“By far the largest number are quizzical, annoyed, or would just say that they don’t want them,” Coles reported. This “quietly disapproving or careless majority,” as he called them, simply stood by while a “small but articulate” group of whites attacked the black students. In interviews with these white students, Coles carefully recorded “chief themes which come up again and again.” Echoing the racism of their parents and neighbors, white teenagers argued “that Negroes will lower standards”; “that they are dirty and diseased”; “that they are like animals”; and “that they are not like white
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