Although Anthony Appiah considered
Dubois’ argument “incomplete,” it goes without saying that many African
Americans today still thrive on Dubois’ ideas for advancing the African
American population. Dubois believed that the duty of African Americans is to “conserve our physical powers, our
intellectual endowments, and spiritual ideas. We must strive by race
organizations, by race solidarity, and by race unity”(114). African-American
history is powered by, creating African-American institutions and putting trust
and faith in themselves in order to progress and strengthen their race. W. E.
B. Dubois makes a point that the word Negro "has combined the Mullatoes, Zamboes,
Egyptians, Bantus, etc."(111). The same thing can be said for the term
African-American. Because of society’s tendency to simplify and pars, it
doesn't matter what term we place on skin color whether it be African-American,
black, negro. According to Appiah, “what exists out there… is the province not
of biology but of hermeneutic (interpretive) understanding”(135). Thus explains the mystery of "race".
Race is an artificial term used to
unnaturally divide and conquer man. Appiah, while dissecting the works of
Dubois, proves that regardless of Dubois’ claims of common blood, common
history, or sharing a common wrong, it all boils down to Dubois inability to
see race as being “anything other than a synonym for color”(131). Regardless, even
though science doesn’t add up, the infrastructure of society is very hesitant
to allow cross-cultural mixing of characteristics specific to visually different
groups and because of that we continue to see the strength and power of what
many people understand to be race. For Dubois, race is real and even now is very
well conserved.
On the other hand, Appiah wrote
that race is not real. In saying this he does not mean to ignore the concept.
He writes, “Race as we all assume, is like all other concepts, constructed by
metaphor and metonymy; it stands in metonymically, for the other; it bears the
weight, metaphorically, of other kinds of difference”(134). In other words, we
define race by saying “race is like such and such”. Although by doing this
Appiah explains that what “we miss through our obsession with the structure of
relations of concepts (race is like such and such) is, simply reality”(134). To
be more exact he clarifies that “there is nothing in the world that can do all
we ask race to do for us” (134). This means that race does not tie us together
through biology, blood or even history. It is simply an artificial division of
physical similarities, primarily skin color.
So if race is not real, should we bother
to hold on to the experiences that were defined by race? Laugh it off saying
it’s all like a game? I don't think we can and that’s where we are today. People have died in this game and frankly
there is no way to forget playing the game without also forgetting the dead.
The question I present is, are
“Negro colleges, Negro newspapers, Negro business organizations, Negro schools
of literature and art, etc.”(114) still a necessity in advancing the African-American population? Can an African-American individual be just as successful
at a PWI (Predominantly White Institution)?
In regards to your final question, I don't believe that the facets of the Negro Academy that you mentioned were primarily intended (by Dubois) to create successful African American individuals. First and foremost, their existence was meant as a medium for the "story" of the race to be told. That being said, I believe that their existence is less of a necessity in advancing the African-American population than they used to be in the early part of the 20th century (Harlem Renaissance). At that point in history, the promotion of black literature and art served the purpose, among others, of convincing the upper-class white population that the "Negro Race" was equal to their own in terms of creative, cognitive ability. However, the battle is obviously not done; the racial correlations to poverty and incarceration numbers are both entirely depressing and indicative of the biased and biologically-incorrect perceptions about race that Americans still hold today. Although the idea of a Negro Academy seems to make sense as a tool for erasing prejudice, the fact that it prohibits miscegenation is a huge step back; in that regard, I am more partial to the ideas of Senghor.
ReplyDeleteChigozie, you raise an interesting point about race as it relates to subjective experience. Each of us can look toward the statistics Henry noted to see the ways in which race still acts as an arbitrarily chosen physical signifier to undermine a raced individuals' potential. (By "raced," I simply mean non-white. I chose that word to elucidate the implicit whiteness, unless otherwise indicated. American (implied white) as opposed to African-American, ect.) On the other hand, race still serves a very important political role. It is a site of solidarity, as well as political power. And, I think more to your point Chigozie, it stands as a physical commemoration for a history of race-based prejudice, abuse,and injustice that continues until this day. The question is, does throwing out the concept efface the history that needs to be preserved. I will turn to Appiah to complicate this questions. Of Du Bois, he asks rhetorically, how much in common does he have with those ancestors he venerates so beautifully in his work? Given what we now know about genetics, how can Du Bois favor one part of his history without giving equal acknowledgement to the other parts as well? I think, to answer Appiah, Du Bois would have to incite the double consciousness theory developed in "Souls of Black Folk," and, perhaps, Althusser's theory of interpellation (which was actually developed after his death). However, in what way did that particular experience of being Black and American in the first half of the 20th century align Du Bois with pre-colonial Africa?
ReplyDeleteChigozie, to answer your final question, I believe that these organizations serve a solid purpose to an extent. Much like what Henry stated above, they were completely necessary at the time of their founding because of the establishment of a sense of unity and social progress during a time of segregation and discrimination. It's a tough question to answer because you wan to say forget the past in order to abolish a racial divide, but that is impossible and cultural unhealthy. I don't think the organizations listed above are necessary anymore because it's a past construct that is just causing racial divide in the present. I'm not saying African AMericans should forget their past at all, but look at their history and have pride in it's accomplishments. The only example I can think of is us as Americans, although not a race, we as a people don't continually hold a grudge against Britain to this day because of what happened in our past history. All I am saying if we allow too much of the past to keep penetrating our views on race today, race will continue to be an issue of division and be more real instead of being just one characteristic of our unique human makeup.
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