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Before reading this piece, and putting it together with Bret Cormier's presentation, I had not realized how closely tied the eugenics movement was with racist policies. I had mostly understood eugenics outside of race, which I now see was missing one of the main points entirely. It is a perfect example of Kendi's theory that self-interest lead to the implementation of racist policies, which are then explained by racist ideas. In this case, the eugenics "research" not only disadvantaged disabled women, the incarcerated, and others by supporting policies for compulsory sterilization, it also supported the idea that some races, Blacks in particular, were defective in ways that were inherent to their very being, making all manner of racist polices "make sense."

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1. "For Du Bois, slavery had produced illiteracy and ignorance among the black masses, so that they lacked the intellectual and material resources necessary for liberation. Therefore, those blacks who acquired advanced and broad educations were to be the leaders of the masses. As we will see, these alleged deficits were not thought to inhere within black people in particular. Rather, they were products of social development and existed in all racial groups at a similar level of social development" (pg 31).

2. "In Du Bois’s analysis, this tight linkage
between physical traits (the biology of black skin and the bloodlines that created people without black skin who were nevertheless classified as black) and the condition of bondage and inferiority was a political accomplishment created through codes, laws, and economic contracts. This caste system followed the freedmen as they moved from formal
slavery to neo-slavery following emancipation" (pg 39).

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This chapter, by explaining some of Du Bois' comparative analysis, placed the reality of Black oppression in the U.S. in a much broader landscape. By seeing the impact of oppression on other peoples of other races, I now see a connection between what is happening here in the U.S. to what has happened in other places. While factors different from those in nations without a race-based system of oppression have emerged here in the U.S. post-slavery and post-Jim Crow, we can consider that the effects of domination on human beings, as individuals and in groups, are universal, to an important degree. (We say oppression when we speak of slavery, but I wonder if the word domination is appropriate in this case.) This would make the issue of understanding systems of oppression and domination critical to whites in the U.S., whether or not they are racist, especially given how fragile our democracy is. It could happen to anyone.

I also enjoyed learning about Du Bois' research methods. It was so interesting to hear about his pioneering approach to studying society, especially the difference between using deductive methods, which rely on assumptions, in this case about people, as opposed to inductive methods which seeks to learn through finding patterns, in this case in behavior or lived experience, in empirical evidence in order to produce a theory. His use of rigorous scientific methods, while not concerning himself too dearly with being taken as "scientific," allowed him to create something truly new and incredibly useful. I felt a twinge of compassion when reading Du Bois' earnest belief that facts would convince whites to view Blacks differently, which would lead to Black liberation; we now know that facts can only do so much, and sometimes they can do nothing at all.

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I am curious what Du Bois would say now about "Black culture" and modern racism. He appears to have in part blamed former enslaved people's lack of understanding of how the modern world worked, here implying the modern white world, for their continued oppression and segregation. Did he imagine Blacks integrating fully into white American culture as his ideal? Or did he imagine Blacks, having forged a shared history out of the common circumstance of slavery, working side-by-side with whites, having access to good education and broader, even international, perspectives, but living in Black communities with shared "Black cultures"? Would he consider the phrase "Black culture" racist?

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1. "This examination of Du Bois's sociological approach to race demonstrates that biology played no role in his causal analysis of racial inequality. Instead, what we find is a political sociology stressing the power, economic exploitation, and social oppression as producers and sustainers of racial inequality" (p.44).

2. "Moreover, to understand the development of a people, Du Bois argued, 'we must seek to know what humans advancement historically considered has meant and what it means today, and from such criteria we may judge the condition, development, and needs of the group before us.' Like his fellow German historical school contemporary Max Weber, Du Bois paid close attention to developmental tendencies regarding race, including how such tendencies were fundamental in the development of African Americans. Thus historical time and social development were key sociological principles driving Du Bois's sociology of race" (p.38).

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Although I had an understanding of post-emancipation conditions for freed slaves, Morris provides additional context around the caste system established by white southerners. This caste system was a form of 'economic bondage' that created a new form of oppression. "...emancipated slaves became economically dependent on white masters by entering exploitative arrangements of debt peonage and sharecropping that kept them perennially in debt and able to live only a 'hand to mouth' existence" (p.39).

