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Write two quotes that characterize this reading.

Although positioning himself as a liberal, Walter Willcox was an active member of the American Eugenics movement and was actually a racist who predicted that because Blacks were inferior Darwinian law would inevitably lead to their extinction. Nevertheles, Du Bois did not exclude scholars from the conferences because their views differed from his own (p. 80).

Scientific racism, espoused by scholars of the day, provided political actors the ideology to justify the oppressive regime (p.87)…..it is instructive to keep in mind that the consensus regarding Black inferiority cut across all academic disciplines during the first half of the twentieth century (p. 87)….Du Bois’s school of sociology operated on the belief that a scientific approach, as advocated at Atlanta University, would produce objective research findings that would blow up the premises of scientific racism and lead to the political overthrow of racial oppression (p. 88).

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Write one question you have.

I’m confused by Boas, who stated that White racism, rather than flawed genetics or Black cultural practices, was the cause of racial inequality. Several years later, Boas said in a speech that Blacks, because of slightly smaller head sizes than Whites on average, could not produce men of high genius at the same rate as Whites. What happened over those few years that so drastically changed his thinking? How does Boas make sense of these two opposing views? He is purported to support scientific research like Du Bois, but then espouses scientific racism based on ideology instead of research.

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What is one connection you make with Kendi’s “How To Be An Anti-racist”?

Du Bois’ colleague Frank Boas is said to have racial privileges unavailable to Du Bois because of his White skin, and Boas was hired at Columbia, which gave him access to considerable intellectual resources and trained gifted graduate students. On the other hand, at Atlanta University, Du Bois barely had resources to train undergraduates and a few master’s students. This is reminiscent of Kendi’s chapter about Black spaces and how vastly different these spaces can be resourced due to racial differences. Although both scientists were science researchers and professors at respective universities, one was given access to an abundance of resources, while another was given barely anything to work with, again, due to their different racial backgrounds and the respect/value that was associated with it at that time.

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"Dubois did not exclude scholars from the conference  because their views differed from his own. The annual conference considered a variety of of viewpoints on the topics they researched, and although Wilcox held racist views, he was considered to have a valuable viewpoint, especially given is stature as a leading economist and official at the Census Bureau. (p.80)

"Boas also shared with DuBois a set of deeply held democratic values that led him to plead the cause of the oppressed. Lie DU Bois, BHoas became a public intellectual utilizing social science to initiate social transformation. (p.82)

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I think that the connection that I made with Kendi's work is actually with what Boas was espousing in terms of both the racism that denied the value and importance of Africa to "civiilization" in speaking to the great accomplishments of ancient Africa but also in dispelling the biological and physical reasoning behing racism in Social Darwinism.

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In reading about Du Bois and his invitations to Walter Wilcox, Frank Sanborn, Franz Boas, and Jane Adams to the Atlanta Conference, I'm wondering if DuBois extended an invitation to any Black intellectuals of the day? It seems that chapter points to all of these White intellectuals and to DuBois' competition with Booker T. Washington in the marketplace of ideas but where are the other Black intellectuals of the day at this conference?

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“Nevertheless, Du Bois did not exclude scholars from the conferences because their views differed from his own.” (80)

“Like Small at Chicago, Du Bois was an institution builder who created favorable conditions at his school that enhanced the work of colleagues and students.” (79)

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This section of the text really emphasized how pervasive racism is in our society, which is very much emphasized in Kendi's work as we consider his metaphor of racism as a cancer.

A few excerpts from the text depicting this:

“Franz Boas came to Atlanta University where I was teaching history in 1906 and said to a graduating class: You need not be ashamed of your African past; and then he recounted the history of the black kingdoms south of the Sahara for a thousand years. I was too astonished to speak. All of this I had never heard and I came then and afterwards to realize how the silence and neglect of science can let truth utterly disappear or even be unconsciously distorted” (82)

Aldrich concludes, “The academic disciplines were, of course, by no means exempt from these currents; the period also witnessed the high tide of scientific racism in biology, anthropology, sociology and economics.”

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What was Wilcox's response to Du Bois's challenge when he expressed to him "the fundamental difficulty in your position is that you are trying to show an evaluation of the Negro problem—only from inside your office." It seems impossible to dispute.

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"The annual conferences considered a variety of viewpoints on the topics they researched, and although Willcox held racist views, he was considered to have a valuable
viewpoint, especially given his stature as a leading economist and official at the Census Bureau," (80).
"All of this I had never heard and I came then and afterwards to realize how the silence and neglect of science can let truth utterly disappear or even be unconsciously distorted, (82).
"Boas also shared with Du Bois a set of deeply held democratic values that led him to plead the cause of the oppressed," (82).
"If the evidence got a hearing, its truth would ultimately prevail," (88).

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The connection I make to Kendi's book is regarding the discussion of culture. Boas talks about race as not biological at all but rather cultural. Kendi talks about the fact that we compare society's cultures in terms of better or worse. He talks about celebrating all cultures as equal. This seemed in line with Boaz's take on the question of culture and race as well.
"Thus all racial groups were products of their culture and social surroundings. As a result, there existed no superior and inferior races but only groups with different cultures. Culture in this sense was not an ultimate, highly developed state that human groups reached if properly endowed. Each race, argued Boas, possessed an independent culture, so there were as many cultures as there were distinct groups. Therefore, the existence of universal criteria by which
cultures could be judged was a logical and sociological impossibility," (83).

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I can understand why Du Bois would seek out white scientists and professors to further his arguments, but what was the place of the other black scientists and professors?