“Has Science Conquered the Color Line?” (1949) is an article by Walter White that appeared in the United States in Look magazine on August 30th, 1949. It is about a substance called monobenzyl ether of hydroquinone, or monobenzyl for short. It destroys melanin, the substance in human skin that gives it colour.
Walter White was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). I used to think he was white: he had white skin, blue eyes and blond hair. In fact, he could pass for white but chose not to. He wrote an article about that too, “Why I Remain a Negro”, in 1947.
Discoverd by accident: black and Mexican workers who used a certain kind of long glove complained their hands and arms were turning white. They took the company to court. Scientists, meanwhile, found out what chemical in the gloves was affecting their skin.
Not safe: in 1949 monobenzyl was not safe. In some it caused pain, convulsions, or a low white cell count in their blood. And, by destroying melanin, it removed its protection against cancer. Even white people have melanin in their skin, just less of it.
Not long-lasting: monobenzyl’s effects only lasted six to twelve months.
Walter White, though, was confident scientists would perfect it:
“It’s almost a certainty that a safe form of the chemical will be on sale within two to ten years.”
In his vision of the sixties, monobenzyl:
“could hit the structure of society with the impact of an atomic bomb. It carries implications of tremendous social changes – especially in the United States. It could, in fact, conquer the color line.”
” … the color line, the shame of the twentieth century in America, may go forever, as slavery did in the nineteenth.”
Three years before White had written:
“Suppose the skin of every Negro in America were suddenly to turn white. What would happen to all the notions about Negroes, the idols on which are built race prejudice and race hatred? Would not Negroes then be judged individually on their ability, energy, honesty, cleanliness as are whites? How else could they be judged?”
The color line, the line between “black” and “white”, is based mainly on skin colour. Facial features matter too, but White says they are not as important – and are more alike among black and white Americans than commonly supposed, thanks to all the mixing and passing that has been going on in the United States for hundreds of years. In any case, once one had white skin, hair straighteners and surgery could take care of the rest as needed.
Reactions:
Lena Horne:
“Wonderful! This would be the greatest thing for world peace and race relations that has ever happened.”
John H. Sengstacke, editor of the Chicago Defender, a leading black newspaper, said only a fifth of blacks would use it:
“Negroes are proud of their heritage and do not want to lose it by merging with the white world. They want first-class citizenship, not second-class, as Negroes.”
– Abagond, 2017.
See also:
- Read the whole article on The Chawed Rosin
- Why I Remain a Negro – also by Walter White
- my 1949 media diet
- Not in H.G. Wells:
- colour line
- melanin
- monobenzyl ether of hydroquinone
- passing for white
- Lena Horne
- Adrian Piper: Cornered
542
I used to work with a Brazilian woman who said, “I’m going to pass my citizenship test. Then I’ll be White.” I laughed before I realized she was serious.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Would never happen, we would end up like Dr Seuss’ ‘Sneetches’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Abagond,
The reactions in light of acceptance from both sides would have been interesting to learn.
Though, putting the myth of biological races aside and the fact that baby making would continue, I imagine that this could have spurned the white majority of the day into devising more “science” to figure out who is “faking whiteness” compared to authentic white people.
PF-T
LikeLike
@ PFT – There would probably be lots of one-drop white folks fighting for blood quantum rules.h
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE and commented:
Color is just about expression, it does not make up who you are as a human being
LikeLike
I don’t get it. were they encouraging blacks to bleach their skin and rid themselves of their original complexion???
LikeLike
Frightening. Even more frightening is that “bleaching cream” is coming back in vogue with certain “populations of color.”
LikeLike
Let me guess…..they were products of their time?
LikeLike
“Walter White was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). I used to think he was white: he had white skin, blue eyes and blond hair. In fact, he could pass for white but chose not to. He wrote an article about that too, “Why I Remain a Negro”, in 1947.”