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On page 42 there is mention of Du Bois's research methods, to include, sociological analyses based on surveys, ethnographic research, massive interviews and participant observations. I'd be interested to learn more about how he conducted his studies, who he included or excluded, and what is meant by 'massive interviews'.

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Although later regretful for his choice of words, in some of his early writings Du Bois referred to black individuals as, "...'backward', of 'low social grade', 'undeveloped people', 'ignorant', in a state of 'race-childhood', 'primitive folk', and in need of 'guidance' from culturally superior groups" (p.30). Critics used these writings as evidence that Du Bois saw the 'black race' as inferior.

This section reminded me of Kendi's encounter with the editor of the Tallahassee Democrat, and how he expressed racist beliefs about other black individuals, an example of inter-race racism. Kendi writes, "... when we stop denying the duality of racist and antiracist, we can take an accurate accounting of the racial ideas and policies we support" (p.144).

Although, Du Bois saw 'deeper differences' creating the racial divide such as, "...a common history, common laws and religion, similar habits of thought, and a conscious striving together for certain ideals of life", he felt these factors 'infinitely transcended' biological factors (p.32). Du Bois gave no 'causal power' to biology or inherited racial traits (p.37).

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Morris’s cautionary tale regarding the temptation to use contemporary standards of language to interpret writings from another time-period is a critically important lesson for researchers.  This serves as a powerful reminder of the ways in which a researcher can bias her research without even realizing it.

In early writings, Du Bois at times referred to black as “backward,” of “lows social grade,’ “undeveloped people,” “ignorant,” in a state of “race-childhood,” “primitive folk,” and in need of “guidance” from culturally superior groups, including selective whites.

When analyzing terminology used by Du Bois over a century ago, some contemporary scholars have tended to unwittingly blame Du Bois for not using social constructionist language that had not been invented.  It was possible for Du Bois and other scholars in the early twentieth century to use a vocabulary not meant to convey essentialism, even though today no constructivist would use it. (p30)

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1. For African Americans, the stages of group development were rudely interrupted by devastating forms of oppression, including the slave trade, over two centuries of slavery, and the radical ruptures caused by the Civil War and emancipation.  For Du Bois, these social disruptions were culturally cataclysmic:

A nation that breaks suddenly with tis past is almost fatally crippled.  No matter how crude or imperfect that past may be, with all its defects, it is the foundation upon which generations to come must build.  Beauty and finish and architectural detail are not required of it, but the massive weight of centuries of customs traditions it must have.

In Du Bois’s analysis, a negative achievement of American slavery was the upheaval of the social institutions and cultural foundations that existed in the African fatherlands. (p40)

2.  In his analysis of the stereotype of blacks as “shiftless” Du Bois writes:

They are careless because they have not found that it pays to be careful; they are improvident because the improvident ones of their acquaintance get on about as well as the provident.  Above all, they cannot see why they should take unusual pains to make the white man’s lands better, or to fatten his mule, or save his corn.

“Du Bois shows how behaviors that would ordinarily be explained by racial stereotypes are actually rational because oppression provides few incentives to act otherwise.  To be an efficient slave was to act irrationally because it increased the power of one’s oppressor.” (p41-42)

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In 1903 Du Bois predicted that, “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”  I wonder what Du Bois would think of the current situation.  Here we are over twenty years into the twenty-first century and not only have we failed to address the color line, we have additional problems (some new and some old) such as gender, sexual identity, undocumented immigrants, etc. that need serious attention.  For all our scientific and technological advancement, we have done little to address the everyday people problems that prevent individuals from reaching their full potential and weaken our society as a whole.

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One can see how every chapter from Kendi’s book (Definitions, Dueling Consciousness, Power, Biology, Ethnicity, Body, Culture, Behavior, Color, White, Black, Class, Space, Gender, Sexuality, Failure, Success, and Survival) represents a twenty-first century continuation of the sociological research on race that W.E.B. Du Bois started in the early twentieth century.

“Du Bois’s race analysis is dynamic because it stresses how historical specificity and developmental tendencies influence and shape race and class dynamics.  It also takes culture into account by emphasizing how social oppression creates cultural deficits among the dominated, thus encouraging cultures of domination to take hold in ways that stunt a group’s social development and its capacity to engage in collective action.”

(p44).

