Word: pettigrews
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Professor Pettigrew has made some recent remarks which illustrate another circumstance that might distort the predictions. In denying that a "white backlash" had sprung up recently, Pettigrew pointed out that an abnormally large number of voters had turned out in Northern primaries where Governor Wallace was a candidate. Wallace's support, he suggested, had not come from a sudden change of heart on the part of people who voted regularly, but as a result of what he called the "out from under the rocks effect"--people who had always disliked Negroes now had a chance to express their dislike with...
Perhaps more open to question, but by the same token more interesting, are the book's opening and closing chapters, where Pettigrew presents his view of the Negro American's personality. He contends that "being a Negro in America is less of a racial identity than a necessity to adopt a subordinate social role. The effects of playing this 'Negro' role are profound and lasting." Pettigrew also maintains that the harsh economic and social environment of the Negro has created severe family disorganization...
Another prime factor affecting the Negro American's personality is his reaction to oppression, to the prejudice of the majority. Pettigrew sees the origin of many of the standard Negro stereotypes in four different reactions, which he analyzes with great care...
...argue with Pettigrew's theories, and many of his conclusions in this section are not adequately documented. But much of his analysis is extremely perceptive. A discussion of the sexual confusion that a hostile environment can cause in the Negro male offers many new insights, as does a summary of the different behavior patterns within the various economic strata of the Negro community...
...statistics to make pleasant light reading. In fact, if Casey Stengel's memoirs were to appear written in the plodding, colorless prose of an introductory mathematics textbook, it would still be difficult to find a book as unrevealing of the author's character as A Profile. Virtually all of Pettigrew's exuberance, humor, and fondness for improbable metaphor has been carefully excluded. Yet if scholarship has supplanted lively writing, the scholarship is always topnotch and usually provocative...