Given my utter failure to make much progress in commenting on the first volume of DuBois's biography, I am going to start blogging some of my commentary. I will do some today and probably also on Monday. Keep in mind that whatever notes I post on the blog will be potential material to make up final exam questions at the end of the semester. I trust some of this will also be useful in shedding light on the reading, and you are also welcome to use this material as a basis for journal entries or it may be relevant in other contexts. So, you might want to print this out and insert it along with your other notes.
We left off in the middle of Chapter 8:
D. In a speech at a gathering of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Nov. 19, 1897), he urged the great universities to embark on studies of the American Negro -- something he, of course, would do in "The Philadelphia Negro" and many later studies under the auspices of Atlanta University.
1. He did one such study for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: A Social Study."
2. DuBois was very much committed to the research enterprise -- gathering facts, data, in contrast to mere theorizing, or moralizing, which Lewis notes he also did. "Yet along with moralizing came the first documented sociological insights..." (p. 196) See also, bottom, p. 195.
E. He was asked to write a piece for "The Atlantic Monthly" (summer, 1897) on the state of Negro America -- "Strivings of the Negro People," which clearly foreshadows some of his most famous passages in "The Souls Of Black Folk" (1903). Eg., "How does it feel to be a problem?" (the Negro problem, that is); "Twoness" or double-consciousness, being American and Negro, see bottom p. 199 & pp.200-201.
F. Lewis makes a nice observation about the significance of "The Philadelphia Negro" for the field of sociology specifically. Very high praise. "The Philadelphia Negro was a remarkable example of the new empiricism that was fundamentally transforming the social sciences at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although DuBois's novel sociological insights would soon become conventional wisdom, as one of the last books of the nineteenth century, the Philadelphia study would be a breakthrough achievement, an important and virtually solitary departure from the hereditarian theorizing of the times...." (pp. 201-202)
1. DuBois even wrote an unpublished essay, "Sociology Hesitant" (1900), which challenged the sociological establishment. He defined the field as -- "sociology,...is the science that seeks (to measure) the limits of chance in human conduct." (p. 203)
2. Lewis notes the influence of "The Philadelphia Negoro" on some works from black sociologists -- E. Franklin Frazier's family studies, "Black Metropolis" by Horace Cayton & St. Clair Drake, not to mention Myrdal's, "An American Dilemma," and Moynihan's family study (Myrdal & Moynihan were white of course). (I would also include, Wilson's "The Truly Disadvantaged" (1987))
3. Lewis notes that most of the reviewers of "The Philadelphia Negro" virtually ignored DuBois's race-class-economic analysis of the plight of blacks in Philadelphia, especially how powerful race prejudice was.
4. Lewis closes the chapter with a couple interesting observations about both DuBois's class and race analysis. First, see pp. 209-210, and second: "When DuBois finally wound up this catalogue of discrimination, the causal linkage of race and class to economics was unmistakable. DuBois had ended by driving home his point, writing feelingly: 'For thirty years and more Philadelphia has said to its black children: 'Honesty, efficiency and talent have little to do with your success; if you work hard, spend little and are good you may earn your bread and butter at those sorts of work which we frankly confess we despise; if you are dishonest and lazy, the State will furnish your bread free.'" (p. 210) (Such biting sarcasm is worthy of Malcolm X.)
_______________________
That brings us to Chapter 9. I'll pick up there over the weekend, or on Monday, so look for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment