DR. DUBOIS ' "TALENTED TENTH "
Dr. W.E.B. DuBois in the iconic 1903 essay, "The Talented Tenth," in THE NEGRO PROBLEM, edited by Booker T. Washington, has conjoined and encapsulated two contrary observations that signify the essence of our mixed spiritual dilemma as black people, who have been scattered and peeled, whose heroic forbears, brought from far to America in the execrable holes of slave ships from Africa, survived!
One observation is sociological. It is accurate. The next observation is anthropological . It is inaccurate. I set them forth below to illustrate:
"And so we come to the present--a day of cowardice and vacillation, of strident wide-voiced wrong and faint hearted compromise ; of double-faced dallying with Truth and Right. Who are today guiding the Negro people? The 'exceptions' of course. And yet so sure as this Talented Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the Average cry out in alarm: 'These are exceptions, look at death , disease and crime--these are the happy rule.' Of course they are the rule, because a silly nation made them the rule: Because for three long centuries this people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave, raped black women who dared to be virtuous, crushed dark-hued youth who dared to be ambitious, and encouraged and made to flourish servility and lewdness and apathy. But not even this was able to crush all manhood and chastity and aspiration for black folk. A saving remnant continually survives and persists, continually aspires, continually shows itself in thrift and ability and character. Exceptional it is to be sure, but this is its chiefest promise; it shows the capability of Negro blood, the promise of black men. Do Americans ever stop to reflect that there are in this land a million men of Negro blood, well educated, owners of homes, against the honor of whose womanhood no breath was ever raised, whose men occupy positions of trust and usefulness , and who, judged by any standard , have reached the full measure of the best type of modern European culture? Is it fair , is it decent, is it Christian to ignore these facts of the Negro problem , to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership , to attempt to crush these people back into the mass out of which by toil and travail they and their fathers have raised themselves?"
The foregoing quotation is as correct in its substance in 2018 it was as in 1903. We have, many of us have, raised ourselves up from where we began. I surely have . My siblings surely have. My friends surely have. Tens of millions have. Yet, tens of millions have not raised themselves beyond their parents! It is in the next paragraph that I have taken issue with certain assertions as too loosely made by Dr. DuBois:
"Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and aristocracy of talent and character? Was there ever a nation on God's fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never, it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of human progress; and the two historic mistakes that have hindered that progress were the thinking first that no more would ever rise save the few already risen; or second it would be better the unrisen pull the already risen down."
P. 10-11.
I will not linger in my criticism of Dr. DuBois' upside down criticism of the black mass, or his unsupported generalizations about "progress" in human "civilization," except to say that I am unaware of any civilization on "God's fair earth" that did not begin at the bottom: in agriculture, hunting, fishing, gathering, and from there gradually built itself up. These nations include those of Africa, where civilization began; where it reached its ancient zenith in the arts, sciences, humanities, architecture, engineering and from whom the Greeks acquired their own before passing it to Europe via Rome, which benefited from Africa!
Thursday, April 26, 2018
TALENTED TENTH
DR. DUBOIS ' "TALENTED TENTH "
Dr. W.E.B. DuBois in the iconic 1903 essay, "The Talented Tenth," in THE NEGRO PROBLEM, edited by Booker T. Washington, has conjoined and encapsulated two contrary observations that signify the essence of our mixed spiritual dilemma as black people, who have been scattered and peeled, whose heroic forbears, brought from far to America in the execrable holes of slave ships from Africa, survived!
One observation is sociological. It is accurate. The next observation is anthropological . It is inaccurate. I set them forth below to illustrate:
"And so we come to the present--a day of cowardice and vacillation, of strident wide-voiced wrong and faint hearted compromise ; of double-faced dallying with Truth and Right. Who are today guiding the Negro people? The 'exceptions' of course. And yet so sure as this Talented Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the Average cry out in alarm: 'These are exceptions, look at death , disease and crime--these are the happy rule.' Of course they are the rule, because a silly nation made them the rule: Because for three long centuries this people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave, raped black women who dared to be virtuous, crushed dark-hued youth who dared to be ambitious, and encouraged and made to flourish servility and lewdness and apathy. But not even this was able to crush all manhood and chastity and aspiration for black folk. A saving remnant continually survives and persists, continually aspires, continually shows itself in thrift and ability and character. Exceptional it is to be sure, but this is its chiefest promise; it shows the capability of Negro blood, the promise of black men. Do Americans ever stop to reflect that there are in this land a million men of Negro blood, well educated, owners of homes, against the honor of whose womanhood no breath was ever raised, whose men occupy positions of trust and usefulness , and who, judged by any standard , have reached the full measure of the best type of modern European culture? Is it fair , is it decent, is it Christian to ignore these facts of the Negro problem , to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership , to attempt to crush these people back into the mass out of which by toil and travail they and their fathers have raised themselves?"
The foregoing quotation is as correct in its substance in 2018 it was as in 1903. We have, many of us have, raised ourselves up from where we began. I surely have . My siblings surely have. My friends surely have. Tens of millions have. Yet, tens of millions have not raised themselves beyond their parents! It is in the next paragraph that I have taken issue with certain assertions as too loosely made by Dr. DuBois:
"Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and aristocracy of talent and character? Was there ever a nation on God's fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never, it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of human progress; and the two historic mistakes that have hindered that progress were the thinking first that no more would ever rise save the few already risen; or second it would be better the unrisen pull the already risen down."
P. 10-11.
I will not linger in my criticism of Dr. DuBois' upside down criticism of the black mass, or his unsupported generalizations about "progress" in human "civilization," except to say that I am unaware of any civilization on "God's fair earth" that did not begin at the bottom: in agriculture, hunting, fishing, gathering, and from there gradually built itself up. These nations include those of Africa, where civilization began; where it reached its ancient zenith in the arts, sciences, humanities, architecture, engineering and from whom the Greeks acquired their own before passing it to Europe via Rome, which benefited from Africa!