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Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 09, 2003 - 07:49 pm: | 
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Hello All,
Now, I read three quarters of this book, and Du Bois has thoroughly pissed me off. I will admit that he didn't use color in his Talented Tenth thang, but I still didn't like it. So I concede that point and admit I was wrong.
Ol' Big Head didn't let me down though. He ticked me off the Of The Faith Of The Fathers essay, with the statement, "The Negro membership in other denominations has always been small and relatively unimportant, although the Episcopalians and Presbyterians are gaining among the more intelligent classes today". "more intelligent classes"? Is that a slam? *eyebrow raised* I do believe it is.
See, during my reading, it became evident that DuBois is a major snob. While he profess to speaking for the Black folk in this book, he really hold the majority of blacks in contempt. I couldn't shake the feeling that he was looking down his nose on the majority, except for his college educated folk. The book was written to plead to the "intelligence" of a group of white folk, not the ones that would make up the KKK or anything, he has the same disdain for them as he does for the shiftless Negro. If the group DuBois was appealing to was intelligent enough to recognize the destructive nature of racism, they wouldn't be racist in the first place, right?
True, he didn't mention skin color, but, I'm sorry, its just below the surface of his words. I'm taking into account the times in which he wrote these words. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't black teachers have to have a certain appearance. Wallace Thurman hits it in his novel The Blacker The Berry. So, its not any stretch of the imagination that the black folk that DuBois was refering to passed the paper bag test. I guess, the reason I'm stuck on this is shouldn't Ol' Big Head had known better? How intellectual was he? We have all read the stories of how he disproved of Hurston's fiction and Hughes poetry that was based on the "lower" class of the black population. While he didn't have the nerve to say it out right, his intent was clear. |
Steve
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 09, 2003 - 11:36 pm: |
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Hi Thumper,
One thing Stanley Crouch talks about in the new book (Reconsidering Souls) is how most white people got their information from newspapers or hearsay, and most white Americans in the North didn't have any contact with black Americans, had not labored together, prayed together, argued politics together, gone to burying grounds together. 1903 was before the Great Migration. The power of the stereotype was very strong at the time, the need to discredit black Reconstruction, the dehumanization which went along with it. This is why he decided to leave the academic world and go for the hearts and the minds. Crouch doesn't talk specifically about Souls being an attempt to reach supposedly intelligent white folks, I'm not sure he addresses it, but it's the kind of point Benjamin might make. Crouch does talk caustically about this period as "reuniting the souls of white folks." One way Crouch answers the color question you asked is by saying that Du Bois's having been so taken by Pan-Africanist Alexander Crummell early in his life "proved that Du Bois was not one held back by skin tone prejudice, since he was clearly of mixed heritage while Crummell looked almost 'purely' African." I haven't read Souls recently.
I finished the Stanley Crouch/ Playthell Benjamin book. Agreed about Du Bois's feelings towards Hughes and Hurston's direction during the Renaissance. They wanted artistic freedom to express the lives of everyday people, including the underside, and he was concerned with stereotypes. Van Vechten and the white writers didn't have this constraint and were selling some books. I think his feelings towards jazz bordered on the unprintable. But during this earlier period, ragtime, James Weldon Johnson had reservations about sacrificing black culture to "higher culture." I think you can see it in his novel, Autobiography of an Ex. Benjamin mentions his (real) autobiography, "Along This Way," which I've gotta read. I'm reading "Black Strivings in a Twilight Civilization" by Cornel West. It's a critical essay which refers to W.E.B. Du Bois's "Enlightenment world view" (maybe somebody can explain what West means by an "Enlightenment worldview that promoted Victorian strategies in order to realize an American optimism") and what he calls Du Bois's "mild elitism" which underestimated the capacity of everyday people to "know life." Cornel West counts the number of times Souls uses phrases like the ones you mentioned. W.E.B. Du Bois was the first black man to study with the great European scholars in the social sciences, philosphy, history, etc., and maybe that attitude came along with it, I don't know, but I think he needed every bit of that education to do what he needed to do. The reason I'm reading the Cornel West piece is because it's a target for Playthell Benjamin, in other words, Benjamin doesn't want to hear about Du Bois's supposed elitism. Thanks. |
Soul Sister
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 10, 2003 - 09:53 am: |
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Thumper,
I have to chime in -- for the history teacher in me has to speak. When reading historic texts you have to consider the who, what and why. Who was DuBois - he was a fair skinned Negro who was born in western MA - which is today still stark white and exclusive. What was the condition of the African American commmunity at that time in 1903? They were largely rural, former ex-slaves and soliders with little to no education, never mind the African immigrant population from the Caribbean. There was no clearly defined "Black" person as defined by members inside of the culture. Why did he write this book -- to assert an intellectual position to the overarching stereotypes of Black people - moreover there had been internal and external abuse -- DuBois was seeking to question all aspects of the how, what and why of the Black condition.
Let me tell you I am not exempting DuBois from criticism but I am stating that every historic personality needs to be understood in their own time and purpose. Interestingly enough, DuBois evolves throughout his 90 odd yrs of life and recants earlier philosophies and positions, dying as an expatriot in Ghana. So, now why the Souls of Black Folk - I believe there are nuggets we can revist and implement in understanding foundational precepts of our current traditions and beliefs.
