Dichotomy In Darkwater By W. E. B. Du Bois

Lerone Bennett, in Lincoln, a White Supremacist, 1968, believed that black people and white people would be better off separated by a large body of water, preferably the Atlantic Ocean. After inviting a few free slaves to the White House, Lincoln went on to say, “You and we are different races. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. Even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with white people (1862).” Lincoln’s quote proves Bennett’s argument, because it foreshadows Lincoln’s idea of colonization of the black people.

The major thesis in this book, are broken down into two components. The first is how we define racism, and the impact that definition has on how we see and understand racism. Dr. Beverly Tatum chooses to use the definition given by “David Wellman that defines racism as a system of advantages based on race” (1470). This definition of racism helps to establish Dr. Tatum’s theories of racial injustice and the advantages either willingly or unwillingly that white privilege plays in our society today. The second major thesis in this book is the significant role that a racial identity has in our society.

First as a imposition violence, domination mode, progressive destruction whether by imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, enslavement holocaust, occupation, settlerism or globalization. Secondly, racism ideologically ranges from religious, biological, and cultural problems. Du Bois asserts that inferiority amongst many people in the world started by the use of social sciences by enslaving people in order to impress cultural masters. The injustice and the economic inequality in the world is should be curbed by organized and deliberate action against racism. Moreover, he stresses on union across race lines whereby there is use of global domination calculus to intersect race and class and establish a political

It was commonly conceived by white people that African culture is inferior to their own. Du Bois later claims, “the sense of identity thrust upon black Americans living in a world in which white political and economic leaders assumed that to be American was to be white.”

W.E.B. Du Bois’ “From The Souls of Black Folk” is important to read because the reader is able to see the growth of America in its educational and civic barriers it once possessed. In the article “From The Souls of Black Folk” Du Bois praises the work of Booker T. Washington, although the two have some different thoughts they were very passionate about helping the people who were once slaves adjust to their new freedom. The most important thing that Du Bois talks about in his article is education. To show his enthusiasm he talks about Washington’s experience seeing a young boy trying to better himself, “And so thoroughly did he learn the speech and thought of triumphant commercialism, and the ideals of material prosperity, that the picture

. . The great issue, sooner or later, upon which must be disputed the world’s destiny, will be a question of black and white; and every individual will be called upon for his identity with one or the other. The blacks and colored races are four-sixths of all the population of the world; and these people are fast tending to a common cause with each other. The white races are but one-third of the population of the globe—or one of them to two of us—and it cannot much longer continue, that two-thirds will passively submit to the universal domination of this one-third. And it is notorious that the only progress made in territorial domain, in the last three centuries, by the whites, has been a usurpation and encroachment on the rights and native soil of some of the colored races. . . .

The use of the N-word is offensive to many who come from a Black cultured family. The word comes from negative stereotypes of Black people as unintelligent, and inhuman, this word is not justifying the abuses of African-Americans that are still extended to today’s world. During the 21st century the N-Word became a broadly used word for many young adults, nowadays you hear this word in music, you hear people using it to refer to their friends, and

Double-consciousness as described in an article by W.E.B. Du Bois in an article he wrote in 1897 and in his book Souls of Black Folk can be associated with a feeling of ‘otherness’ that is often experienced by subordinate groups in an oppressive majority-ruled society, and often acts as a protective secondary form of consciousness, one that falls below our primary self-consciousness. It forms a significant part of the intricate impression of the duality faced by blacks in America (depicted in this story in the life of a black man living, working, and trying his best to survive and exist in a white-dominated society where racial prejudice, discrimination and segregation still exist), and also of the frantic and opposing points of view, inner strivings, and ethical and

Du Bois described them as hopeless, voiceless, humiliated, disrespected, and ridicule and how society was too focused on politics and wealth. “Would America go poor if white people acknowledge black folk are human beings like any other?”

“[…] the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world – a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world” (Du Bois 8). W.E.B Du Bois an African-American sociologist, writer and activist, describes in detail the moment he realised that his blackness was a problem in modern society. In his essay Of Our Spiritual Strivings Du Bois formulates the concept of the veil, describing the problematic African American’s experience of having to look at “one’s self through the eyes of another, [and] of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (8), which resultantly “yields him no true self-consciousness” (8). Thus a twoness emerges, “two souls, two

In the essay, “A Genealogy of Modern Racism”, the author Dr. Cornel West discusses racism in depth, while conveying why whites feel this sense of superiority. We learn through his discussion that whites have been forced to treat black harshly due to the knowledge that was given to them about the aesthetics of beauty and civility. This knowledge that was bestowed on the whites in the modern West, taught them that they were superior to all races tat did not emulate the norms of whites. According to Dr. West the very idea that blacks were even human beings is a concept that was a “relatively new discovery of the modern West”, and that equality of beauty, culture, and intellect in blacks remains problematic and controversial in intellectual circles

Dr. W.E.B Du Bois uses this essay to sway the audience of the insufficiency of the statements that Mr. Booker T. Washington has made about African Americans being submissive of rights and the creation of wealth. Mr. Washington believes that the black race should give up and give into what the society norms were at that time sequentially just to have a certain right. Dr. Du Bois refused to believe that the black race should give up one right to get another right. Especially, when the white South had all rights without expecting to give up anything to have those rights.

The hardest task to diminish all the racial bias or racial discrimination is to let those who enjoy the sense of racial supremacy to accept the fact that people are all born equal and people are all created the same underneath their skin. It is always easy for people to feel that they are superior to others, and by doing so, it makes it much easier for them to own the power in society. In James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man”, the protagonist, Jesse, evidently shows the difficulties of giving up the sense of racial supremacy as a white man. From Jesse’s perspective of the rise of the African-American people, readers could know that the reason why he doesn’t dare to face the reality is because the rise of the African-American actually symbolizes the loss of his masculinity which is presented through the way that how he uses the religious, sexual, and political aspects to degrade the African-American people.

Fahad Albrahim Response 1: Review/Summary: “Whiteness as property” is an article written by Cheryl Harris, in which she addresses the subject of racial identity and property in the United States. Throughout the article, professor Harris attempts to explain how the concept of whiteness was initiated to become a form of racial identity, which evolved into a property widely protected in American law (page 1713). Harris tackles a number of facts that describe the roots of whiteness as property in American history at the expense of minorities such as Black and American natives (page 1709). Additionally, Harris describes how whiteness as property evolved to become seen as a racial privilege in which the whites gained more benefits, whether

African Americans today use the word within themselves to weaken the word and make it a friendly gesture, this is a connotative meaning. From this video we learn different perspectives on the “N” word and how powerful it actually is. This video was very uncomfortable for me to watch, I never