Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/625

 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RACE-PREJUDICE 607

admired, and where it is stout, corpulence is the beau idtal. The Hottentot women in whom steatopyga is pronounced are most admired, and they even reinforce the appalling posterior bolsters of fat by wearing a cushion in the same region, much as white women wear a bustle. 1 Burton reports that Somali men are

said to choose their wives by ranging them in a line, and by picking her out who projects farthest a tergo. Nothing can be more hateful to a negro than the opposite form. 2

The Egyptian women, on the other hand, are slender.

I have never seen corpulent persons among them, except a few in the metropolis and other towns, rendered so by a life of inactivity. 3

The Egyptians .... do not generally admire very fat women. In his love-songs the Egyptian commonly describes the object of his affections as of slender figure and small waist. 4

Ill,

The examination of these external signs impresses us with the fact that race-prejudice is in one sense a superficial matter. It is called out primarily by the physical aspect of an unfamiliar people their color, form and feature, and dress and by their activities and habits in only a secondary way. The general organic attitude, growing out of experience (though reflex rather than deliberative experience), is that the outside world is antago- nistic and subject to depredation, and this attitude seems to be' localized in a prejudice felt for the characteristic appearance of others, this being most apprehensible by the senses. This pre- judice is intense and immediate, sharing in this respect the character of the instinctive reactions in general. It cannot be reasoned with, because, like the other instincts, it originated before deliberative brain centers were developed, and is not to any great extent under their control. Like the other instincts also, it has a persistence and a certain automatism appropriate to a type of reaction valuable in the organic scheme, but not under

'See WAITZ, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 105. "See DARWIN, op. cit., Part III, chap. 19.

3 LANE, Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, Vol. I } P- 33-

4 Ibid., p. 238, note.