What Du Bois Forgot: the Role of Culture in a “Collective Uplift”
“Education and work are the levers to uplift a people” -W.E.B. Du Bois
In his essay “Black Strivings in a Twilight Civilization,” Cornel West critiqued Du Bois for his failure to embrace what West deemed, “the tragicomic sense of life” (West 57). West, unlike Du Bois, accepted the absurdity of human nature and rejected the notion of rationality as the panacea to misery. Despite his exposure to racism, Du Bois held out hope for a world that would recognize black ability because of black achievement. The “Talented Tenth” — his solution to racial inequality — does not take into account the irrationality of human nature.
Du Bois wrote at the dawn of a century which would see black olympians, nobel laureates, and the first black Supreme Court Justice. And yet, racism persisted. Hindsight has shown that even the achievement of exceptional men is not enough to refute the latent prejudice in the social fabric of America.
The Talented Tenth was meant to quell racist presumptions about black ability. When confronted with the existence of a Talented Tenth, Du Bois wrote, “the blind worshippers of the Average cry out in alarm: ‘These are exceptions, look here at death, disease and crime, these are the happy rule’” (Du Bois 138). Unfortunately, this problem still exists today, though less blatantly. Expectations are a precursor to prejudice: the idea of “talking white” or the association of one’s race with their social class, is an indication of underlying racial bias.
Carter Vaughan, a student at the University of Delaware, described her own experience with racist presumptions while in middle school:
“I constantly felt out of place. I was always the girl who was too “white” for her African-American counterparts, but still that “black friend” when it came to everybody else, which was very confusing”
Stereotypes about race perpetuate the myth the well-read and successful black americans are the “exceptions” to a rule of an inferior race. They carry with them prejudices which equate white skin with economic prosperity and higher education.
The “Talented Tenth” was meant to elevate a race of people. Instead, it raised only an exceptional minority. At the time it was published, a group of exceptional men was forced to pave the way: to show white Americans that one’s skin color does not dictate ability. Any perceived inferiority was not biological but social, as black people were held back by enslavement and discrimination for centuries. However, hindsight tells us that the existence of an elite does not always ensure the betterment of the masses.
Henry Louis Gates discusses this in his essay entitled “Parable of the Talents”: “Black prosperity doesn’t derive from black poverty; on a symbolic level however, the chronic hardship of a third of black America is standing reproach to those of us who once dreamed of a collective uplift” (Gates 25). The realization that a collective uplift was not achieved — that even decades later black individuals still experienced disproportionate poverty — bred pessimism in a new generation of black individuals.
Du Bois’s essay embodies an optimism for the future of his race — a hopefulness Cornel West feels is untranslatable to modern America. West critiques Du Bois because he fails to “confront the indescribable agony and unnameable anguish likely to be unleashed in the 21st century” (West 56). West believed that Du Bois’ worldview, shaped by Enlightenment thinkers and American optimism, would falter when applied to modern issues of race in America. America has come so far from this that his criticism seems justified given Du Bois’ choice to leave America.
“I just cannot take any more of this country’s treatment. We leave for Ghana October 5th and set no return date…Chin up and fight on, but realize that American Negroes cannot win.”
Du Bois moves to Ghana because he is disillusioned by the perpetual struggle of African Americans. For years, he believed that success within the black community would undermine presumptions of inferiority. However, this only served to promote distrust of the black middle class and reinforce insecurities about being “not black enough.”
“Black Strivings in a Twilight Civilization” is more than just a criticism of Du Bois: it is an evaluation of the human misery which drove intellectuals like West to disavow American optimism and condemn the rationality of western Enlightenment. West wrote on the eve of the 21st century, Du Bois at the start of the 20th. Somewhere between 1903 and 1995, optimism fell away. W.E.B. Du Bois had lived through tremendous struggle, during a time rife with racial tension, born 3 years after the Civil War. How, then, is his perspective so drastically different from Cornel West? History is a pendulum: there was slavery and there was reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement. Every victory has a life expectancy and now, 9 years after a black man was first elected president, our country has been forced the reconcile with the habitual demonization of black skin. Hope was needed to escape the tragedies of slavery, but every step forward shows us the distance still to go, and that has bred cynicism of the “American Optimism” Du Bois represents. If people had the reason Enlightenment thinkers advocate, racial tension would have dissipated by now. Instead, it is as fierce as ever.