Whew, that is about all I can say -- I hope that lessens your acidity towards DuBois?? I believe that early race leaders were concerned with the moral, economic and political liberation of "their people" however, their people were not the idealistic group they thought they were -- moreover, everyone has free will and ultimately do what they believe is best in their own eyes. I need to revisit the Atlanta Exposition and Up From Slavery by Booker Washington and see about similiarities and differences in their ultimate aim.
Nuff said -- Peace
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yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 02:41 pm: |
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Steve,
I think the quote from Cornel West, means that white americans, and some black americans, of the nineteenth century and early twentieth(although i would argue that people still believe this) espoused Victorians ideas, ie.. Protestant work ethic, self-constraint, etc..., in the belief that their implementation would ensure that the US' political, economic, moral, and cultural system would be successful. The optimism was facilitated by no major wars between the civil war and wwi and the successes of american industries. Of course, these perspective hides labor instruggles and jim and jane crow, but these Victorians avoided those issues. |
Steve
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 10:31 pm: |
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Thanks, Yukio, I appreciate the reply. Aren't the Victorian ideas you're describing -- work ethic, self-constraint, etc -- those of Booker T. Washington? I think that Cornel West is referring to the belief that education and "highbrow" culture would bring about a change in white and black Americans. I'll have to reread it.
I was curious when I heard about the Stanley Crouch/Playthell Benjamin book because in "The All-American Skin Game," Stanley Crouch is critical of the first chapter of Souls, especially the idea of double consciousness, but also the mystical references to "Ethiopia the Shadowy." I assure you, I have nothing but admiration for W.E.B. Du Bois, of whom I know very little, I'm really just trying to understand what's being said in these other books. Stanley Crouch contributes only 70 of the 250 pages of the new book, but they're the most interesting. The structure is unusual. The first eight chapters consist of background, historical context, and an overview of of Du Bois's writing by Benjamin, followed by a two-chapter reply by Crouch. Then Benjamin interprets portions of the text of Souls and comments on Du Bois's legacy, which is followed by another two-chapter reply. So Crouch comments twice on Benjamin's opinions, but not vice versa. So Benjamin criticizes Cornel West but not Crouch, whose interpretation in the closing section I'm sure Benjamin wouldn't agree with. It's hard to explain, but I'll give you an idea of a few ways they differ.
Benjamin vilifies Rutherford B. Hayes, who, as head of the Slater Fund, denied W.E.B. Du Bois a scholarship for which he qualified. Crouch replies that Du Bois's reasoned appeal ultimately succeeded, and points to Andrew Johnson as the greater villain in American history.
In "Biography of a Race," David Levering Lewis mentions W.E.B. Du Bois's 1890 Harvard commencement address about Jefferson Davis as a symbol of civilization. Here, Benjamin describes Du Bois's idea of the Teutonic hero or "Strong Man" in history and how as a counterforce, he proposed the "Submissive Man." He illustrates this point with a 10 page analysis of the doctrine of Teutonic superiority in the German psyche as expressed in the Wagnerian opera, "Der Ring des Nibelungen." Benjamin offers Franz Liszt and another composer as submissive men. I know it sounds a little crazy (I haven't read the speech), but Du Bois was apparently saying that the warrior culture needs the input of the "Submissive Man" as a counter-statement and a restraining influence. Benjamin believes that this anticipates Gandhi and Martin Luther King by 50 years. Crouch scoffs at this idea and says that it's the same sort of speech that had been made 40 years before. But Benjamin's basic criticism, that Du Bois never made the connection between his thesis of the Teutonic strongman and German nationalism while he was studying in Germany seems similar to the kinds of criticism expressed by Crouch and Cornel West.
Benjamin is critical of Booker T. Washington. Crouch, like Albert Murray, defends him.
Crouch and Benjamin agree that in Chapter 1 of Souls, Du Bois was way off base when he spoke of black laborers and craftsmen being insecure about the quality of their work (as a result of double consciousness). Benjamin has first-hand experience as a member of a trade union.
They both agree with the conception of the Talented Tenth. Benjamin cites the black lawyers, legal scholars and academics who achieved success in the Brown vs. Board of Education legal case of 1954. Crouch compares the Talented Tenth to the power hitters and pitchers in baseball and the great quarterbacks in football who lead their teams to victory. He believes in an elite, but one that can come from any level in society. In his jazz writing, which I'm slightly familiar with, Crouch takes the stance that musical quality is hierarchical. It's complicated and outside the scope of this book, but somehow related. |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2003 - 12:51 pm: |
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Book T. Washington did promote those ideas as well, as well as most middle-class people(white or black). Remember, their disagreement was about the correct strategy not work ethic. Du Bois was and remained a elist, even as a Communist and pan-african.
Yes, education(hard work, restraint, both seemingly requirements of achieving education), they argued,would prove that blacks were respectable, pious, people, supposedly like whites were. |
Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2003 - 10:23 pm: |
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Thanks to all who responded to my initial post.
Steve, I would love to debate this further with you after I've read Reconsidering The Souls of Black Folk. I knew I was going to review the book, so it all made sense that I read DuBois's Soul first.