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“I cannot but see a plain case of cause and effect. If you degrade people the result is degradation, and you have no right to be surprised at it” (p.40-41). Here DuBois is arguing that the holding down of Black people is the cause of the low position in society, economically, educationally, and culturally that Black people held.

“To assert dogmatically that the present distribution of culture is a fair index of the distribution of human ability and desert is to make an assertion for which there is not the slightest scientific warrant” (P. 43) Here DuBois is arguing that there is no scientific evidence of the inferiority of the Black race based on perceived cultural deficits that are pointed to in order to show this inferiority.

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I learned about the place that DuBois held in the history of thought about race in America. “Dubois recognized that systems of domination produce and are sustained by cultures of subordination that drastically curtail challenges from below and derail social development of the oppressed” (p. 39). Du Bois was arguing that any deficiencies of Blacks in the US had nothing to do with racial inferiority, as was the common explanation from the beginning of the slave trade until his time, but rather a function of the lack of opportunity that Blacks had to be educated and pursue opportunities to improve their lives.

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I see the connection to Kendi in many ways. Kendi points to all of the ways in which racism has influenced the perception of Black people and DuBois was really the father of this line of thinking. DuBois saw that “economic exploitation, the lack of political power, and the absence of education determined racial inequity and not inherited race traits or some other essentialist racial characteristics” (p. 39) which are all areas that Kendi also pointed to as areas where racist policies are present.

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One question that I have is about DuBois’s conception of the “Talented Tenth”. Was his idea that this group would lead Black people towards a future where they could all rise educationally, economically, politically, and culturally? Or, was DuBois positing that in general there will always be an elite 10% in any society that were the leaders in these areas and that the common folk would not ever be able to achieve this level?

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Neo-Lamarckianism was an entirely new concept for me.

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“They are careless because they have not found that it pays to be careful; they are improvident because the improvident ones of their acquaintance get on about as well as the provident. Above all, they cannot see why they should take unusual pains to make the white man’s land better, or to fatten his mule, or save his corn” (p. 41).

“The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination of the Worst '' (p. 31).

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How did so much literature exist that did not consider the differences between times when social construction existed and when it did not?

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Kendi’s chapter on Behavior was a very close connection for me. Particularly the quote, “Making individuals responsible for the perceived behavior of racial groups and making whole racial groups responsible for the behavior of individuals are the two ways that behavioral racism infects our perception of the world” (p. 94).

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“Indeed, Du Bois emerged from The Philadelphia Negro as the first number-crunching, surveying, interviewing, participant-observing and field-working sociologist in America, a pioneer in the multimethods approach (47).”

“Du Bois sought to explicate the human condition by interrogating the color line in America and globally (48).”

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I spun into a research hole upon reading about Du Bois' experiences in Germany in 1892 and the point, which the text makes, that less than 40 years later Hitler would rise to power. It is absolutely wild to think about Du Bois' time in Germany in the late 1800s, his feeling of being embraced and seen as an equal, of being invited to the "White-Black Club" and then the difference a few decades later.

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One aspect of this text that struck me was the ways in which Du Bois's scholarship and work was stuck within the context of his time, to where he could be misunderstood by a modern audience, and how Du Bois's work overcame that context and even was ahead of it's time. It does make me wonder how much we misinterpret and misunderstand, coming from a modern context, about historical scholarship, and as well how much our current context shapes the work happening now, how current scholarship might be misunderstood by future generations.

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Kendi's chapter on Dueling Consciousness stands out for me - I know Kendi quotes Du Bois a bunch throughout the book, but that chapter in particular references a term Du Bois coined.

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One thing I learned in Chapter 2 is how much of a pioneer in the emerging field of sociology Du Bois was. By using a blended approach of quantitative and qualitative research methods, he set a standard for empirical study that was not being used elsewhere at the turn of the twentieth century. Most notable was the open disregard for his methodology by his peers who “embraced a deductive analytic strategy to ‘explain’ its nature and functioning. Such theorizing based its proofs, not on empirical research, but on speculation and intuition.” (Morris p.23) The striking thing about this is how dismissive his contemporaries were of him and his work. He was largely excluded from the dialogue, and even though his approach to sociological research was grounded in data, he was not credited for his influence on the field.

