The Oversimplification of Mr. Du Bois

I would go as far to say that W.E.B. Du Bois is one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. It's an injustice to Mr. Du Bois character to say that he was instrumental in the establishing of the enduring protest that whites are responsible for black oppression and that blacks are victims. Mr. Du Bois only wants to be used as a tool to help the negros in the American society ascertain their equal rights that they're due through the constitution of America. "And with his soul on fire with a righteous indignation (William H. Ferris p.180)," From this statement it's rightly to say that Mr. Du Bois only wanted to help the helpless and to open the eyes of the blind. W. E. B. Du Bois wrote The Soul of Black Folk to exemplify how he felt about racial inequalities, and to ascertain that black Americans are equal to their white American counterparts in mental capabilities, and to identify the dual experience of the negros's in the American culture.

In W.E.B Du Bois novel The Souls of Black Folk he exemplifies how he feel about the racial inequalities. "Du Bois's own son, elegized in "Of the Passing of the first-Born" in the The Soul of Black Folk, was denied medical treatment at a white hospital and died of nasopharyngeal diphtheria in 1899 (CLC Vol.169 p.78)". The previous statement about his son dieing because he was not able to receive medical treatment because of the color of his skin is enough to exemplify the indignation that he must have felt toward racial inequalities. His son's death could have spark the flame that lit the fire to the way he felt about the discrimination of the black folk. And even after his his son's untimely death, I don't think that Mr. Du Bois had any intension of revenge toward the white America. He just wanted to make thing better for the next generation of black folks so they wouldn't have to suffer the same injustices as the previous generation. The main course of action Mr. Du Bois wanted black Americans to use to achieve racial equality was leadership through academic achievement.

Mr. Du Bois thinks that black Americans are equal to their white American counterpart in their mental capabilities. If they're given the chance to advance through academic advancement black American have the chance to become equal to white American. In times when Mr. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk negros being equal to white Americans was something that segregated Americans couldn't perceive to be true. In today's society negros being equal to white Americans, is viewed as being relevant and useful, and it has become increasingly accepted. "Because of the especially oppressed condition of the colored peoples of the earth-and particularly of the African-derived peoples-Du Bois believed in their capacity for compassion and comradeship, or, as he put in the 1890 speech, "for the cool, purposeful Ich Dien of the African (Herbert Aptheker p.180),". This statement leads me to believe that Mr. Du Bois thought that because of the oppression of the African American it gave them more insight into their mental capabilities and enhance their learning abilities. By being oppressed it ignited something inside of their spiritual being that help ignite or facilitate their capabilities toward learning. When a person is in the dark they usually want to turn on the lights to see. Mr. Du Bois infer that oppression is the darkness that activates the mental capabilities that ignite the African American abilities to want to learn and learn. In turn this give the black American a "double consciousness (CLC, Vol.169 p. 78)," A term for the dual culture experience of blacks in America. identify the dual experience of the negros's in the American culture.

The novel, The Souls