Soul Sister: What's up, how are you doing? *smile* I agree with 90% of your post. Surprise, Surprise, I found myself agreeing with DuBois on many of his views. I now know why the book continues to be read 100 years after its initial publication. There's some beautiful writing in the book. Couple that with the truths he wrote, its bound to touch more souls in the future. I'm glad I was "pushed" to read it. I am more confident now that Ol' Big Head was a snob of the highest order. I won't deny that he left some good behind. But, how dear should we hold the words of man, when his actions is contrary to his statements. While DuBois's words were geared to influence and persuade an audience away from racism, isn't it reasonable to expect that he enforce his own thoughts and aspirations to his own people? We ridicule (and rightly so) this country's "founding" fathers over words that speak of freedom and equality while they owned slaves. Isn't only fair that we should hold oour own to a higher standard, not because they are smarter, or the same color, but because they, above all, should know better? It is apparent that DuBois didn't know better. And if he couldn't, as the writer of the words that make up Souls of Black Folk, see the equality within his own group, how heavy is the words he left behind? We must not forget the INTENT behind his words. I have no problem understanding DuBois' or his motive. His campaign wasn't to uplift his people. He was only willing to be counted among his "darker" brothers because white America saw and treated him as a Negro. He was stripped of any arrogance, any social standard of being born a "free man of color". He was lumped together with people who looked down his nose on. He didn't entirely reveal his true thoughts and emotions on it, except in the Of Faith section where it is crystal. His motives are human, basic, and not pleasant.
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Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 04:13 pm: |
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Thumper,
I would suggest that you read DuBois' biographies if you want to know what he thought about black people over time. He was definitely a snob. No doubt about that.
I would not compare DuBois with the "founding fathers", however. Du Bois was an elist and looked down on the "unrespectable." Yet, he worked for the race, africans and the african diaspora, for his entire life. The founding fathers were racist, who promoted freedom to propertied white men. They did not, however, spend their lives fighting for freedom for those that they thought inferior. Bad comparison! |
Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 04:52 pm: |
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Hello Yukio,
No, I don't believe it was a bad comparsion at all. Are you prepared to debate the difference between a hypocripsy on a small stage against that of hypocripsy on a larger one? It is what it is, and it is all hypocripsy. Still, how valuable are DuBois' words if he couldn't live by them himself? *eyebrow raised*
Define who DuBois considered "unrespectable" please? |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 09:06 pm: |
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Hello Thumper,
Sounds like a challenge. Lets begin! Before we begin, however, i'm not quite clear what hypocrisy you're talking about. Once you do that, then i can better understand your point, since i don't see the hypocrisy.
Regarding "unrespectability":
When you read most of DuBois work, whether Souls of Black Folk or The Philadephia Negro, he talks about blacks with immoral character and their participation in crime, vice, etc...similar to what social scientists call the underclass today. He believed that with moral, educational, and spiritual uplift these elements could be expunged.
It is similar to what black conseratives argue today, which is that if people worked hard, were not lazy, avoided crime, abstained from sexual activity, they would be better citizens and more socially and economically successful. Of course, I would add, DuBois' analysis was more complicated than today's arguments by black conservatives. This is an old discussion, from DuBois, to E.Franklin Frazier, the Moynihan Report, to the welfare queens.
Cheers!
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Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 09:21 pm: |
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Sorry Thumper,
Missed your other question regarding the value of DuBois'words.
I think his words are extremely valuable, and this has much to do with seeing him as a man. Erred and Fallible. How do we determine value? This is usally determined by the objects or commodity's use. So the question becomes, Does DuBois' work, activism, etc.. have any use? I say yes! Much of what he says is useful, whether he was a hypocrite or not does not change the utility of his words, especially if we can learn from his mistakes and use the good and dispose the bad. No one lives without contradiction. DuBois, even with his elitism, is a great example of a person who loved his people, however contradictory, and fought for them, agressively and persistently his entire life. |
Steve
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 11:53 pm: |
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Thanks, Yukio,
Yes, I agree that Du Bois's ideas -- for instance, that self-reliance was the key to social mobility -- were in line with those of Washington's, even after the Wizard's 1895 Cotton States Exposition speech, which Du Bois praised, although I'm not sure what he said about Washington's idea that the races could exist separately (like the fingers of a hand). Yes, I agree that their disagreement was about strategy, but leaving the elitism aside for a moment (because I'm not exactly sure which elitism you and Thumper are agreeing on), I think their disagreement became a power struggle at a certain point and Du Bois realized that if he didn't act -- by challenging Washington -- that the idea of industrial education would become institutionalized. David Levering Lewis talks about this seizing of the moment in terms of Du Bois's philosophy teacher William James's concept of the "live option" -- which I generally understand as the idea that the opportunity for freedom might not come again unless the chance was taken. His resistance to Plessy v. Ferguson and the agreement between the North and the South is really what's driving him. Most of the uniformed people today see the black struggle as an unbroken line towards progress, but this period that Du Bois was born into -- once described as the nadir, or low point of race relations -- was very regressive and extremely frightening as Stanley Crouch's essays drive home. I have the feeling that many black leaders -- scholars, newspaper editors, etc -- at the time may have been flexible, as Du Bois appears to have been, on strategy, and may have come down somewhere in the middle in the duality between the political struggle for equal rights as opposed to focusing on what could be accomplished within the limits of racism. But I read somewhere that with the success of this book, The Souls of Black Folk -- which I think was described as the most successful book since Uncle Tom's Cabin -- he was unexpectedly thrust into a position of leadership, or as Henry Louis Gates says, something like, "he wrote himself into a position of power," which is very unusual. Up From Slavery, written two years before, was also very influential as it got the attention of the Northern philanthropists.
