Race, Power, & Equality Poli 110J 7.1 The problem of the the 20 th century is the problem of the color-line.

Race, Power, & EqualityPoli 110J 7.1

“The problem of the the 20th century is the problem of the color-line.”

W.E.B. Du Bois

• 1868-1963• Pan-Africanist• Radical• Publisher of NAACP’s The Crisis• Communist

Major Themes

• The Veil• Double-consciousness• Race consciousness• Racial essentialism

Race Consciousness

• “How does it feel to be a problem?” (7)– American society consistently and irresistibly

forces awareness of one’s own blackness– Blackness is not a quality of appearance, but of

identity• Not just what the individual looks like, but who the

individual is

– Blackness is a “problem”

The Problem of the Color Line

• The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,--the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.” (15)– Not geographical, but a “line” nonetheless. – A notably American (and to a lesser extent,

European) way of looking at the world.

The color line

• “Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.”– Parallel worlds– Restrictive only to blacks, who cannot move

beyond the veil, while whites can move back and forth.• Privilege.

The color line

• The American world “yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” (8)

The color line

• “One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” (8)– Internal division on the color line– Partly self, partly not-self– Constant internal conflict

The color line

• Blacks exist in some sense on both sides of the color line– “He would not Africanize America, for America

has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world.”• Essentialism

– Partly inherent, partly historical

The color line

• “He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed in his face.

• “to merge his double self into a better and truer self.” (9)

The Color Line• Three parties in Civil War: North, South, Blacks– Freedman’s Bureau constitutes a separate government for

liberated slaves• Du Bois on Imperial Japan vs. China• The “blighted, ruined form” of the post-War white

“with hate in his eyes” vs. the “form hovering dark and mother-like, her awful face black with the mists of centuries” who had raised his children, buried his wives, and slaked his lust (25)– Metaphor: male & female– “The South believed an educated Negro to be a dangerous

Negro” (27)

What is to be done

From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed unmanned!

. . . .Hereditary bondsman! Know ye notWho would be free themselves must strike the

blow?-Byron

Booker T. Washington• 1856-1915• Support from white establishment in North &

South• Some support from black leaders– “Leader not of one race but of two” (38)

• Advocated assimilation (as does Du Bois), recognition of political & social realities of the South, modus vivendi w/Southern whites– After the War, North & South looked to re-join as a

single nation, diminishing patience for the question & fate of blacks in both Sections

Booker T. Washington• Washington insists that to advance, blacks must give

up hopes for– Political power– Insistence on civil rights– Higher education

• In return for– Peace– Industrial schooling

• An issue of practicality: believed blacks would benefit most from trade school rather than liberal education– Example: disapproval of poor black boy trying to learn French

– Long-term assimilation & advancement

Booker T. Washington

• In short order, he gets– Black disenfranchisement– Jim Crow laws• Legal inferiority• Example, OK: literacy requirement, unless you were

eligible to vote before 1866

– Abandonment of blacks by institutions of higher learning

Du Bois’ Criticisms

• Washington wants to advance black business, but how can this be done without the right to vote in your own interests?

• Insists on thrift & self-respect, but also on “unmanly” submission to whites

• Advocates elementary & industrial school, but who will teach at black schools if blacks can’t get higher education?– Imagining a different world

3 bad consequences

• 1. South is justified in despising blacks because of blacks’ current degradation– They are in Washington’s depiction ignorant and

slothful, not quite up to par with whites & have to catch up

3 bad consequences

• 2. Cause of this degradation is the wrong education in the past

3 bad consequences

• 3. Idea that the future of blacks in America depends primarily on their own efforts

• These are “Dangerous half-truths” for Du Bois– 1. What about slavery and systematic exclusion

from politics, economy, society?– 2. black schooling lagged because it had to wait

for first generation of black teachers– 3.While blacks must work for their own

improvement, Du Bois argues that they must be assisted and encouraged “by the initiative of the richer and wiser environing group” (whites)• Is this problematic?

• Du Bois & NAACP insist on more militant, though still peaceful, position, demanding– Right to vote– Civic equality– Education of youth according not to race, but

ability

• In essence, Du Bois accuses Washington of apologizing and covering over for systematic racism, making it appear as if the disadvantaged position of American blacks has nothing to do with whites and everything to do with blacks.

• “By every civilized and peaceful method, we muststrive for the rights which the world accords to men, clinging unwaveringly to those great words which the sons of the Fathers would fain forget: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident…’”

• For next time:– V, VI, VII, IX