Myrdal noted Swedish sociologist, calls the race problem in the United States an American dilemma. As he describes it, the dilemma is due to a discrepancy between the ideals which Americans profess and their practice which contradicts these ideals in intergroup relation.
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.