I haven't yet read the second volume of the biography by David Levering Lewis, so I only know the general shape of that period of his life, but I understand some of the controversy, like his support for Stalin as late as 1955. But Cornel West is talking about something else. The essay is in The Cornel West Reader and also in The Future of the Race, coauthored by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. if you happen to see it. I read it a while ago. I think it's the piece which caused me to read Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh," to get a feel for what he was saying. Anyway, thanks a lot. |
Steve
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 11:55 pm: |
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Greetings, Thumper,
Thank you. I'd love to toss it around a bit once you have a chance to read it, I'd like to get your opinion, definitely. Here's something slightly off-topic, hope you don't mind. I read Invisible Man a few years ago, I had read it when I was really young but didn't understand it by any means. It's such a great book though. But as I started looking for things written about Invisible Man, I started becoming aware of many other issues like his feelings towards Tuskegee, the Communist Party, his monumental case of writer's block, the tragic fire which destroyed most of the manuscript for his second novel, etc. It's also interesting that the book ends around the Harlem riot of 1935, which is about when the Harlem Renaissance ends, which I didn't realize at the time. But while I was reading it I also started becoming aware of what some of the other writers were saying about him. I discovered the Ishmael Reed Reader in the bookstore, which has a fantastic introduction in which Reed provides insight into all of his novels -- like Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, which I had just read -- which I don't think you could find anywhere else. But the introduction also contains his criticism of Ralph Ellison, which may represent what a lot of the writers of his generation were also feeling at the time, I don't know. But it wasn't rude or anything, just factual and informative. It didn't affect the way I felt about Invisible Man, it was just something to keep in mind. I mean, now I know that young writers from James McBride and Danzy Senna to Colson Whitehead all love Ellison and so do I, he's a great writer, although I have different opinions on certain things, like Trading Twelves when they start dogging Miles Davis and Gil Evans. Ridiculous! I love Ishmael Reed too, his novels are unbelievably creative, but his essays are very sane and down to earth. Although he was very critical of Ellison, and I think that may have softened over time, it wasn't a personal attack. The only problem I had with Reconsidering Souls is that 120 pages into it, the author goes off on a personal attack on another writer which lasts for four pages and has nothing to do with the subject at hand. In fact, he even misquotes the guy. It's not instructive in any way. The book is loose, it's conversational, and I like the author, but I thought that was bad. You may not agree though. Thanks for the forum. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2003 - 12:31 am: |
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Steve,
Oh definitely, as you stated, it was a power struggle. Definitely! Not only concerning education (ie liberal arts v. industrial education) but also the monopoly Washington had on white philantropy and the power that his monopoly wielded, so that Washington determined which educational programs received funding and who and where black educators who be hired; Washington also had similar influence in journalism, one of the main staples for black activism, at least during Jim and Jane Crow. No disagreements here. |
Steve
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 10:30 am: |
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I read the chapter which Thumper talked about, Faith of Our Fathers. Without saying too much, I just want to acknowledge that Cornel West also expresses some concern about that chapter in his essay. I don't want to describe it because that will sound too clinical, but he compares Du Bois's description of the church service to his own black Baptist tradition and attributes Du Bois's interpretation to his Enlightenment worldview. Don't forget, his predecessor was Alexander Crummell, the so-called "Afro-Saxon" who wanted to colonize Africa for its own good (which Du Bois didn't). On the one hand, the Afro-Saxons knew that education over generations had lifted up the people of the British Isles, but then as Stanley Crouch says, they believed that Africans were primitive and a few other things. Crouch also talks a little about Martin Delany, another one of the Afro-Saxons. These men weren't motivated by self-interest. I agree with Cornel West that Du Bois sounds like an anthropologist in that chapter, which is one of many hats he wears in the book. Remember, this was a very new science at the end of the 19th century, he had gone to Gemany because sociology was not being offered even at Harvard. He had also studied the new, scientific approach to history being offered by Albert Bushnell Hart. These things may have contributed to his feeling of alienation you sense while reading that chapter, maybe not. |
Steve
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 10:32 am: |
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Stanley Crouch has an interesting perspective on the founding fathers. And he sees Du Bois, flaws and all, as part of a lineage of African-Americans (and a few white Americans like Benezet) who opposed slavery and the racist hierarchy.
As a man who can be called nothing other than an intellectual, Du Bois inherited not so much the "zeitgeist of the age," as Mr. Benjamin puts it, but the ideas that purified a body of thought made extraordinarily complex due to the intricacy of the human situations out of which they arrived. They were ideas that came forward during the Age of Reason and were pushed toward a purity through great struggle within the United States, where the African slave trade, Afro-American bondage, the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, and the epoch-making Industrial Revolution ... wove themselves together and inspired a new thing, a fresh perspective. That new thing came to define the possibilities of democracy through the demanding means of representative government, public argument, bloody constraints, and political positions ... In terms of social rights, those unprecedented aspects of democratic identity arrived within a context of ongoing reconsideration that led to an innovatively broad reassessment of human equality that eventually moved across the lines of color and sex.
While the completion of the process did not arrive in his lifetime, Du Bois knew that shifts in society, the motion of rights and privileges across lines that finally did come to fruition due to the quality of ongoing reconsideration were not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they drew up and ratified the Constitution. That finally means nothing of significance in terms of the ideas themselves. After all, since our democracy posits the idea that greatness can arrive from under the very filthiest soles of the society, or from the humblest of beginnings, we should not be so sentimentally shocked or disappointed or outraged or grow too, too, self-righteous when that rule spins around and we see that those at the top turn out to be low-down and rotten -- even stinking up their private lives with the fumes of avarice, opportunism, and greed -- but remain, however comfortable within their shells of bigotry, capable of producing unprecedented pearls of social vision. That is how it actually was.
That's the context in which he discusses Jefferson and the Founding Fathers and he's certainly not putting Du Bois in the same category with them, he's placing him alongside Benjamin Banneker, Martin Luther King, et al. Crouch's use of the word "purity" refers to the ideas themselves, because he's skeptical of everybody -- like Jefferson and even some (not all) of the abolitionists, whose morals, he says, were on a par with the average Campfire Girl or ASPCA member. Crouch believes that Africa produced no body of thought or social philosophy capable of overturning the racist hierarchy and so he (like Du Bois) is claiming for himself the ideas which came out of the Enlightenment -- "a body of ideas rooted in reason and a rejection of the power of the church in favor of science and philosophical deduction" -- but, he says that in the eighteenth century, "both the science and the nature of the deductions in the area of color were not only off, they were racist to the core and prove why skepticism should be basic to the democratic mind and sensibility."
He says that, "In essence, the New Testament idea of there being no chosen people, of all human beings having equal access to God, had been secularized during the Enlightenment. That aspect of that Age of Reason was the conception that human commonality transcended nationality..." However, he adds that "The Enlightenment thinkers saw themselves as part of a community that transcended class and place -- in Europe. None of them seriously thought about Africa, Asia, Australia, or the Western Hemisphere." As for the Founding Fathers, he says:
Jefferson and the fellows who signed the Declaration of Independence, as well as those who argues the Constitution into shape, had no idea that they had produced a body of ideas that inspired black people to work against slavery and against racist ideas. The Negro drew upon them just as the Magna Carta and English law were drawn upon by the Founding Fathers.
It sounds like double-consiousness in a way. On page 94, Crouch says that Voltaire, Hume, and Rousseau all thought black people incapable of complex consciousness and so black people (and their white supporters) created their own Enlightenment.
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Kola Boof
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 03:31 am: |
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Thumper, I have friends from Accra and London who could tell you stories about DuBois's days in Ghana that would make your hair stand up on your head.
Your "intuition" about our great father is not far off at all. God rest his mighty soul.
I try never to post anymore, and I'll definitely continue to keep my two cents to myself, but I wanted you to know that. He was a brilliant man, he was "well intentioned"--but he was an ardent colorist and greatly insulted/mistreated his African kin in Ghana on numerous occasion. His wife only softened to the plain folk after he died. Really...he was a victim of his times. He truly was the best that we could have produced (at that racist Jim Crow point). As I am often compared to Marcus Garvey, I also felt that Garvey was right about DuBois and that the people here would have been much better off if they had listened to Garvey's philosophy, which at the root, was far more natural and symbiotic with their own truths. But people on the bottom don't like the Truth. They want candy and they want the easy way out.
God bless DuBois and know that he did the best he knew how to do--which ultimately, is all any of us can do with our perspectives, talents and "agendas".
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Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 01:04 pm: |
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Kola:
Curious. Can you give us some details about the stories about DuBois? |
Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 18, 2003 - 09:41 pm: |
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Hello All,
Thanks Kola. For a minute there I almost thought DuBois was granted sainthood and everybody knew it but me. I'm curious myself about some of the stories you eluded to in your previous post. Care to share?
Steve: I'm getting ready for you, dawg.
Yukio: You're my girl and all, nuthin but love for you, BUT I disagree with you. I don't believe that we should overlook Dubois' faults and mistakes. We need to included it all, the good, bad and ugly. I've heard your argument over and over again when used to defend our founding fathers. I'm not going to repeat what I wrote earlier. I believe I made myself quite clear. I will not soften my impression of DuBois by saying that he was "elitist". His stance, his attitudes, were prevalent in his time and in our time. The destructiveness of it should not be softened and can not be minimized. |
Kola
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 - 02:46 am: |
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Hi again Thumper (and Chris),
I will try to answer your question without doing a disservice to DuBois, because I believe that overall, he loved our people--"to the extent that they loved him". I also feel queezy about offending anyone, because this is very touchy.
What I have been told by Professor Widie from Accra (who is a close friend of Kofi Annan, both of whom studied DuBois) is that DuBois and the staff of the NAACP (almost entirely) were of a "high whiteness" in color (octo-roons???). Many of them, including DuBois and his wife, could have passed for White if they wished. In America, of course, the Slave Master's ONE DROP rule is firmly entrenched in the minds of the people. In fact, many younger African-Americans even think that THEY made up this designation, not their Master. So to them...it's natural and true.
Unfortunately for DuBois, there is not a single nation in Africa where that lack of respect for Black People is honored by Africans. People are basically called what they really are...or what they LOOK like.
You know, Thumper, real quick...let me say that my own Birth Father was an Arab Muslim of Hemetic blood (from Kom Ombo, Egypt)...and when he went to purchase my mother for marriage, the Gisi-Waaq Chief (my grandfather) considered him "a WHITE man"(as the Arabs are classified WHITE in Africa)...so they charged him 10 times what he would have paid had he been BLACK. My mother was 14 at the time..it took my father until she was 17 to purchase and marry her (which is OLD MAID TIME in our part of the world). So I am just relating a story, not attacking anyone's being mixed. In my own Nilotic family (Nilotics being the parent race of the Negroids), I have people who are not Black..that doesn't mean we aren't still family, you understand.