Du Bois’s emphasis on rationality also excludes cultural aspects that have proven integral to the success of the black race as a whole. In “Black Strivings,” West writes, “This tragicomic sense propels us toward suicide or madness unless we are buffered by ritual cushioned by community, or sustained by art” (West 57). By rejecting this “tragicomic sense,” Du Bois in fact reduces the role of community and culture in uplifting the black race.
In his essay "The Talented Tenth," WEB Du Bois proposed a trickling-down of black achievement.
“It is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters”
Despite his intention to elevate the black race, Du Bois effectively diminishes the cultural value of the black community. This whitewashing of culture carries the sinister implication that to be exceptional is to aspire to a white ideal.
Cornel West attempts to rectify this in “Black Strivings” by extensively referencing the creative contributions of the black community. However, like Du Bois, West also fails to fully prioritize black culture above white intellectualism: “In short, fruitful comparisons may be made between the Russian sense of the tragic and the Central European Jewish sense of the absurd and the black intellectual response to the African-American predicament” (West 77). West’s fixation with the tragicomic runs parallel to Du Bois’s Enlightenment worldview: both advocate black conformity to other cultures. There is nothing inherently wrong with being influenced by alternative modes of life or thinking: in fact, such an exchange is inevitable and often beneficial. However, it becomes problematic when it devolves into conformity. West criticizes Du Bois for not responding to tragedy in the manner of Dostoevsky or Kafka. In fact, this expectation mimics Du Bois’s own standard for the “Talented Tenth” to pursue Enlightenment ideals. West relies too heavily on the writings and ideas of European thinkers to confront racism in America. To truly generate a “collective uplift,” he and other black leaders should focus on developing a dynamic black community which recognizes and celebrates its differences.
Du Bois’s hypothesis failed experimentation: while Du Bois thoughts Talented Tenth would elevate an entire race, it only raised the status of exceptional men. Despite generations of efforts to refute racial prejudice, persistent myths of black inability and inferiority continue even today. This manifests in stereotypes that equate black-ness with a lower social class, and question the validity of one’s race when they do not fit the mold. Similarly, hindsight has shown that the “Talented Tenth” was ineffective because racial disparity widened throughout the 20th century, a slap in the face to the poor who dreamt of a “collective uplift.” Despite initial hope for the future, the perpetual mistreatment of black Americans throughout the 20th century made average citizens and intellectual elites more cynical towards the possibility of a truly equal world. Du Bois approaches the problem of race in America from a perspective untainted by this pessimism. His “American optimism” as described by West cannot translate to the modern world because it has shown continually to be unfounded.
Ultimately, while Du Bois’s theory was rooted in logic, his “Talented Tenth” may have been more effective if it centered on bringing attention and dignity to the traditions and ideas of the black community. Instead, Du Bois underestimated the value of black culture and equated success with the pursuit of Enlightenment ideals. By establishing a standard of excellence defined by Western Enlightenment, Du Bois mitigated the importance of developing a culture that was unique to blacks in America. While Du Bois’s “Talented Tenth” isolated the lower classes, a greater emphasis on black traditions could facilitate a genuine “collective uplift” by acknowledging the validity of cultures without a basis in European life. Celebrating the diverse manifestations of black culture will challenge presumptions of social class or education based upon race, and widen society’s definition of black culture as a whole.
Sources
Du Bois, W.E.B.. 1903. “The Talented Tenth.” The Negro Problem.
Gates, Henry Louis. 1997. “Parable of the Talents” The Future of the Race. Penguin Random House.
Vaughan, Carter. 2018. “Black is Relative, Black is Beautiful, Black in Irrefutable.” E110, University of Delaware.
West, Cornel. 1997. “Black Strivings in a Twilight Civilization” The Future of the Race. Penguin Random House.