William Edward Burghardt Du Bois paints
“a portrait of black culture,” in his text, The
Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903. He defines the piece by describing
its content as a mixture of autobiography, history, social documentary and
lastly an anthropological field report. He draws the “gentle” reader in by
saying “if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black.” The
strokes of this portrait are rich with facts and stories about what
emancipation meant to black people, the daily struggles of black peasantry, how
slaves were a source of strength to the confederacy as laborers and producers,
the Freedmen’s bureau, Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise, the Abolition
Movement, the Revolution of 1876, evolution of black schools and Universities
in the South, the economic roller coaster, when “the keynote of the Black Belt was debt”,
Emancipation and that “Slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause
of all sorrows, the root of all prejudice.” The welcome that the black race
received before even arriving to this country was one of complete disregard for
their humanity.
Slavery
is the means for which humanity actively participates in “sheer barbarity” of
which “deafens us to the wail of prisoned soul within the veil.” In the Souls of Black Folks, the ethical
principle that is not present within the text is the granting of dignity,
respect, grace and “boundless justice” from one human being to another. This
absence of dignity and respect created a world of cruel suppression and of
incredible acts of violence, rape, murder, degradation, disrespect and
ultimately for the gains of white American humanity. The metaethical problem
illustrated was that human beings used human beings at the expense of their
very souls; for power, pleasure, pride, wealth, prosperity, social status and
labor. Du Bois illustrates white humanity stripping the souls from the Negro
people. White human beings did not regard the Negro person as a “throbbing human
soul” or as God’s beloved children. The Negro slaves were brought into our
country to serve the needs of the white persons at the expense of their souls
and sometimes lives.
White Americans treated the Negro people in a way that left their brothers and sisters in a place where they could not fathom what truth
was, who they were in the bare feet of their own souls, who God created them to
be and knowing what was right became intangible. For them, it felt as though
pure existence meant that the darkness out weighed the light; when God’s child cannot
be himself, because his or her sense of self was taken away by another human
being. This quote by Du Bois best describes how the world should and could be; “Sometime,
somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not their skin.”
The repercussions of the acts of
violence against the black race took away their self- confidence, self- worth, ability
to dream and hope, to marry, drove them to believe that they are “the negro
problem,” ability to live outside the realm of suffering and poverty, to own
land, to escape bankruptcy and to exist without fear. Their life experiences
taught them that they will amount to nothing, they should give up goals and
aspirations and most importantly the hope for freedom and justice in their
worlds and lifetime. The writer references the worth of the Negro individual
living in the South; “To-day it makes little difference to Atlanta, to the
South, what the Negro thinks or dreams or wills.” Du Bois portrays the Negro as the soul that
longs to ask the question of God’s existence and what God’s purpose is for the
suffering Negro life. Many actively sought peace within the institution of the
Negro Christian Church, sending them searching for what was true, right and
good.
When we stop looking into people’s
eyes and listening to their words, stories, joy, sorrow, seeking out the
context of their lives, who they are, what they believe in and what they live
for, through the information that we gather; we are responding with descriptive and
normative ethics and are silently condoning violence, poverty, homelessness,
racism, discrimination, sex trafficking, sexism and many more of our society
and world’s way of thinking and acting that strips the souls from human beings.
Du Bois wrote, that we live, “in a world
where it means so much to take a man by the hand and sit beside him, to look
frankly into his eyes and feel his heart beating with red blood; in a world
where a social cigar or a cup of tea together means more than legislative halls
and magazine articles and speeches.” He also wrote, “the opening of heart and
hand of the best to the worst, in generous acknowledgement of a common humanity
and a common destiny.”
What I learned most from this text
is that I cannot let other people define what living truth means to me and as
Becca Stevens best said it, we have to stop ourselves, “when they become “them”
and we become “us” and ask really who are “them?” Du Bois offered these encouraging
words to the Negro people within the text, that “to attain his place in the
world, he must be himself and not another.”
