I’m currently watching a PBS documentary entitled An American Dilemma about the time the Carnegie Foundation paid a Swedish researcher to come over (during WWII, as it happens) to research and write a report on “the Negro Problem” as an outside observer. His horror at what he witnessed and the observations he made are quite telling. He couldn’t believe the dichotomy between the American Creed (as he referred to it…we would now say the American Dream) which was fervently believed in by everyone, black and white, and the reality of racism at every moment that of course undercut the ideal entirely for one group of citizens.
Only an hour, and definitely worth watching.