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Two quotes that characterize the reading are:

“He argued that for the new science of sociology to be scientific it had to be based on empirical data rather than armchair theorizing and what he called ‘car window sociology,’ quick and superficial generalizations about complex social phenomena like the impressions one might gather by glancing at scenes through the window of a fast-moving automobile.” (Morris p.25)

“Therefore, for Du Bois, economic exploitation, the lack of political power, and the absences of education determined racial inequality and not inherited race traits or some other essentialist racial characteristics.” (Morris p.39)

These quotes sum up the chapter. The first quote focuses on Du Bois’ somewhat novel commitment to empiricism rather than unsubstantiated theories. The second captures the point of his study, to frame the conditions for Black Americans in light of the oppression they endured rather than as an outcome of their race.

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One question I have is what Morris might think about de Tocqueville’s analysis of race in America? On pages 38 and 39 he talks about how the slave system “became regulated by a Black Code, a caste of race replaced the caste of condition.” This feels reminiscent of what de Tocqueville had to say about the additional layer of race and its implication on the lasting impact of slavery in America. It seems as though Du Bois was concerned with exactly the same thing.

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As I read The Scholar Denied, I kept thinking about Kendi and how much of what Du Bois was saying at the turn of the twentieth century is still relevant in Kendi’s work today. There were numerous places where I made connections, but the most notable place was on page 48. There, Morris discusses how Du Bois “analyzed the conditions of Black women,” and “analyzed black crime, revealing that it was largely rooted in social conditions rather than biological and social degeneracy.” He also analyzed, “the social organization and cultural processes of the black church and laid bare its role as the community’s central institution, affecting all aspects of black life.” (Morris p.48) Kendi revisited these in How to Be an Anti-racist through his own experience and memories. Likewise, he makes a strong argument using data, both qualitative and quantitative, throughout the book that racism is embedded in racist policies that perpetuate inequities in America. It left me feeling sad about our current conditions, not so different from a century ago, that so clearly disadvantage people of color in our country. I wonder if Du Bois had been taken seriously by his peers whether it would have made any difference.

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1. “Du Bois’s sociology of race is the hallmark of his scholarship and radically differentiates his analyses from those of his contemporaries that flourished over the ensuing century. A systematic examination of Du Bois’s sociology of race makes clear that he proceeded from a social constructionist framework. Talk of biology and inherited racial traits is absent, and such traits are attributed no causal power. In contrast to Appiah, Reed, and Watts, and to Gooding-Williams to some extent, historical specificity is crucial in Du Bois’s accounts of racial dynamics and assessments of the black masses” (Morris, 2015, pp. 37-38).

2. Regarding the abilities of the black masses, Du Bois agreed with a recently emancipated young boy, Richard R. Wright Sr., who, when asked in 1868 to provide his assessment of the newly freed slaves, responded: “Tell them we are rising!” (Morris, 2015, pp. 43).

Morris, Aldon. (2015). A scholar Denied: W.E.B du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. University of California Press.

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Du Bois analyzed the conditions of black women and the unique challenges they faced in the labor market. The Philadelphia Negro, therefore, focused attention on gender relations (Morris, 2015, Pg 48).

Morris, Aldon. (2015). A scholar Denied: W.E.B du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. University of California Press.

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Why was W.E.B du Bois so misunderstood given that he used the language of the period?

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“I took my first Black history course in the fall of 2003, the first of four African and African American history courses I would take over three semesters with FAMU professor David Jackson” (Kendi, 2015, pp. 150).

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an antiracist. Random House.

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Du Bois deviated from other sociologists that identified predictable laws of human behavior and instead used an empirical social research approach. “A systematic examination of Du Bois’s sociology of race makes clear that he proceeded from a social constructivist framework. Talk of biology and inherited traits is absent, and such traits are attributed no causal power.”

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“Du Bois headed in a completely different direction: he formulated a sociology of race showing that racial hierarchies rested on edifices of power, discrimination, and entrenched oppression.”

“The color line produced diminished wages for black farm laborers; it also controlled spaces their bodies occupied and the absence of justice they experienced in the courts and the public square.”

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If we acknowledge the contributions of black scholars, are we rewriting history? When someone says, “History is history, why are we changing what we teach?”, how does an understanding of Du Bois’ work help reframe the conversation?

