Books: Intellectuals As Racists

RACE: THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA IN AMERICA by Thomas F. Gossett. 512 pages. S.M.U. Press. $6.95.

"Negroes have a very strong and disagreeable odor. They seem to require less sleep. Their love is ardent but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. In reason they are much inferior to whites; in imagination, they are dull, tasteless and anomalous. Their griefs are transient."

The words might be those of a Bilbo, a Rankin or any number of rednecks. In fact, they are the considered opinion of the author of the Declaration of Independence,...

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