This is absurd unless you buy the one drop rule. He could ‘pass’ for white because he was a white man with known black ancestors.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Shaking my head at that statement made by Lena Horne.
LikeLike
Since none of the current commentators lived as adults during that period they should be careful about how they react to comments and thought of people who did live in those days.
When you are setting in the calm you have an ability to forget how the storm feels.
If you have never witnessed the storm it would be a completely different situation.
Jim Crow is dead and is buried in it grave!
What we have now are people who say “What I woulda done”!
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Jim Crow is dead and is buried in it grave!”
LOL!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mr Shaw is right, Jim Crow is dead and is buried in its grave. What we are witnessing is an attempt at resurrection. Will the witches and warlocks of the alt-right pull it off by invoking Satan, a/k/a, Donald Trump? Let’s wait and see.
LikeLike
Hey Uglyblackjohn,
I hadn’t thought about it in that light, though given its logical extremism, I could foresee those arguments.
I was thinking more along the lines of either testing to see who has used monobenzyl or devising some type of melanin test based upon the white population who hasn’t used it as a baseline of “whiteness”. Hence the “science.”
LikeLike
@uglyblackjohn
It made me think about Sneetches too!
In the case of monobenzyl, those who were whitened with it would not be able to get a tan, so tan would likely become the new white. Tanning salons would be everywhere.
LikeLike
This post reminds me of an excerpt from an anthology of speculative fiction from the African diaspora titled Dark Matter. Black No More by George S. Schuyler written in 1931. It is a Harlem Renaissance classic. It is a hilarious mix of satire and science fiction. It’s outrageous and insightful about the issue of colorism. The story of Dr. Junious Crookman who has devised a way to turn African Americans into Caucasian In 3 days through a process of electrical nutrition and glandular control. The procedure cost $50.00. Sadly in 2017 skin bleaching is still prevalent among black people here in America, i.e. Sammy Sosa and Little Kim etc. And skin bleaching is prevalent in Africa and the Caribbean. A colonized mind is a tragic thing indeed.
LikeLike
I wonder if Walter White’s opinion was shaped by his own experiences. Given his appearance, white people may often have assumed he was white and treated him accordingly. Perhaps he thought the drug would enable all black people to be like him and believed they would all then be accepted by whites. This seems very naive on his part.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
“In the case of monobenzyl, those who were whitened with it would not be able to get a tan, so tan would likely become the new white.”
That might have had an interesting blowback effect on those white people who burn rather than tan. Would they then have been suspected of being black because they were so pale? The mind boggles.
LikeLike
Jim Crow has merely mutated and updated to the modern era. Jim Crow may be lightly tanned, have tattoos, a hipster hairdo and an earring now, but he (it) is far from dead.
Ditto for lynching, segregation and rampant discrimination.
Now we call them police killings, high school AP courses and racial profiling.
LikeLike
@ Mary Burrell
If I recall that story, Black people lined up for the whitening treatments. Pretty true to life.
LikeLike
How could skin bleaching even be healthy? Also fostering self-hatred of ones African features, this is sick and a symptom of white supremacy. Lena Horne thinking this skin bleaching process would be good for world peace and race relations? Lena Horne benefited from colorism it gave her leverage over darker skinned blacks in the entertainment industry during that time period. Plus her spouses were white men so I guess this is what gave her this mindset.
LikeLike
@Afrofem: I bet this is how that Black/White bleaching cream and other cosmetics came to be. In addition to hair straighteners.
LikeLike
Skin bleaching is also an issue with dark skinned Southeast Asians and Japanese who want porcelain skin and have eye surgery to look more Caucasian.
LikeLike
Whiteness is a heck of a drug.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sammy Sosa is scary looking and he bleached his skin and looks hideous.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Afrofem
Jim Crow has merely mutated and updated to the modern era. Jim Crow may be lightly tanned, have tattoos, a hipster hairdo and an earring now, but he (it) is far from dead.
Ditto for lynching, segregation and rampant discrimination.