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Morris argued that a white scholar’s contributions likely would have received greater recognition and respect than Du Bois. “At age thirty-six, he had published far more works than most of the white scholars given prominent platforms at the congress.” Conversely, Kendi spent an entire chapter reshaping the view of prominent black leaders and their ability to escape racial criticism due to the color of their skin. “Aside from Justice Clarence Thomas’s murderous gang of anti-Black judgements over the years, perhaps the most egregious Black on Black racist crime in recent American history decided the 2004 presidential election. George W. Bush narrowly won re-election by taking Ohio with the crucial help of Ohio’s ambitious Black Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell” (p.142).

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"If you degrade people the result is degradation, and you have no right to be surprised at it." (40-41)

"Du Bois's sociology of race is the hallmark of his scholarship and radically differentiates his analyses from those of his contemporaries that flourished over the ensuing century" (37).

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Learning that "some contemporary scholars have tended to unwittingly blame Du Bois for not using social constructionist language" (31) even though it had not been invented yet was striking. There seem to be so many philosophers committed to undermining Du Bois's work.

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There are so many Kendi connections here. In this quote from the article, "Du Bois was clear that cultural degradation did not arise from biological or culturally transmitted traits. Rather, it sprang from an oppression..." (41) we could easily replace Du Bois's name with Kendi to capture the main theme permeating through How to be an Antiracist.

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I am curious to learn more about how Du Bois is covered in high school/college sociology classes today.

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“Therefore, for Du Bois, economic exploitation, the lack of political power, and the absence of education determined racial inequality and not the inherited race traits or some other essentialist racial characteristics.” (Morris,  pg 39)

“Du Bois was clear that cultural degradation did not arise from biological or culturally transmitted traits. Rather, it sprang from an oppression that kept blacks illiterate and uneducated and from the narrow horizons inherent in the experiences  of people too poor to travel in Jim Crow cars and too illiterate to read the books that would enable the imagination to soar.” (Morris, pg 41)

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I was unaware of the amount of pushback Du Bois received from contemporary sociologists, and was shocked to discover the extent of neo-Lamarckian thinking in racist excuses for discrimination and enforced racial inequity.

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Given the clear negative outcomes associated with deliberate and continued misunderstandings of evolutionary biology, what policies, habits, and approaches to critical thinking can be used to identify and address individual misunderstandings as a unique threat to learning and ultimately to democracy?

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Morris quotes Du Bois’s critic claiming that Du Bois’s work is “substituting a sociohistorical conception of race for a biological one, but that is simply to bury the biological conception below the surface, not to transcend it.”  (Morris, pg 32) This echoes a statement Kendi made; “When the reaction to the Nazi Holocaust marginalized biological racism, cultural racism stepped into its place.” (Kendi, pg 83) Morris further explains how the long discredited science of neo-Lamarckian theories allowed many sociologists to “replace unalterable biological traits with acquired racial traits that had become encoded in biology and would take perhaps centuries of altered environmental conditions to change.” (Morris, pg 34)

While Du Bois is not guilty of this accusation, the reality remains that many did use this mental bait and switch to continue to justify the outcomes of racial inequality. Morris goes on to clearly distinguish in WEB DuBois’s work the role of biological race in the creation of shared physical features as well as the vastly more significant role of “common history, common laws and religion, similar habits of thought and a conscious striving together for certain ideals of life.” (Morris, quoting Du Bois, pg 32) Morris does an excellent job of clarifying four distinct relationships between variables: physical difference can be inherited through common blood, there is often a backwards correlation between conditions and race (an individual may be poor because his parents were slaves), there is not a forward causation (an individual cannot be blamed for being unemployed because they are black), and there is a strong correlation and causation between racial inequity and racist policies. Morris explains “Du Bois formulated a sociology of race showing that racial hierarchies rested on edifices of power, discrimination, and entrenched oppression.” (Morris, pg 35) Also, “the condition of bondage and inferiority was a political accomplishment created through codes, laws, and economic contracts.” (Morris, pg 39) It is clear that Morris places the same emphasis on the deliberate maintaining of racial inequity through policy choices rather than the inevitable outcome of inferiority as Kendi does.

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“I cannot but see a plain case of cause and effect. If you degrade people the result is degradation, and you have no right to be surprised at it” (p. 41).

“For Du Bois mental and spiritual differences have historical and social causes that are not reducible to biological racial differences. In fine, he takes these causes to be causally independent of biological race facts” (p. 35).

