The Souls of Black Folk - Week 2 - thru Ch VII

[Robin P, Moderator]

The essays in this section aren't particularly related. My favorite was the more autobiographical chapter, Of the Meaning of Progress, where Du Bois describes his early teaching job. Later he returns and has an experience many of us can relate to, of having a formative place be changed as it seems for the worse.

In the section on Atlanta, which he links to the mythological story of Atalanta, Du Bois talks about further changes in Southern society. I think it's interesting that in recent years, the city of Atlanta has attracted many Black professionals from the North. One element from The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story asserts that the terrible traffic problems in the Atlanta area are the outcome of segregated neighborhoods.

Section VI discusses the relationship between basic education, technical/manual education, and academic higher education. Du Bois says "Again, we may decry the color-prejudice of the South, yet it remains a heavy fact. Such curious kinks of the mind exist and must be reckoned with soberly. They cannot be laughed away, nor always successfully stormed at, nor easily established by act of legislature. " And he describes the South as "an armed camp for intimidating black folk." He seems to favor interracial marriage, on the ground that "legal marriage is infinitely better than systematic concubinage and prositution. "

The last chapter is something of a travelogue. At one point he describes the town of Albany, GA, and I remember it was a town that had an early and devastating onslaught of Covid in 2020. He mentions several times the native tribes that have also been mistreated in the South. Here's another quote that could be from yesterday, about the stockade, equivalent to a jail: "the white folks say it is ever full of black criminals - the black folks say that only colored boys are sent to jail, and they not because they are guilty, but because the State needs criminals to eke out income by their forced labor."

What are your thoughts on any of these subjects?

[Lori, Moderator]

I'm struck by his writing style. It's very modern. I read a lot of creative nonfiction because that's what I write, and DuBois's essays wouldn't be out of place in a volume of modern creative nonfiction.

[Bonnie]

IV. The Meaning of Progress - beautiful, like fiction. Except it was real. Interesting pointing out how slavery and the war was gradually fading in memory as time marched on; to the young now a story told to them.

V. The Wings of Atalanta - Not a lot of great things to say about the Old South.

So much is still true. or some, but not enough, progress made in 1.25 centuries.

[Abigail]

Catching up! I too loved the chapter about his teaching experiences, especially its poignant ending in which so few of his students were able to continue their education and so many didn’t survive at all. Also interesting were some of the reasons his students dropped in and out of classes, the necessities of their families’ lives preventing regular attendance. This is still a problem for many impoverished students.

I was also interested to learn more about the roots and development of some of the HBCUs (for non-Americans, “historically black colleges and universities”). This reading has certainly made me think more about the tremendous logistical challenges of the sudden change in status brought about by freeing the slaves—taking such a large bloc of people from generations of imposed ignorance and dependence and trying to transition them into education and independence.

He certainly is clear-eyed in analyzing the social situation of his day and showing us the flaws in the various approaches to “the Negro Problem.”

I keep tripping a bit over one thing that has changed a great deal since his day—the valorizing of thrift. It seems today that’s a lost virtue, everyone is striving for prosperity and abundance.

[Brian E]

While I too liked Chapter IV, I couldn’t help but notice how often DuBois chooses to describe his fellow blacks in somewhat negative and often disparaging physical terms. Some examples:
- On Josie, the young woman he meets: “a thin, homely girl of twenty;
- On some of Josie’s family : “a shy midget of eight,” “John, tall, awkward and eighteen;”
- On his first class of students:
“Martha, brown and dull.”
“Thenie … a jolly, ugly, good-hearted girl;”
“Tildy … and her correspondingly homely brother;”
“the lazy Neills;”
“Hickman with a stoop in his shoulders;”

I find it interesting that Dubois so often uses negative terms to describe and identify his fellow southern blacks. I would think other less negative physical and personality characteristics and identifying adjectives were available. While it’s likely explained as DuBois inept attempt to be academically accurate, dispassionate and objectively honest, to me his choice of identifying adjectives make him appear to be arrogantly superior and disdainful to the people whose lives he is seeking to improve.

[Robin P, Moderator]

Excellent point, Brian! With his terms such as "talented tenth", Du Bois did think of the population as having different levels. He also remarks on how dark or light people's skin is, which was often a value in both the Black and white community. I also noticed how he puts German and Latin expressions into his writing, implying that readers of his work would have the education to understand them. I suppose he assumed his readership would be white (or some Black) educated people.

[Abigail]

I didn’t really interpret his brief descriptions of people as derogatory or patronizing; to me they seemed written more in heartbreak than in judgment. He does have a level of class consciousness, in tune with an age that valorized striving and “getting ahead,” but he doesn’t seem to blame or despise the poor, rural, undereducated Blacks for the ignorance imposed on them. The picture overall is one of the degradation and hardship that came with the sharecropping system.