Now we call them police killings, high school AP courses and racial profiling.”
Sorry, but no, unless you empty the term of its original meaning and make it about discrimination in general, Jim Crow is truly dead and about to be resurrected by Trump. Instead of being a southern phenomenon, the new Jim Crow will apply nationwide.
“Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Enacted by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures in the late 19th century after the Reconstruction period, these laws continued to be enforced until 1965.”
Trump’s election was the reaction to everything that occurred from 1965 to the present. Trump’s national agenda is to turn back the clock to the ‘good old days’ when blacks had no say and weren’t in charge of anything. I may not agree with A. Shaw’s worship of Obama, but he does have a point when he takes his presidency as a sign of progress. Progress usually works as one step forward and two steps back. We’ve seen the step forward, now we will see the two steps back.
The Jews experienced emancipation during the 19th century in Europe and regression during the reign of Hitler.
LikeLike
“Given his appearance, white people may often have assumed he was white and treated him accordingly.”
That’s because he was white. Unless white is some mystical thing that’s beyond physical traits.
LikeLike
Incredibly naive. Even of every black person ha white skin tomorrow, cultural differences remain which would drive continued discrimination. Anyway. no offense, but I have no interest in being white. I love my chocolate skin, my nappy hair and west african features. I blovw my heritage.
LikeLike
I do not agree with this statement. It seems to imply imply that there is something wrong with the skin color (black, brown) and this is what provokes the bad feelings, aka racism in the minds of people who happen not to be Black.
If it was true than racism against East Asians would not happen. They are already very white even without bleaching and other artificial processes. But they suffer from racism too, even if less, in the specific context of American society.
I believe that racism is, in its main purpose, a mechanism of class exclusion, that was invented to facilitate the identification of those human beings who were supposed not to belong to the party. If or when that mechanism could not work anymore, the same motivation of excluding people form the party would force the identification of another one, and it’s clear for me that facial features as well as hair texture would come next.
If you look at other human societies, outside the USA, you’ll notice very quickly that the pressure to differentiate people as superior and inferior is very strong everywhere. A wide range of tools are used with that purpose: language spoken, accent, modes of dressing or eating, height, number of years of school attendance, etc.
LikeLike
gro jo
“Sorry, but no, unless you empty the term of its original meaning and make it about discrimination in general, Jim Crow is truly dead and about to be resurrected by Trump.”
The system of Jim Crow never truly died. The system of control and exclusion that Jim Crow represented simply changed clothes. It mutated like a virus to perpetuate itself. Some Black folk are so blinded by Shiny Black Faces In High Places syndrome that they can’t see that . An activist and speaker I heard once called it the “Illusion of Inclusion”.
✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
In the early 1970’s, the furor over “forced busing” was at a fever pitch in my Southern hometown. A lot of the women in my church and community worked as domestics. They came home each night talking about the frantic organizing their employers were engaged in with their neighbors to halt court ordered school desegregation.
One early evening, my mother and I were chatting with a woman from down the street in front of our driveway. An older man from the neighborhood walked by and started talking to to us. He spoke with great emotion about how much better things had gotten. How White people were finally ready to accept Black people as equals. How the future was so bright. How the door to full citizenship was now unlocked and all Black people had to do was nudge the door and it would fly open. I still remember the gleam of satisfaction and joy on his face as he described our golden future.
My mother, our neighbor and I listened with courteous silence to this man’s comments. He eventually said his goodbyes and kept walking down the street.
My mother slowly shook her head and said to our neighbor, “they’re scheming while we’re dreaming”. The neighbor chuckled, agreed and they resumed their conversation.
At the time, I thought my mother and our neighbor were referring to the contrast of the schemes of the White community organizers versus the dreams of Black people who were content to look no further than surface changes. Decades later, I realize my mother and a portion of the Black community understood the difference between real changes and distracting theater.
