“We’re as bitterly opposed to attacks on women, whether they’re white ones or coloured ones, as you are, Mr. Stewart. That is, we’re opposed when they really are attacks.”
“What do you mean—when they are attacks?” the cashier demanded.
“Just what I say—how many of these attacks reported in the papers are really attacks? They spread the story of an alleged or a reported attack all over the front page—but when they found the woman was mistaken or hysterical from reading all these other wild tales, they stick it in an insignificant item on the inside, if they mention it at all. There’s trouble ahead if these inflammatory stories aren’t stopped, Mr. Stewart. And it seems to me it’s up to men like you who’ve got sense to stop them—the crowd that makes up the mob isn’t going to do any thinking for itself—it never does.”
“That isn’t the point, Daquin,” Stewart asserted. “You Negroes have got to stop these real attacks!”
“There are more ways than one of looking at that,” was Jean’s troubled rejoinder. “In the first place, nearly every one of these ‘attacks’ has on investigation been found to be untrue. Yet, your papers are screaming madly every day without much investigating of their stories beforehand that more and more assaults are being committed. A second thing is that it’s up to the police and the sheriff’s office to catch and put in prison any man suspected or accused of a crime whatever his colour. If one of your race kills somebody or attacks a woman, you don’t rush around saying that it’s up to the white people to catch him—quite properly you say it’s up to the police. And a third thing—there’ve been several attacks on coloured girls by white men of late but I haven’t seen those listed as part of the record of assaults.”
“That kind of talk won’t get you anywhere, Daquin. You’re only fooling yourself and the fact there’s a certain degree of truth in what you