ABSTRACT
Racism, ostensibly, was one reason the war was fought to wipe out the race doctrines of Hitler. Race consciousness is hollow; its formidable-looking exterior is membrane-thin and is worn away by simple acts of touch, the touching of human beings in contact that is massive, equal and prolonged. Slavery is over, but its degradation now takes other forms, at the bottom of which is the unspoken belief that the black person is not quite a human being. The civil-rights movement illuminated the hypocrisy of the liberal promise. The Supreme Court might make equalitarian rulings, the Congress might pass civil-rights laws, the president might make stirring speeches about the dignity of man, but the black man on the ghetto street. Black and white have always been morally intertwined in American history, even when physically separated, even when playing out the roles of subordinate and superior.
