ABSTRACT
Gunnar Myrdal, long the world’s most prominent socio-economist, was both fascinated and appalled by what he described as “the American dilemma”. The dilemma, of course, was the grave contradiction between what he saw as the basic American values of brotherhood, equality, liberty, and justice, and the role forced on African Americans by American society. That role involved neither brotherhood, nor equality, nor liberty, nor justice. The historical material in this chapter demonstrates this very clearly. However, in the last half century the United States has resolved much of its
racial dilemma. The election of a black president of the United States is a case in point. Today, perhaps about two-thirds of African Americans are close to parity with the white majority. This is largely the case because the nation has deliberately rooted out most discrimination and stigmatization against blacks. Eradication did not occur automatically but has been a struggle over more than four generations involving a host of actions at the national political level as well as massive self-help by blacks themselves involving much patience, fortitude, and in the last 50 years, rapid social change. Of the five case studies that make up this volume, the US story is dis-
tinctive. The huge gap in social distance that characterizes SRELIM vis-à-vis their dominant groups has been reduced to the point where possibly a majority of the citizenry believe that there no longer is a significant gap between the middle-class black majority and other Americans. That is a real achievement. Bringing the remaining one-third to parity, however, is a formidable challenge.