DuBois went to Ghana...and found himself overwhelmed by the smell and the LOOK of the Ghanians..who, ofcourse, were an endless sea of pure BLACKS. He thought they should greet him with reverence and "awe"...he had envisioned himself a KING returning to the motherland to rule over his grateful subjects, and basically...while DuBois hated the White man's racism enough to run home to Africa--he also felt superior to people who were "stained" by too much Black blood and so when he arrived in Ghana, expecting to be a savior of DARK Africans...they greeted him with rejection, and to his shock--PITY. They were actually more SNOBBISH than he was...and he settled in and became a sort of scholarly, elegant HERMIT. Biographers tend to downplay this and write it another way...but frankly...DuBois aligned himself with other "colorist" rich people--both Colonial Whites and PogoNiggers (the Elite African Upper Class) and kept a hateful distance from the masses (unlike Maya Angelou who lived in Ghana for 8 years and was beloved by even the smallest of the villages and is today generally considered a Ghanian by the people there). Others, like Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X (known in Sudan as "Red Rooster") are also very beloved by African peoples...but not DuBOis.
For legal reasons, I won't post stories that might be here-say or gossip...I will just say that more than one Professor told me that DuBois ended up suspecting that White Men might indeed be SUPERIOR to Black Men..and he was extremely disappointed by the simplicity and earthiness of the Ghanian people--"their lack of desire to take over the world". He found them to be "Backwards" and was very openly prejudiced at the market (not wanting Black children to touch up against his hand, his coat). He is said to have hit one black man with a cane once, because the man couldn't understand English and didn't get out of his way quick enough.
He is said to have scoffed at legions of BARECHESTED Black women carrying baskets atop their heads as they returned from the river barefoot...and as he indicated to Marcus Garvey in letters that are now public record...he thought Black African people (especially the women) were UGLY, monkey-like and "barren" in appearance. Just as my own Egyptian father became a heroin addict and a crusader for people he never could get CLOSE to (the Nile River Dinka, Nubian and Shilluk)...DuBois also suffered terribly from not really having a RACE to belong to. His only qualification for presiding over Blacks was that Whites had appointed him "smart by virtue of association with White blood". DuBois was never at peace in Ghana, but won my love and respect by dying there (at home where he belonged) and "keeping up appearances"...rather than giving the Euro-Caucasoids the victory that they craved.
Certainly, I appreciate Marcus Garvey far more...but I do have love, respect and sympathy for DuBois...although, I so admired how intuitive and RIGHT you were Thumper about his book and what he really meant between the lines. He was indeed a colorist...and should have known better...but I believe that he was so WHITE he couldn't help it. Bless you for having the courage to point that out. I never once thought that you were attacking DuBois's contributions in the least.
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Kola
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 - 03:10 am: |
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Footnote:
This is why I warn Black Americans...DO NOT GET TOO WHITE.
One day, decades from now, they'll look back and see that Sister Kola loved them and was only looking out for their best interest. Of course, she saw through African eyes and could only speak from the part that she knew about...but at least she spoke up.
Thumper..I truly love my people, all Black people, with all my heart. I think Random House is going to publish my memoirs, "Diary of a Lost Girl". It's not signed yet (this is not the novel, but the memoirs book). Many people, Thumper, are going to hate me for writing what I wrote in my memoirs...both in Africa and in America...but I have to send a true African woman's message to the future generations. We Black people are losing in my opinion. I start the book off by explaining that I am a traumatized and damaged person..mentally UPSET...
the true black folks will feel as if they must be, too
I have 3 extra months to turn in "Virgins IN the Beehive" (the novel) to Atria (Simon & Shuster), so I'm working on that full time and won't have time to post anything more. But it's always fun to read the board. Everyone is so intelligent and lively. Always a good exchange going on.
Be well, Kola
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yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 - 03:05 pm: |
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Thumper,
You are so dramatic..lol! It's nice that you have love for me. I suggest you reread what i wrote. I never stated that we should overlook DuBois' faults. I agree with the inclusion of his great and fallible past. I answered you question, which asked "how valuable are DuBois' words if he couldn't live by them himself?" Also, i never defended the US' founding fathers, notice that i didn't say our as you did...lol! I explained what they did, for informative purposes; it was not an argument nor a defense. I never asked you to change you position. You are correct; His "stance, his attitudes, were prevalent in his time and in our time. The destructiveness of it should not be softened and can not be minimized." There hasn't been a disagreement.
The only thing i defended was the value of Dubois'ideas, intellect, dedication, which is not the same as arguing that we should overlook his faults. I don't agree with all DuBois' ideas, just some. The basic point that i was trying to make, which i think you missed, was that his ideas changed over time, and he was a product of his times, as people are now. Similar to Baraka's notion "the changing same." I, therefore, could understand the man ( his victorianism, colorisms, elitist) and disagree with some of his positions and ideas and agree with others, simultaneously. |
Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 - 07:21 pm: |
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Hello All,
Kola, thank you so much for your posts. Your posts have actually made DuBois more interesting to me. Good luck with your works in progress. Let us know when they're about to hit the bookshelves.
