For a range of complex reasons, some leading African-American social scientists of the early to mid-twentieth century objected to Davis and others applying the notion of caste to the plight of African-Americans, even as they were living under one of the purest forms of it in American history. Restricted as they were, locked behind the walls of caste with no end in sight, they did not want to give credence to the possibility that the system might indeed be closed forever. If their status was seen as a fixed one, there might be no hope of rising above it.
