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So i was outside doing yard work today, and i put on the Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Du Bois and i have some thoughts. 1) This book really should have been called Fuck Booker T, because holy hell he roasts Booker T Washington early and often
2) I& #39;ve been exposed to the concept of double consciousness before (most notably in The Invisible Man) but Du Bois& #39; conception and discription of it is facinating. As a white person, its a concept that& #39;s quiet alien to me and seems like hell for black folk to endure
3) I& #39;ve also been exposed to the concept of the "talented tenth" before, but never so directly and honestly i found it to be the worst of Du Bois. He really fetishizes a classical education and wanted to basically create a intellectual black aristocracy
I found that off putting, paternalistic and anti-democratic. I am highly skeptical of any intellectual elite that wants to establish itself in guilding and sheparding the ignorant masses. He was also really chauvanistic, holding "manliness " as sacred. He read too many Romans imo
My favorite parts of the book were hus discriptions of the actual lives of turn of the century southern black folk, while i do think some of the descriptions did smack a bit of class tourism and were at times condescending they were also quite illuminating
My least favorite parts of the book were his exceptionalism and his rejection of radicalism. I think his social and economic critiques were quite cutting, but they did not go far enough and always seemed to end up deifying the college educated class
Overall, i have really enjoyed it (i& #39;m not quiet finished yet) but i was a bit shocked at what an elitist Du Bois was
