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THE NEGRO AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 143

of Europe. The inference that he draws from this is none the
less dangerous:

The double question that arises is to determine whether the genius of the
black man should cultivate what constitutes his individuality, that youth
of spirit, that innate respect for man and creation, that joy in living, that
peace which is not a disfi gurement of man imposed and suffered through
moral hygiene, but a natural harmony with the happy majesty of life. . . .
One wonders too what the Negro can contribute to the modern world. . . .
What we can say is that the very idea of culture conceived as a revolutionary
will is as contrary to our genius as the very idea of progress. Progress would
have haunted our consciousness only if we had grievances against life,
which is a gift of nature.

Be careful! It is not a matter of fi nding Being in Bantu thought,
when Bantu existence subsists on the level of nonbeing, of the
imponderable. It is quite true that Bantu philosophy is not going
51
to open itself to understanding through a revolutionary will: But
it is precisely in that degree in which Bantu society, being a closed
society, does not contain that substitution of the exploiter for
the ontological relations of Forces. Now we know that Bantu
society no longer exists. And there is nothing ontological about
segregation. Enough of this rubbish.
For some time there has been much talk about the Negro. A
little too much. The Negro would like to be dropped, so that he
may regroup his forces, his authentic forces.
One day he said: “My negritude is neither a tower. . . .”
And someone came along to Hellenize him, to make an Orpheus
of him . . . this Negro who is looking for the universal. He is
looking for the universal! But in June, 1950, the hotels of Paris
refused to rent rooms to Negro pilgrims. Why? Purely and simply
because their Anglo-Saxon customers (who are rich and who, as
everyone knows, hate Negroes) threatened to move out.
The Negro is aiming for the universal, but on the screen his
Negro essence, his Negro “nature,” is kept intact:

51. See, for example, Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton.

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