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In examining recently freed slaves, Du Bois delved into their past conditions of servitude and their post-emancipation status to determine whether race or sociological factors accounted for their subordinate position in the social order. He found that the first generation following slavery was actually not free structurally or culturally. Structurally, Black people after emancipation were constrained within a system of economic and social domination. Culturally, they were severely crippled by a social heritage inherited from two centuries of slavery (p. 38).

Emancipated slaves were economically dependent on White masters by entering exploitative arrangements of debt peonage and sharecropping that kept them perennially in debt and able to live only a “hand to mouth” existence. Without the vote, legal protections, and education, the black masses trapped by caste were defenseless neoslaves within a new system of oppression (p.39).

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On p.45, it states that it was continually stressed in the community and in classes that there was a vast difference in the development of the Whites and the ‘lower’ races; this could be seen in the physical development of the Negro….in what way was Negro physical development perceived to be ‘lower’?

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Kendi: Ch. 4 Biology- Biological racists are segregationists. Biological racism rests on two ideas: that the races are meaningfully different in their biology and that these differences create a hierarchy of value.

Du Bois: p.34-35- First, as to sheer physical heredity, are the Black races degenerate or undeveloped specimens of humanity? The answer to this is clear and unequivocal and has never for a moment been disputed by any scientific evidence; the Negro races are from every physical standpoint full and normally developed men; their stance and muscular development, their keenness of sense and their physical measurement show absolutely no variation from the European type sufficient to base any theory of essentially human differences upon.

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Some 200 years later, Kendi is necessarily repeating the same arguments at Dubois. “There are no races, in the sense of great, separate, pure breeds of men, differing in attainment, development, and capacity.” It is disgusting to learn that our society has used social codes, laws, and policies at all levels to maintain power over and oppression of the most vulnerable. Du Bois clearly articulates the same argument as Kendi. In the time between, the condition of the African American has only become more institutionalized, and the “caste of race replaced the caste of condition.”

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I wonder if the academics attacking Du Bois as elitist and racist is an example of a racist attack on an African American scholar to discredit him to support white supremacy.

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I now better understand social Darwinism and its role in racism. I had heard the phrase before but didn’t fully understand the implications and the distinction between social and scientific Darwinism. Again, it is deeply disturbing to learn the cultural investment we have made to maintain power, control, and wealth over American citizens - long after the civil war and civil rights movement.

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“Du Bois’s race analysis is dynamic because it stresses how historical specificity and developmental tendencies influence and shape race and class dynamics. It also takes culture into account by emphasizing how social oppression creates cultural deficits among the dominated, thus encouraging cultures of domination to take hold in ways that stunt a group’s social development and its capacity to engage in collective action.” (Morris, 2015, pg. 44)

“When analyzing terminology used by Du Bois over a century ago, some contemporary scholars have tended to unwittingly blame Du Bois for not using social constructionist language that had not been invented. It was possible for Du Bois and other scholars in the early twentieth century to use a vocabulary not meant to convey essentialism, even though today no constructivist would use it. Hence there is a need for caution against a contemporary reading of what Du Bois should have been writing about in those times, given the current vocabularies avail- able to scholars writing today.” (Morris, 2015, pg. 30)

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Quote 1”Being true to his German historicist roots, Du Bois discarded the straitjacket of grand theories, including social Darwinism, and replaced them with an inductive method seeking sociological knowledge based on clearly defined empirical research.”

Morris, Aldon. The Scholar Denied : W. E. B. du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology, University of California Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usmmaine-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1882078.

Quote 2 “Du Bois headed in a completely different direction: he formulated a sociology of race showing that racial hierarchies rested on edifices of power, discrimination, and entrenched oppression.”

Morris, Aldon. The Scholar Denied : W. E. B. du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology, University of California Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usmmaine-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1882078.

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I became aware of the extent that other scholars downplayed DuBois’s work and his contributions to the field of sociology.

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For my question, I’ll borrow DuBois’s timeless question: “The basic question is, How soon after a social revolution like emancipation ought one reasonably to expect the appearance of habits of thrift and the accumulation of property? Moreover, how far is the accumulation of wealth indicative of general advance in moral habits and sound character, or how far is it independent of them or in spite of them?” 82

Morris, Aldon. The Scholar Denied : W. E. B. du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology, University of California Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usmmaine-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1882078.

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Race is a social construct.