Yukio, *big smile*, you'll be alright baby. *smile* I have to add that preamble for thenew posters and some of our old ones too. If I didn't, many would believe that there is more fire in the stove than there really is. If I misunderstood your posts, I apologize. I got your point that he changed many of his ideas and stances over time. I'm well aware of that. But, it doesn't take away from the fact that his "wrong" idea is still being published, read, and believed today. Ever wonder why DuBois's retractions aren't published alongside his incorrect theories. Mumbling, I'm sorry, or whispering, I'm wrong, don't carry as far as a yell or a shout. Besides, his words, once they leave his mouth, or in this case written and published long after his death, DuBois can never take them back. I'm sorry, if I'm skeptical as to his real feelings. I'm more leaning towards the notion that he only SAID he was wrong because it was prudent for him to do so. And if the things Kola indicated, contained even a smidgen (sp) of the truth, he didn't learn from his mistake after all. Maybe, we'll have to agree to disagree. I will concede he left good behind, but I ain't buying it was for his "people". |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 - 08:16 pm: |
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Thumper,
What are we disagreeing on? I don't see a disagreement.
Your issue is not with DuBois it is with people who use his work. People can read his work as you have and come to the same conclusion. Also, are you arguing that since his argument was "wrong" that it shouldn't be published? Is your point that his wrong ideas are hurting and contributing to intra-racial class and color conflict?
I'm not that concerned about DuBois' feelings; I was interested in his ideas. Also, i'm not placing a value judgement on him: right, wrong, etc...
Actually, i'm not sure what exactly you are refering to when you say he was wrong. I thought you were initially talking about the talented tenth... Are you talking about his colorism, elitism, Victorianism? All of the above?
Also, i'm not sure if he said he was wrong. I'll find out. He did however, argue that revolution and the termination of colonialism was not in the efforts of a talented tenth but more likely in the forces of working white, black, indian, and asian people.
The other concern is we are reading two books, but DuBois wrote at least five books, he organized and participated in most of the Pan African Congress, we need to read his work as a propagandists, with the Crisis, his disseration, his fiction and poetry...there are volumes upon volumes. These things represent his life's work. The fact that he was elist, moralist/victorian, and colorist prevents us from a single representation of him. He was the definitely good, bad, and ulgy.
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Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 20, 2003 - 01:57 pm: |
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Hello Yukio,
You're not picking up what I'm putting down. I'm going to try one more time.
I assure you, my problem is with DuBois, and the folk who follow his line of thinking then and still do.
Second, I wasn't talking about his talented tenth theory directly. I started this thread speaking of the section of The Souls of Black Folk titled, "Of the Faith of our Fathers", even quoted from it. Bringing to the point that his feelings and thoughts were negative that he didn't just base on color. The quote I used made it quite clear. You and others posted that I should consider the times in which DuBois wrote these words, as well as some of the ideas that he stated in his younger days, he later retracted. Here's an example from one of your March 19, 2003, 3:05 PM post,
"The basic point that i was trying to make, which i think you missed, was that his ideas changed over time"
Now Yukio, if he wasn't wrong in his thinking, why would he change them? *eyebrow raised* And if he did change them, as you stated, in which essay or book did he do it?
So, no, I'm not going to say that he did all that he did because he "loved" his people. He only "loved" us because, he kept getting classified as being one of us.
Also, I'm not going to read any more of his books, essays or anything else. I did good to read The Souls of Black Folk. I don't find him that fascinating.
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Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 20, 2003 - 04:52 pm: |
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Thumper,
I did get your point.
Also, i think you've confused this thread with the other thread, where i initially said that DuBois changed over time and that i was specifically talking about his talented tenth thesis.
Yesterday's usuage of the "change over time" statement pertained, however, to your positions on DuBOis' feelings. Reread the next couple of sentences after the one you quoted:
"Similar to Baraka's notion "the changing same." I, therefore, could understand the man ( his victorianism, colorisms, elitist) and disagree with some of his positions and ideas and agree with others, simultaneously."
Here i'm addressing and agreeing with you that his prejudices and weaknesses are prevalent, although, altered today. And, I stating that i can understand him and not agree with him. As you stated, "We need to included it all, the good, bad and ugly." Thats all i said, the same as you.
Now, i haven't asked you to changed your beliefs, so stop telling me what your going to do, I haven't asked you...lol!
Thumper, i was talking about his ideas, not expectation Jesus, but a fallible man.
Regarding the wrong question:
"Now Yukio, if he wasn't wrong in his thinking, why would he change them? *eyebrow raised* And if he did change them, as you stated, in which essay or book did he do it?"
In the other thread, the title fails me now, i was specifically talking about his Talented Tenth thesis. I think in his autobiography he talks about his different views and in Black Reconstruction, he places revolution in the hands of working people, black, white, asian, etc...
And regarding reading his works:
The point was that if you were going to make a conclusive opinion of the man, you should know his work. He lived almost 100 yrs., and you're trying to judge him based on one text(1903), when he participated in struggles til 1963.
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Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 20, 2003 - 09:29 pm: |
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Hello Yukio,
You wrote: "And regarding reading his works:
The point was that if you were going to make a conclusive opinion of the man, you should know his work. He lived almost 100 yrs., and you're trying to judge him based on one text(1903), when he participated in struggles til 1963."
