My Comment: On DuBois and White Privlege

Teaching WEB DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk (1903) last night to my undergrads at ASU, I was reminded that the context of that piece and his rival Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery is really white privilege, about what to do with blacks just freed from slavery. While DuBois asks the perennial question at the turn of the century—How do we measure progress?—the question is really one that begs a critical examination of American racism that  will show its head no matter how much hall sweeping and brick building Booker T. recommends that free backs do to demonstrate their worth and usefulness.

To acknowledge that racism in America exists is to inherently recognize that whiteness has long been the unchallenged and unproven mark of beauty, achievement, morality and accomplishment. While Booker T. may be practicing his trickster skills in order to persuade/ seduce his rich white  supporters to contribute significant funding to begin and keep open the historical Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, DuBois refused to accept that kind of soul-selling of blacks, offering instead a real plan for self-reliance intellectually and philosophically, albeit an elitist perspective.

My personal connection with the DuBoisian philosophy acknowledges that depending on someone to approve your actions or you is counter to the argument about self-reliance racially, socially, and politically.