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1.  "[Du Bois found it] is a political sociology stressing power, economic exploitation, and social oppression as producers and sustainers of racial inequality." (p.45)
Morris, Aldon. The Scholar Denied : W. E. B. du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology, University of California Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usmmaine-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1882078.
Created from usmmaine-ebooks on 2021-11-06 02:51:40.
Though debated at times, Du Bois approached his work using a social constructionist lens.  He recognized that racist ideas and racist attitudes stemmed from systemic dynamics that existed in a capitalist context.

2. "Du Bois considered white American and European civilizations that colonized and discriminated against people of color to be barbaric and backward." (p.39)
Morris, Aldon. The Scholar Denied : W. E. B. du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology, University of California Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usmmaine-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1882078.
Created from usmmaine-ebooks on 2021-11-06 02:54:49.
Despite the fact that several people looking at his work actually mischaracterized him as an elitist or as someone who also railed against African Americans, they were certainly mistaken about his work, and generally just wrong.

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There were a few things I learned. One is the idea of Neo-Lamarckianism.... I was not familiar with this. Something else that I was surprised about was the amount of scholars or colleagues who negatively characterized his work - and seriously misunderstood his meaningful contributions because they failed to accurately consider the work of Du Bois within his social context and era. I was really surprised to realize the ways in which his work, his ideas, his motives, and he, himself, was so mischaracterized.

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Though I initially thought Kendi was a first of his kind, I actually realized that the work of Du Bois (in his own context) was radical yet spot on, like Kendi.  It will be interesting to see if Kendi seems to be dismissed in similar ways to Du Bois going forward.  Given that we are in the same era or context as Kendi, Kendi's depictions of oppression, the role of socioeconomics in perpetuating and creating racist ideas, for example, make sense to us (Kendi's present-day audience) given what we see around us - in terms of food insecurity, housing insecurities, educational inequities and so forth.  I wonder if future scholars, emerging 50 years from now, will make the same mistakes reviewing the work of Kendi in their time, that others made reviewing the work of Du Bois out of original social context.  I can see how Kendi's work might be erroneously characterized as elitist in a different era. On the whole, we are not always good at learning from prior history.

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1. "To clinch his argument, Watts selects from Du Bois’s works phrases regarding the black masses that are very similar to those selected by Appiah and Reed. He cites this passage: “I should be the last one to deny the patent weaknesses and shortcomings of the Negro people; I should be the last to withhold sympathy from the white South in its efforts to solve its intricate social problems. I freely acknowledge that it is possible, and sometimes best, that a partially undeveloped people should be ruled by the best of their stronger and better neighbors for their own good, until such time as they can start and fight the world’s battles alone".  See quote #2
2. "However, Watts cites this quote without examining Du Bois’s next sentences which rejects white guidance: I have already pointed out how sorely in need of such economic and spiritual guidance the emancipated Negro was. . . . But the point I have insisted upon and now emphasize again, is that the best opinion of the South to-day is not the ruling opinion. That to leave the Negro helpless and without a ballot to-day is to leave him not to the guidance of the best, but rather to the exploitation and debauchment of the worst; that this is no truer of the South than of the North,—of the North than of Europe: in any land, in any country under modern free competition, to lay any class of weak and despised people, be they white, black, or blue, at the political mercy of their stronger, richer, and more resourceful fellows, is a temptation which human nature seldom has withstood and seldom will withstand"

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I have learned that Du Bois faced so much challenges in refuting scientific racism. In some cases scholars used and took his own writing out of context.

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To summarize, I believe Kendi writes and uses similar but different approach of Du Bois to address and challenge modern day racism. Kendi also gives history and context to help us understand what is happening. Du Bois used scientific approach to challenge racism of his time and pave the way for more research and data to further anti-racism work.

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Morris states, "The economic bondage former slaves encountered was a caste system initially constructed by white slave masters and refashioned by the southern white aristocracy to control the now-emancipated slaves. It was a caste system, according to Du Bois, because American slavery initially operated through a Slave Code that did not tie bondage to skin color. However, once the slave system became regulated by a Black Code, a caste of race replaced the caste of condition. This caste system equating subordination with black skin doomed African Americans to centuries of class and racial oppression." It seems the original intention behind racism was economical. Do you think the US government should intentionally empower African Americans and compensate African Americans to erase the racial inequality?