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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
fast-paced
i like the lesson on double consciousness, but i yawned quite a bit while reading. likely my fault, not his, but still. he really promotes higher education, and it's easy to see how his thinking played a major role in encouraging the black middle/upper-middle class to grow into what it is.
Undeniably an important book, but the writing style is of another era and can be slow going.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
"Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here."
This slim collection of essays feels like an important historical document. At times dry and difficult to follow simply because of the older language, it's nonetheless interesting because Du Bois presents ideas that were newer in his time, arguments for change that infuriatingly are still relevant today, 120 years later.
Some essays are like sociological studies of Black farmers in the South, and some are passionate pleas for those same farmers, to uplift and educate them and get them out of the swirls of debt to provide real actual opportunity. Du Bois coined the term "double-consciousness" and his image of the Veil / The Color Line that separates folks of color from really thriving in the US. Writing at the close of the post-Civil War Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, even then he tells how the those in power were already trying to rewrite the narrative around the Civil War to not be about slavery, and also how the structure of society - the police, judicial system, etc - was clearly built to target and exclude. His astute observations about how the carceral system and placing of economic value on bodies for industry was just another warping of trying to keep folks enslaved is something more people are aware of today, and just goes to show there is still much work to be done to form a more just world.
This slim collection of essays feels like an important historical document. At times dry and difficult to follow simply because of the older language, it's nonetheless interesting because Du Bois presents ideas that were newer in his time, arguments for change that infuriatingly are still relevant today, 120 years later.
Some essays are like sociological studies of Black farmers in the South, and some are passionate pleas for those same farmers, to uplift and educate them and get them out of the swirls of debt to provide real actual opportunity. Du Bois coined the term "double-consciousness" and his image of the Veil / The Color Line that separates folks of color from really thriving in the US. Writing at the close of the post-Civil War Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, even then he tells how the those in power were already trying to rewrite the narrative around the Civil War to not be about slavery, and also how the structure of society - the police, judicial system, etc - was clearly built to target and exclude. His astute observations about how the carceral system and placing of economic value on bodies for industry was just another warping of trying to keep folks enslaved is something more people are aware of today, and just goes to show there is still much work to be done to form a more just world.
informative
reflective
The Coming of John and WEB Dubois's discussion about the stereotyping of black crime were particularly striking.
slow-paced
A decent read, if not a tad disjointed and dense in places.