To me, real changes have been few. Illusion and “equality theater” have distracted many Black people into not seeing what is right in front of them. Black people have been stripped of their voting rights in states from Wisconsin to Indiana to North Carolina. The prison industrial complex has produced a whole group of Black people with no rights and few prospects to rebuild their lives. Black people are still murdered with impunity by the police and White civilians alike. In the Black community, colorism is still rampant.
What is dead to you, gro jo , is a system that is laughing behind its mask at Black people who believe the reports of its demise.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ Poetess
“I have no interest in being white. I love my chocolate skin, my nappy hair and west african features. I blovw my heritage.”
Same here. I wouldn’t trade my skin color, hair texture and African features for anything.
LikeLike
“Some Black folk are so blinded by Shiny Black Faces In High Places syndrome that they can’t see that . An activist and speaker I heard once called it the “Illusion of Inclusion”.”
I know you don’t mean me. One of the reasons you gave for dismissing the claims of that lady who said that her father was a music industry executive in the 1960s was your belief that such creatures didn’t exist at that time. Form and content don’t always agree. You might have a point that racism is alive and well in the USA, but it isn’t Jim Crow. How the devil could it be when Kim Kardashian and her family are all over the media? Kanye West would have been lynched or in jail for something, simply for living his life as he sees fit. Millions of people have more choice because Jim Crow is dead. People have the habit of calling any type of exploitative work slavery. That’s wrong, that term, like Jim Crow, should be restricted to the domain it applies to i.e. somebody being legally owned by another. Jim Crow wasn’t just discrimination, it was legally enshrined discrimination. We no longer have that. It is dead.
LikeLike
@Mary Burrell
”Skin bleaching is also an issue with dark skinned Southeast Asians and Japanese who want porcelain skin and have eye surgery to look more Caucasian.”
If they do it within a traditional Asian frame, then it is because they want to fit their traditional ideas of beauty (white skin for aristocracy, not just for ‘being white’ and big eyes – at least among the Japanese people – for looking younger and having more life force).
Not sure if this is true for Koreans as well, but at least one of my Chinese friends had a plastic surgery on his earflaps to make them look broader, thus fiting a traditional Chinese idea of masculine beauty.
LikeLike
Ho ho ho ho hoooooo……..
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4mlGso5JNo)
LikeLike
This is a horrible article. Would that i could spend 35 minutes outside without a damn hat on. I wish you’d put down 1949 for a minute and do Charlottesville. Second?
LikeLiked by 1 person
The subtext of this article is that, in 1949, it was so awful to be “a Negro” in the US that it was considered a sign of hope that there might be a chemical which could turn somebody white. The myth of the so-called “tragic mulatto” comes from that same place. We haven’t come very far as a nation from that place.
LikeLike
“That’s because he was white. Unless white is some mystical thing that’s beyond physical traits.”
Race is an artificial construct. Yes, his phenotype was white, but he didn’t identify as white or with whites. Presumably he explains his reasons for that in the 1947 article Abagond mentioned.
I actually agree that the one-drop rule is ridiculous, but I was trying to look at this article in the context of how Walter White apparently thought of himself and how society at that time viewed him, not in scientific reality.
LikeLike
@Blanc2
Could you pls explain what is ‘a tragic mulatto myth’?
LikeLike
@ gro jo
“I know you don’t mean me.”
You are correct, I was not referring to you specifically. I was referring to that segment of Black folk who do hold those beliefs.
The Kardasians, et. al. are pure freak show theater. Cosmetics. They represent nothing. Americans have always been suckers for freak shows.
“One of the reasons you gave for dismissing the claims of that lady who said that her father was a music industry executive in the 1960s was your belief that such creatures didn’t exist at that time.”
We see that situation differently. I have avoided discussing that episode because there has been a lot of upheaval in the commentariat lately and that was a distraction. If you want, I will discuss it on the Open Thread later.
Pose your questions there….
