Political Analysis— W.E.B. Du Bois & the Importance of Self Determination in Politics
Smith College: GOV 100-01: Introduction to Political Thinking — Professor Kye Barker — Dec. 18th, 2024
In his collection of essays, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1999), W.E.B. Du Bois offers insights into the questions of how social climates limit the African Americans' ability to fully achieve self-development or self-determination and the impacts this has on the effectiveness of the United States democratic system. Du Bois takes an approach that differs from many of his colleagues in that he provides a circular account that notes the connective nature of social climates and political systems. Throughout the book, he makes the argument that racist policy and ongoing disenfranchisement of Black Americans in the United States are manifestations of a foundational belief of White superiority, suggesting that society must address social stratification to achieve a legitimate democracy that equally acknowledges the concerns of all citizens and works to address them. Du Bois ultimately argues for education that fosters children’s talents and industrial democracies that equitably service their laborers as possible solutions to racial subjugation. However, the comprehensive nature of arbitrary racist systems embeds itself in all aspects of African American's lives, including academic arenas and the workplace, making positive self-determination and equitable systems nearly impossible for Black Americans. Du Bois argues that socialization undermines African Americans’ ability to craft positive self-determination and stunts their innate talents. Furthermore, the possible solutions of legitimate education or industrial democracy are ultimately also corrupted by social climate, which compromises what Du Bois believes to be a genuinely democratic system.
As Du Bois argues, the education African Americans receive, both formal and informal, does not encourage them to pursue self-determination; instead, it reinforces social prejudices and stunts Black children’s development, perpetuating arbitrary ideas of Black inferiority. Society around the African American child functions off their othering and repeated assertion of inferiority. Yet African American children do not understand this dynamic in their early youth and must be taught it over time. Du Bois notes the realization of his otherness in The Shadow of Years stating, “…very gradually I found myself assuming quite placidly that I was different from other children” (Du Bois 6). He expresses that his conception of his otherness from other children was not initially negative but as he grew older, he slowly began to realize that “some folks… even several, actually considered [his] brown skin a misfortune [and] … even thought it a crime” (6). While Du Bois’s upbringing in a relatively homogenous White community sheltered him from some early conceptions of otherness, his early adult life was marked by continuous realizations of the extent of racism and its oftentimes violent implications in American society. Du Bois describes Black Americans continued attempts to gain personhood and methods for self-determination despite societies’ assertion of their inferiority. Poor access to education (124), exclusion from labor unions (80), and racial violence (54), are examples Du Bois uses to emphasize the struggles for self-determination Black Americans faced. Society functions off the tenet that Black Americans are inferior to White Americans, and it impacts the very structure of all social systems, ultimately barring African Americans from being able to ever truly reach self-determination or full development, at least in a society similarly occupied by self-assured White individuals. Du Bois ultimately offers an education that only seeks to support the child in fostering their unique and innate qualities as solutions to Black inferiority but argues education itself has also become entrenched in arbitrary systems of race. Therefore, American society fails to support Black development and consequently undermines its ostensibly democratic structure by compromising the personhood of some of its citizens.
While Du Bois offers legitimate education within the classroom as a possible solution to support children in developing the abilities to achieve self-determination, social prejudices pervert educational opportunities for Black and White youth, undermining education and corroding American democracy. Du Bois believes in the importance of educating children as they represent a future without present limitations. He notes the “wide sweep of infinite possibility which the child represents” (119), and that “the child mind has what [the] tired soul may have lost faith in, —the Power and the Glory” (120). Children can imagine worlds beyond the social issues present in their upbringing and ultimately inherit the world left to them by previous generations. Therefore, it rests upon formal education systems to foster the development of all children so that they can approach issues with their unique talents and skills. However, Du Bois ultimately argues that the lack of funding and deep inequality in access to formal education for students compromises African American student’s abilities to reach full development and effectively serve the world. He argues that education largely fails to support youth in their journeys into adulthood because the world “has established education first as a means of buttressing the established order of things rather than improving it” (121). Because the world functions from an arbitrary system of racism which he explores in a previous chapter, “The Souls of White Folk,” African American students bear the brunt of an education system that is underfunded in favor of more immediate and seemingly significant issues. Thus, while formal education is generally undervalued, African American students are particularly limited in their abilities to complete self-development as the education system reflects a racist ideology embedded in dominant societal thinking. The disparity in access to education prevents a large portion of children from possibly ever serving the world through their talents or viewing themselves as full citizens. Thus, true democracy is undermined by the limitations placed upon African American children in their pursuit of self-determination through formal education.
Exclusion from education forces many African Americans into labor jobs where their inherent rights as people are further undermined, and the possibilities for equality under industrial democracy disappear. Because society functions from the assumption of Black subservience, African Americans are often relegated to occupations that reinforce social structures, which usually include service work and manual labor. While these occupations do not necessarily represent the highest crafting of a person’s talent, Du Bois maintains that industrial democracy, which promotes the full development of all, can exist within labor groups but fails to as White laborers grow anxious about their proximity to the “lowly status” of their Black counterparts and thus “…red anger flame[s] in the hearts of white workers” (53). Theoretically, industrial or service work provides unique opportunities for burgeoning democracies as Black and White laborers share in their struggles for rights and generally poor work conditions. However, Du Bois notes that fostering solidarity across race lines does not actually occur when men are in harsh conditions. Instead, divides across race only strengthen as competition for resources within a finite and monopolizing system grows increasingly prevalent (57). White laborers, generally unable to change the distribution of resources, scapegoat African American laborers as threats or causes of their poor conditions. Yet even when White laborers recognize their entrenchment in capitalistic systems and form unions, they exclude Black laborers and prevent them from getting a say or articulating their humanity (80). Thus, the possibility for African Americans, who are relegated to poorly regarded forms of labor, is further reduced by the proliferated and socially internalized belief of their inferiority that infects spaces where there should be comradery and the shared pursuit of democracy across race lines. The possibilities for self-determination for Black laborers, and, in turn, industrial democracy remained plagued by society’s obsession with Whiteness. This obsession prevents African Americans from ever fully fostering their self-determination and fundamentally undermines the possibility of the United States ever having a functioning and legitimate democracy.
To Du Bois, the United States does not function as a genuine democracy as a large portion of the population, African Americans, are not fully considered people. Because of the embedded nature of White superiority in social climates, most African American children are taught they are inferior before they learn to conceptualize themselves outside of problematic social structures. The proliferation of arbitrary social hierarchies that are often unintentionally, although occasionally intentionally, taught to children makes it nearly impossible for African Americans to view themselves as complete human beings. To Du Bois, it is the absence of humanity afforded to Black Americans that undermines democracy, for if a portion of the population is not viewed as full citizens, both internally and externally, then attempts for them to participate in political systems are ultimately futile. Du Bois offers two possible solutions to the issue of Black self-determination through legitimate education and industrial democracy but ultimately acknowledges that these ideas only function if individuals can truly understand the breadth of racism and actively work to subvert it. Successful subversion is rare as those in a capitalist system who hold the most power wish to enforce exploitative systems that maintain White supremacy. Thus, Dus Bois argues that for genuine democracy to prevail, social climates that propagate racist ideologies must be destroyed, or at least removed from education and the workplace, to encourage positive self-determination.
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Work Cited
Du Bois, W. E. B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. Dover Publications, 1999.