Over the weekend, while I was
reflecting on “The Souls of Black Folk,”
my path met a homeless man in a coffee shop. When I first saw the man with his
stack of bags and sleeping bag, I stopped myself from making assumptions about
who he is and his past. I hoped to pour into his soul within our short lived
interaction with compassion, kindness, humility and gratitude. After we shook
hands, I reached up to my face to push my hair from the perimeter of my white
face and I could smell the tobacco from his cigarette on my fingertips. What
kinds of burdens was this man carrying with him? Was he living behind the veil
and was he searching to reclaim his soul? I immediately wanted to wash my hands
of the scent of stale cigarettes, the dirt, the sorrow and humiliation that I
saw in his eyes. I wanted to wash off the way that I judged him, his bags of
dirty clothes, the odor of his body when he brushed by my table, the umbrella
sticking out of his back pack, my wild imagination and curiosity of where he
had slept that night, where he would rest in safety tonight?, where was he from?,
how long had he been living on the streets?...was it because of substance abuse
or something worse. I believe that it took a community of people to get him
there and I was an active participant; through my actions and thoughts or lack
of. What had I done recently to act against violence, to provide a meal, shelter,
to believe in someone or pray for someone different than me? Du Bois text has
me searching for truth and social justice in my own life.
This reflection left me interested
in learning more about how the last hundred years have affected the presence of
“the veil” and how other races, genders, cultures, religions, tribes, ethnic
groups experienced the same internal, permanent, life-long effects of the veil?
I get the sense, from reading your blog, that you truly have looked inwardly at your heart and thought-life after reading Du Bois. Your tenderness and transparency in discussing the homeless man was very intriguing. After reading Du Bois, how do you feel you will interact with people of color now that you understand the double consciousness we live with? You very keenly hone in on how you have had to check yourself on how you view people and what contexts have shaped their lives. As a White woman, how has Du Bois helped you to challenge yourself to tackle the color line? I like that you mentioned that you felt the need to consider your own personal social justice. I think an area that would be of interest to someone of color is how someone like you feels they could effect change within their personal culture (i.e. close circle of friends or immediate family) to help them understand the role racism plays in America.
ReplyDeleteThanks for these reflections, Lara. I appreciate the fact that you've clearly wrestled with Du Bois and the realities he depicts in personal ways. I especially value your reflections on the meaning of presence and listening with people who are "other". One thing I thought about as I read your post is to what degree we might look for the ways Du Bois depicts agency among African Americans suffering beneath the weight of being a "problem". Does he show us that African Americans, despite their suffering and marginalization, nevertheless assert their own humanity and their dignity without someone else "giving" it to them? What might African Americans' self-asserting agency and dignity despite oppression mean for those on the other side of the "color-line" who are eager to be allies? I've had to reflect on this myself, as a white male raised in the middle/upper class. Thanks for your transparency and for your eagerness to find ways to be present to others who are different from you.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate that you have been very intentional in reflecting on Dr. Du Bois' work and what it means for both blacks and whites in contemporary society. I think part of the problem in America has been that people don't want to admit that for hundreds of years they have been complicit in the oppression of African Americans even if it is from being the legacy of several generations of white wealth. That wealth was built upon the backs of slaves, slaves who only had the idea of freedom in their hands when they were emancipated. All the things they toiled for did not belong to them. Economically speaking, African American are still at a disadvantage because of this in terms of not having generational wealth to pass on to their children or grandchildren. I dare not go into the psychological impact slavery still has on not just Black people but whites as well. Blacks live with the stress of being confined to a color or problem, and whites wrestle with or not the idea that by birthright they are better.
ReplyDeleteI say all that to say thank you for at least taking the time to reflect inward and see how you can be a part of a solution. Racism and injustice was not constructed in a day, and it will not be combated in a day or in a semester of African American Social Ethics. ;0) However, this can be the spring board for addressing some of these issues starting with the Divinity School. There are many conversations that need to be had that people refuse to have or to think about. In the Div School, I have found that most people say they want to impact the world and all people, but really most of them only want to minister to people who look like them and think like them, so is that really ministry?
I enjoyed your story about the homeless man because so often we forget to see the humanity in other people. Sometimes, we just need to listen. We need to listen to people who do have the same life or lived experiences that we do. What would you like to see happen in this country in terms of racial equality? Do you think racism is something that can be unlearned? What do seek to understand about people that you perhaps do not understand?
Laura, thank you for your reflection. I really liked how you used Becca Steven's quote to reinforce the idea that different groups of people really aren't that different; and that through open dialogue those differences can be appreciated and respected. Do you think that a "veil" exist for other social groups, specifically the LGBTQI community? If so, what complexities does a double veil add to an African-American living within the aforementioned community? An area that I would like for you to explore is the formation or existence of veils as it relates to other social groups without respect to race.
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