LikeLike
“Race is an artificial construct. Yes, his phenotype was white, but he didn’t identify as white or with whites. Presumably he explains his reasons for that in the 1947 article Abagond mentioned.”
I feel that this artificial construct argument should be retired. Is it really that hard to tell one race apart from another? No. Are the differences between the races immutable? Families change from white to black and vice versa all the time. What I consider artificial is the shoehorning of someone like White into the black race when the majority of his ancestors were white. He was no more black than say, Carol Channing, Ronda Rousey, or Natalia Ayesha Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster who are accepted as whites with black ancestors. How any of them feel about their ancestry doesn’t change the facts. A white skinned, blond haired and blue eyed Negro is nonsense. The alt-right has zero reason to fear the disappearance of the white race through race mixing, a number of ‘whites’ are already ‘mixed’. I suspect that what’s really eating them up is the relative loss of power due to the rise of Asia and Africa.
LikeLike
“The Kardasians, et. al. are pure freak show theater. Cosmetics. They represent nothing. Americans have always been suckers for freak shows.”
The freak show used to be much more cruel. Does Ota Benga ring a bell?
“We see that situation differently. I have avoided discussing that episode because there has been a lot of upheaval in the commentariat lately and that was a distraction. If you want, I will discuss it on the Open Thread later.”
No thank you, I’ve made my point that the changes from 1965 to the present were a bit more that cosmetic, anybody who disagrees will need to show me where Jim Crow laws are still enforced.
LikeLike
@Afrofem: The Kardashians got rich appropriating black culture that’s the horrible part.
LikeLike
“I feel that this artificial construct argument should be retired.”
Genetic science says it’s an artificial construct.
“Is it really that hard to tell one race apart from another?”
Well, there are people of mixed race who do not strongly take after any one race, and those people often report that yes, others can’t tell what they are or guess wrong.
LikeLike
“The alt-right has zero reason to fear the disappearance of the white race through race mixing, a number of ‘whites’ are already ‘mixed’. I suspect that what’s really eating them up is the relative loss of power due to the rise of Asia and Africa.”
Totally agree.
LikeLike
@ A Russian Nagpo
LikeLike
““Is it really that hard to tell one race apart from another?”
Well, there are people of mixed race who do not strongly take after any one race, and those people often report that yes, others can’t tell what they are or guess wrong.”
How is this a refutation of my claim? If you are mixed race it’s only natural that you’ll resemble one or both of the source races you came from. It doesn’t mean that people can’t tell these races apart. Some mixed race people like to think of themselves as a third race, that’s bound to create confusion. In such families you’ll find brothers and sisters with different phenotypes.
LikeLike
“If you are mixed race it’s only natural that you’ll resemble one or both of the source races you came from.”
Because sometimes they don’t resemble either race. The mixture of both of the source races can result in a phenotype that most people associate with a third race altogether. For example, someone who is half Native and half white may be constantly mistaken for Arab even if they have 0% Arabic or Semitic heritage.
LikeLike
my wife saying rob and china; however, as progressive as amber rose is, they are one degree away from hardcore porn. my other experiences have not revealed anyone that i know of in the black community talking about the kardashians. other than paris the robbery and public sex assault incidents they are not on my radar whatsover and i consider the whole thing extraneous or more accuratelty somewhat annoying. the original reality show except for the osbornes or big brother or whatever.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ gro jo
” The alt-right has zero reason to fear the disappearance of the white race through race mixing, a number of ‘whites’ are already ‘mixed’. I suspect that what’s really eating them up is the relative loss of power due to the rise of Asia and Africa.”
Well said.
LikeLike
@ Mary Burrell
“The Kardashians got rich appropriating black culture that’s the horrible part.”
Even more horrible for the Black men they “appropriated”. Have you noticed that they rarely smile in public after getting involved with that family?
LikeLike
[…] the head of the NAACP, strangely, went a step further. His name was Walter White, and he wrote an article in Look magazine that asked: “has science conquered the color line”? That was the […]
LikeLike