision and the rest of the American people by long range vision it can be seen that there will be a conflict of spirits.

This childlike immediacy to which Prof. Jung refers plays a large part in the splitting of Negro organizations. Negroes, like all other human beings, are imperfect, and these imperfections manifest themselves in their organizations. Some of them are very glaring and annoying and call loudly for reformation. Reformers appear and are able to show very clearly that there are evils which should be removed. Often this cannot be done at once. Reformers, characterized by "childlike

immediacy" insist upon immediate correction, and when this does not take place, they proceed to try to cure the evils by pulling away from them.

Those who withdraw from what they consider evil conditions are themselves imperfect human beings, and it is not long before evils appear in the new organizations. These evils most likely will be of a different nature but they will be evils just the same. Other reformers will appear, and again "childlike immediacy" will assert itself. The organization which came as a result of a split itself now suffers a split. This process goes on and on, and will go on indefinitely until the "childlike immediacy" is cured.