Roxbury Social Worker Claims Nation 'Institutionalizes' Racism

"Institutionalized racism" pervades American society, a local social worker declared yesterday. He accused New Frontier liberals of "implicitly paying allegiance" to it when they spoke of Negroes as if they were different from whites.

Noel Day, executive director of St. Mark's Social Center in Roxbury, told a Cabot Hall discussion group that the United States is coping inadequately with a "society of oppression." The Negro could become an agent of revolution, he warned, and his situation is an urgent issue.

"Racism is not the Negroes' problem," Day declared. "It's the whites' problem. Only the white society has the responsibility to grapple with it."

The Roxbury social worker expressed fears that discrimination could not be wiped out, however. "I don't think America is strong enough to do this," he said. "I don't think that it cares enough. I don't think that in some sense it's intelligent enough."

Yet if racism is not eliminated, the nation "may very well be facing death."

Day did not limit death to physical destruction by the Soviet Union. He defined it as also a decline in power and prestige until the U.S. is "the most despised country on earth."

"I think we're making rapid strides toward that," he added.

Day described the Negro child as born with a handicap he can never outgrow or fully accept. The child sees that his parents are frustrated and that his school "is not serious about him." When he is exposed to the ideals of democracy, he realizes that he is blocked only because of his color.

Later, as he is denied adequate employment, housing, and medical care, he sees that discrimination has been "institutionalized." He cannot succeed without a "revolution in social structure."

Day predicted that "within the next few years, white America is certainly going to listen to a number of Negroes speaking" out of bitterness or in the hope of reaching an understanding. "The 'new Negro' is the same Negro that's been with us all along," he declared, "but he's a Negro that's taken about as much as he can bear."

Day called Negro protest movements "perhaps the healthiest sign that the Negro has shown in 100 years of emancipation." He praised them as examples of self-expression.

White men have refused to recognize the present situation, or "to approach people with respect and dignity." "But if we can root this racism out," Day concluded, "we will replace it with the understanding that men are men."

Burlage Also Speaks

Robb K. Burlage, a graduate student of economics, also addressed the Cabot Hall group, stating that the problem of discrimination "probably must be solved in Mississippi and in North Carolina before it can be solved anywhere else in this country."

Burlage rejected education, industrialization, and unionization as the single keys to Negro advancement. He termed community political action the "only way to get within a vicious circle."