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one tenth of the population, were treated as an inferior race and were denied numerous civil and political rights. Myrdal's encyclopedic study covers every aspect of black-white relations in the United States up to his time. He frankly concluded that the "Negro problem" is a "white man's problem". That is, whites as a collective were responsible for the disadvantageous situation in which blacks were trapped.
199:. Myrdal claims that it is the "American Creed" that keeps the diverse melting pot of the United States together. It is the common belief in this creed that endows all people—whites, blacks, rich, poor, male, female, and immigrants alike—with a common cause and allows them to co-exist as one nation.
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Myrdal believed he saw a vicious cycle in which whites oppressed blacks, leading to poor standards of education, health, morality, etc. among blacks that was then used as justification for prejudice and discrimination. The way out of this cycle, he argued, was to either reduce white prejudice, which
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because it thought that as a non-American, he could offer a more unbiased opinion. Myrdal's volume, at nearly 1,500 pages, painstakingly detailed what he saw as obstacles to full participation in
American society that American blacks faced as of the 1940s. American political scientist, diplomat, and
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of the 1950s and 1960s, alleged that northern whites were generally ignorant of the situation facing Negro citizens, and noted that "to get publicity is of the highest strategic importance to the Negro people". Given the press's pivotal role in the movement, this proved to be strikingly prescient.
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According to Myrdal, the
American dilemma of his time referred to the co-existence of the American liberal ideals and the miserable situation of blacks. On the one hand, enshrined in the American creed is the belief that people are created equal and have human rights; on the other hand, blacks, as
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Author Mark
Tushnet captured in his book the NAACP's comment that the information in the book isn't something new for the African American communities while acknowledging what the country needed is public and legal discourse for the social inequality and racial discrimination cases.
217:, “the Supreme Court abandoned the Constitution, precedent and common sense and fortified its decision solely with the writings of Gunner Myrdal, a Scandinavian sociologist. What he knew about constitutional law we are not told nor have we been able to learn.”
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case "in general". The book was generally positive in its outlook on the future of race relations in
America, taking the view that democracy would triumph over racism. In many ways, it laid the groundwork for future policies of
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It sold over 100,000 copies and went through 25 printings before going into its second edition in 1965. It was enormously influential in how racial issues were viewed in the United States, and it was cited in the landmark
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365:"An American Dilemma; The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. By Gunnar Myrdal, with the assistance of Richard Sterner and Arnold Rose. (New York: Harper and Brothers. 1944. 2 vols. Pp. lv. iv, 1483. $ 7.50.)"
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would improve the circumstances of blacks, or to improve the circumstances of blacks, which would then reduce the reasons for white prejudice. Myrdal called this process the "principle of cumulation".
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was his postulate that political and social interaction in the United States is shaped by an "American Creed". This creed emphasizes the ideals of
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The United States
Supreme Court’s decision to cite to Myrdal’s book exposed it to ridicule in the South. For example, the Chief Justice of the
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arguing the work contained "numerous and serious misstatements of fact" and was "based upon a fallacious philosophic concept."
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described Myrdal's book as "an outstanding social science treatise, brilliant, stimulating, and provocative."
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State ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of
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The Negro People in
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The Negro People in
America: A Critique of Gunnar Myrdal’s “An American Dilemma”
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Zhang, Junfu (February 2000). "Black-White
Relations: The American Dilemma".
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1944 study of race relations authored by
Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal
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292:: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
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420:"Post-Raciality in Education: Revisiting Myrdal's American Dilemma"
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Black is a country: race and the unfinished struggle for democracy
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An American dilemma: The negro problem and modern democracy
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An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy
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An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy
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Books about the United States written by foreigners
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327:(4). Overseas Young Chinese Forum.
183:At the center of Myrdal's work in
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418:Samad, Anthony (1 October 2009).
369:American Political Science Review
115:Carnegie Corporation of New York
344:. New York: Harper & Bros.
211:declared that, in the case of
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363:Gosnell, Harold F. (1944).
220:American Marxist historian
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422:. American Bar Association
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452:International Publishers
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330:(available online)
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465:: A Review
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287:(2006).
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