A Critical Response Essay of W.E.B. DuBois' “The Souls of Black Folks”
In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois, a prominent civil rights activist, published his essay, "The
Souls of Black Folk" where he analyzes his life as a Black man in the United States. In the
essay, he calls out the hypocrisy of white Americans because it had been nearly 40 years
since Emancipation, but they continued to violate the Constitution by manipulating,
reneging on agreements, and resorting to terrorism, and murder to prevent Black
Americans from utilizing their fairly won rights to evolve out of servitude. In turn, DuBois
said this was robbing the country from receiving the great contributions that Black people
could bring. This narcissistic and animalistic behavior of white Americans, drove a rift
between the two races which DuBois describes one side of the rift as “the veil” with
constant references to shadows and darkness, and the other side beyond it as where white
people dwell with its “dazzling opportunities” as just “the other world”. But he did not
desire to live in the other world’s opportunities and sought to live above it, repeatedly
referring to that region as “blue” or “blue sky. DuBois claimed that Black people were gifted
with a “double consciousness” which caused them to look at themselves through the eyes of
white people and measure their self-worth based on how they perceived them, but the
Black soul also wrangled with being both a Negro and American, not willing to sacrifice one
for the other. Despite this spiritual turmoil, he believes it is the desire of Black people to
create and give to the world that is the strivings of the souls of Black folk.
However, DuBois’ magical thinking is naïve because he severely underestimates the
hatred white society had for Black people. Malcolm X always saw it and Martin Luther King
saw it too late that the white man hates the Black man more than he loves freedom.
DuBois romanticizes about “fostering and developing the traits and talents of the
Negro … in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic” in the hopes
that Blacks and whites “may give each to each those characteristics both so badly lack”. He
has this idea that Black people will somehow gain the favor whites, if they were allowed to
show their skills. While I respect him as an elder, I do not agree with his ideology. History
has shown us several times, that no matter how much Black people contribute, even to the
point of building a nation from the ground up, Western society will always exploit Black
people because they are concerned about their own image. This has made people apathetic
and comfortable to exploiting Blacks, stealing their innovations and then writing them out
of history as if they contributed nothing.
History is taught to not repeat it, so as dystopian as it may sound, it makes more
logical sense for Black people to ignore white society and keep their innovations to
themselves to advance their own communities. DuBois even makes this point, when he
says, “A people thus handicapped ought not to be asked to race with the world, but rather
allowed to give all its time and thought to its own social problems”, but I also feel this is
him struggling to be true to his Negro side, while also appeasing his American one. It is
bewildering to me, why he toils so much to appease white society after hundreds of years
of bastardy against Negro women and other acts of terror. Any sane person would want to
separate as far as possible from their captor, so this was likely from trauma.
I believe that DuBois, like many Blacks back then and now, suffered from Stockholm
Syndrome, which was then carried down through the generations. The “syndrome” was
coined by criminologist Nils Bejerot which he described the following traits in victims: The
person would experience something terrifying that just comes suddenly and they are
certain death was a possibility. They experience where they are treated like a child and
must ask for permission. Their captor performs small acts of kindness that prompt a
“primitive gratitude for the gift of life” and they are in denial that their captor has put them
in this situation; in their mind they think the person is going to allow them to live. But
Bejerot additionally noted that Stockholm Syndrome also affects the captor in that they
believe their victim enjoys their captivity (Westcott, By Kathryn. “What Is Stockholm
Syndrome?” BBC News, 21 Aug. 2013, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22447726). White
society too thought Black people enjoyed slavery and those who tried to escape were
diagnosed with drapetomania. I think we can say these are all experiences that Black
people in DuBois’ time endured, living under the terrorism of white people for over 200
years and has continued today in some aspects of modern Black society.
In conclusion, I disagree with DuBois’ “double-consciousness” because it is not a gift,
but the symptom of one experiencing something so traumatic that they lose themselves in
its void. Racism is a construct that defies all human logic, so Blacks should not adjust their
lives to coddle it and everything they do should unapologetically be for the upliftment of
the Black community no matter what anyone thinks. No amount of pandering will ever be
enough for white society to accept Blacks because they would rather scorch the earth and
rebuild the world on top of our charred bones with our innovations, than to give us any
kind of credit for any of it. 🦉