[Brian E]

Abigail, I think you're right that DuBois is heartbroken over their status and doesn't blame them for it, and was attempting to portray the effects of the sharecropping system on them.
My point was that there are better choices than calling a young girl "ugly" or "homely" to make his points. I still think that these descriptive choices evidence a superiority and disdain, even a slight one, for these people he and his talented tenth seek to help.

[Abigail]

Well, I have no quarrel with that! Perhaps I’m just inured, being old enough to have grown up being judged entirely based on looks.

[Brian E]

Abigail wrote: "Well, I have no quarrel with that! Perhaps I’m just inured, being old enough to have grown up being judged entirely based on looks."

It's good to know that "you can take it," in case I ever get the urge to throw in a few personal insults during our book discussions. Oh boy!!

[Abigail]

😂😂😂

[Robin P, Moderator]

There is more about the different "classes" of Black people, as Du Bois sees it, in the next section.

[Rafael]

Maybe I missed or I just simply forgot this explanation, but what "talented tenth" means? That only 10 percent of the black people are talented in some way (or more probable, that only 10 percent achieved some degree of improvement in their lives)?

But I agree with Brian on his points, sometimes sounds odd these remarks. Maybe they were commonplace at that time, and he just states these descriptions as facts. I don't know.

[Nancy]

Intriguing discussion about the descriptions used by DuBois. I, too, was a little uncomfortable with them, but at the same time I didn’t think DuBois was being elitist or condescending. Perhaps his intent was to describe as accurately as possible what he saw, without hiding the less-than-beautiful truth. I admit that I don’t know the answer on this one.
I continue to delight in his prose, and I’m learning a great deal about the complicated task of educating and training formerly enslaved people.

[Abigail]

You are correct, Rafael! “Talented Tenth” referred to the idea that only a small proportion of people (implicitly, Black people in this context) had the natural abilities to pursue higher education. Nowadays we would be more likely to factor in environment and opportunity.

When I was young, there was a similar concept floating around, that of the “better Blacks”—which tended to mean polite and industrious Black people who “kept their place,” I’m sorry to say. Thoroughly offensive in its underlying assumptions.

[mark]

Ch. IV - probably my favorite chapter so far. the descriptions of his two summers teaching were so beautiful and the melancholy of his return so palpable. just such gorgeous prose in this chapter. the end of Josie was so heartbreaking. all that said, there was a slight sourness to some of the depictions of the students, per what Brian has noted. overall it wasn't enough to bother me, it was just a little startling. I suppose Steinbeck did the same when describing the residents of various small towns. but then I actually haven't loved that when reading Steinbeck either lol.

Ch. V - another very impressive chapter. this read like a sermon against Mammon, with Atlanta as a stand-in for all such cities undergoing industrialization at no small cost to its people.

it was interesting how up-front Du Bois is about how some folks are suited for college and others for vocational schools. "that of the million black youth, some were fitted to know and some to dig; that some had the talent and capacity of university men, and some the talent and capacity of blacksmiths; and that true training meant neither that all should be college men nor all artisans, but that the one should be made a missionary of culture to an untaught people, and the other a free workman among serfs."

I appreciated that realism when it comes to humans (of all colors) and was reminded of similar stances from current sociopolitical writers, from center-left John McWhorter to far-left Marxist Freddie de Boer, whose Cult of Smart I just read. interesting synergy between the three.

Ch. VI - that first paragraph totally lost me. if someone feels up to explaining it to me, please do!

I was rather bored & irritated by this chapter, although the point being made here is clearly very close to Du Bois' heart. and I can never disagree with the benefits of higher education, for those so suited.

I was a bit turned off by the snobbery in one part, when describing black college graduates: "they have not that culture of manner which we instinctively associate with university men, forgetting that in reality it is the heritage from cultured homes, and that no people a generation removed from slavery can escape a certain unpleasant rawness and gaucherie, despite the best of training."

and I was very turned off by the classic Du Bois stance that I first came across in college: that the way forward is for a relatively small number of educated to lead the uneducated masses, i.e. "They already dimly perceive that the paths of peace winding between honest toil and dignified manhood call for the guidance of skilled thinkers... Above our modern socialism, and out of the worship of the mass, must persist and evolve that higher individualism which the centres of culture protect." I had a flashback to my college self, an ardent socialist, shaking my head in disbelief when reading that. as if uneducated folks can't understand organizing.

Ch. VII - amazingly written and very depressing dirge. such hopelessness in this chapter.