And if that is the point you're trying to make, let me tell you something, you run your mind, and let me run mine. If DuBois does it for you, beautiful. The point is I'm a grown a__ man. I don't need to, nor will I, read anything about anybody I don't want to. And if you don't like it...I sho hate it. He ain't doing it for me.
And since you have some many suggestions, I got one for you: I suggest that you read those books you want me to read and come up with something to back your positions. I am certainly not impressed by the way you've been reading and misreading my posts. Maybe you can do better with DuBois's books.
Frankly, you've been talking in circles for this whole thread. I ain't got nothing confused. I only brought up the talented tenth thing in the first post of this thread to say that I was wrong about DuBois directly mentioning skin color in the theory. I haven't mentioned it since. You have. And your insistence on discussing the talented tenth only shows me further that you're not as into DuBois as you claim, since you don't have the capacity to talk about any other aspect of the Souls of Black Folk book.
I'm not going to read any other DuBois book. I have made up my mind on him. And if you have a problem with that, believe me, it is very much YOUR problem. I'm done. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 21, 2003 - 01:23 am: |
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Thumper,
You've misread much of my posts, so what? Thats the nature of communication, interpretation, ideological positions, etc...
I'm talking about making a conclusive point about the man. If you don't want to then thats your prerogitive. You're right! Thats you're choice.
I'm engaging you post, at least trying to; i'm not interesting in preaching to you. In fact, i haven't made many arguments. I've tried to address his ideas within the history in which he lived. I haven't made a judgement. Indeed, if i'm tautological, then its because i've been saying the same point over and over and you've misread me.
You thought i was defending DuBois; I wasn't! You thought i was telling you to change you position. Again. I wasn't!
Misunderstanding is the nature of communication, especially ideas, which is why i asked you questions.
Thumper, if i'm misreading you then you're misreading me, because i'm never questioned the validity, only partially agree, your characterization of DuBois.
You're constantly entering your personal concerns, "I'm a grown a__man." Good! But that is besides the point. We're not talking about sex or gender. Posture offline with people who your posturing is important to...lol!
Also, I wasn't talking about this thread concering the talented tenth. I was talking about another post. This is what i said:
"In the other thread, the title fails me now, i was specifically talking about his Talented Tenth thesis."
I can't engage and add to the discussion? Or is it only acceptable to change and add when a person agrees with you?
Now, I'll check the other threads, so i can find the initial discussion.
Regardinn my in capacity to talk about DuBois:
"And your insistence on discussing the talented tenth only shows me further that you're not as into DuBois as you claim, since you don't have the capacity to talk about any other aspect of the Souls of Black Folk book."
I don't think you know what capacity i have in anything, but what does my capacity to talk about Souls have do with anything really?
The point of my suggestions was that reading one book is not enough to understand a person, whether you want to or not is another story and your business because you are a "grown a__man."
Nevertheless, you analysis is limited to Dubois when he was 25 years old. Don't confuse what i say with polemics and personal attacks.
Are you're discussions limited to who is right and wrong, or whether or not you can change someones' mind. I'm not in that business!
Why can't we just get along...lol!
You sound so angry and frustrated...LMAO! Thumper says, "I'm done." And? I'm playing in your game of rhetoric, so that i don't seem too much of a pacifist...
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Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 21, 2003 - 01:57 am: |
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Ok Thumper,
I've found our initial conversation. The Other discussion on the Talented Tenth, which i carried over to this thread. I thoutht that was acceptable, maybe not?
How friendly it used to be...lol! Here you were so humble; we could've walked in the park, gazing at the blue birds chirping to eachother, smelling the perfumes of couples strolling hand in hand...Ok, its late, so i'm silly!
Here is what you stated:
Thread: New books on the horizon...there's so...
Posted on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 05:01 pm:
Hello Yukio,
A year or so ago, Carey and some of the others asked me to reconsider my position on DuBois and his Souls of Black Folk. I'm quite negative about it. Although I admit that I haven't read it all the way through. Actually, the point of the book that pisses me off the most is his Talented Tenth theory. Frankly, it still pisses me off because so many of us has bought, and still buying, into that bull_hit. I even tried to read the book again and have to admit that I fell asleep on it. And then my heart really wasn't in it. My problem with reading those types of books is that I want to talk back to the author, especially if I disagree with his point of view. After hearing him go off on his little tangent, I should get the same courtesy by correcting him on where he went wrong. *smile* Since I can't do that to DuBois, why bother. But the synopsis of Reconsidering The Souls of Black Folk intrigues me. Before I read it, I'm going to have to read DuBois's book.
So, Thumper, I was trying to tie in this original conversation with this thread's conversation. Like, you i haven't read Souls in years,( you made these comments before you reread his work. You should give me the same option.) but i'm very familar with DuBois; I read his propaganda and i've read a few biographies, Black Reconstruction, sections of his Dissertation, and many articles. All of this was MANY years ago. Around five or six. I'm trying to get my literature on, which is Y this site is wonderful, so i'm less interested in biographies and history... Ya'll got me discussing this stuff and it's fun.
Again, he was a snob, probably a colorist, as Kola delineated, etc... I don't affirm those positions. Yet, for what ever reason he did participate in the Freedom Movement, he did do valuable work, beyond Souls and his participation in the NAACP.
Seriously. If it seems like i'm preaching, i don't intend to and as i've stated before, i'm not interested in personal attacks. Again, if it seems like i've done so then call me on it.
Cheers!
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