An American Dilemma

It sold over 100,000 copies and went through 25 printings before going into its second edition in 1965. It was enormously influential in how racial issues were viewed in the United States, and it was cited in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case "in general". The book was generally optimistic in its outlook on the future of race relations in America, taking the view that democracy would triumph over racism. In many ways, it laid the groundwork for future policies of racial integration and affirmative action.

Analysis

Myrdal believed he saw a vicious cycle in which Whites oppressed Blacks, leading to poor standards of education, health, morality, etc. among Blacks that was then used as justification for prejudice and discrimination. The way out of this cycle, he argued, was to either reduce White prejudice, which would improve the circumstances of Blacks, or to improve the circumstances of Blacks, which would then reduce the reasons for White prejudice. Myrdal called this process the "principle of cumulation".

In Black-White Relations: The American Dilemma, economist Junfu Zhang gives this description of Myrdal's work:

According to Myrdal, the American dilemma of his time referred to the co-existence of the American liberal ideals and the miserable situation of blacks. On the one hand, enshrined in the American creed is the belief that people are created equal and have human rights; on the other hand, blacks, as one tenth of the population, were treated as an inferior race and were denied numerous civil and political rights. Myrdal's encyclopedic study covers every aspect of black-white relations in the United States up to his time. He frankly concluded that the "Negro problem" is a "white man's problem". That is, whites as a collective were responsible for the disadvantageous situation in which blacks were trapped.

Myrdal, writing before the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, alleged that Northern Whites were generally ignorant of the situation facing Black citizens, and noted that "to get publicity is of the highest strategic importance to the Negro people". Given the press's pivotal role in the movement, this proved to be strikingly prescient.