Seizing the Word: History, Art, and Self in the Work of W. E. B. Du Bois

Kirby, John B.; Byerman, Keith; Bois, W. E. B. Du

doi:10.2307/369523

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“…In making this argument, this article builds upon the growing scholarly literature on Du Bois's middle works (Balfour 2011;Dahl 2022;Douglas 2019;Valdez 2019). As scholars have shown, by 1920, Du Bois changed his mind regarding the key factors upholding racial dominance (Byerman 2010;Gooding-Williams 2014;Holt 1990;Olson 2005;Reed 1999;Sullivan 2003;. They rightly observe that while previously, Du Bois assumed it was primarily the ignorance of white Americans that accounted for racial dominance, witnessing ongoing racial discrimination and the resurgence of lynchings led him to account for it in terms of nonrational factors such as habits, customs, and unconscious impulses-what I conceptualize as "white unreason" or what Myers (2022) refers to as "irrationality" and Sullivan (2003) describes in terms of "the unconscious.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Taking seriously the temporal implications of white unreason also has interpretive benefits for scholarship on Du Bois's thought. While scholars have correctly observed Du Bois's ambivalence regarding the prospects of racial justice in the United States (Basevich 2020;Byerman 2010;Winters 2016), his advocacy of propaganda (Gooding-Williams 2014;Myers 2022;Rogers 2012;, and his support for separate institutions (Aldridge 2015;Holt 1990;Lewis 2009;Olson 2005), these observations are piecemeal. This article shows that these observations are part of Du Bois's coherent-even if implicit-theory of the dual temporal structure of social change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“A Matter of Long Centuries and Not Years”: Du Bois on the Temporality of Social Change

Ikuta

2023

Political Theory

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In light of the summer 2020 protests and their subsequent backlash, questions about the prospective timeline for achieving a racially just society have taken on renewed significance. This article investigates Du Bois’s writings between 1920 and 1940 as a lens through which to examine the temporality of social change. I argue that Du Bois’s turn to the role of white unreason explains the dual temporality of his political vision and the dual strategies that ensue. According to Du Bois, white supremacy is upheld not only by ignorance, but also by white unreason, reproduced through generations of institutional conditioning. Du Bois therefore turns to propaganda for transforming white unreason, thereby making a racially just society possible. But because the transformation of white unreason through propaganda is a slow process, Du Bois argues that Black Americans must ensure their survival through voluntary self-segregation. By presenting us with a framework of social change, Du Bois models how advocates of racial justice might navigate defeat without devolving into defeatism.

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