But I want to tell you something. This pattern, this “system” that the white man created, of teaching Negroes to hide the truth from him behind a façade of grinning, “yessir-bossing,” foot-shuffling and head-scratching—that system has done the American white man more harm than an invading army would do to him. Why do I say this? Because all this has steadily helped this American white man to build up, deep in his psyche, absolute conviction that he is “superior.” In how many, many communities have, thus, white men who didn’t finish high school regarded condescendingly university-educated local
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