Myers and DuBois

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Myers and DuBois

• HMXP 102
• Dr. Fike

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Next Time

• Three texts
• Loury
• McIntosh
• Morrow and Tyson
• That is more material than we can discuss in one
  period, but that is okay. We will concentrate on
  Loury and McIntosh, but an analogy to Morrow and
  Tyson is also important to consider. MT are also
  important for you to read as a prelude to CRTW.

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Vocabulary in Myers and DuBois

• deprecate (Myers, par. 5)
• peremptorily (DuBois, par. 2)
• sycophancy (par. 2)
• Uncle Tom
• demagogy (par. 5)
• savant
• cabalistic (par. 9)
• inculcate (par. 11)
• sturm und drang (par. 13)
• dyspeptic (par. 13)

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Background information

• Background on Myers http//www.davidmyers.org/Br
  ix?pageID1
• Background on DuBois http//www.biography.com/peo
  ple/web-du-bois-9279924

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W. E. B. DuBois

• Dates  1868-1963
• Fisk College in Tennessee (B.A.)
• Harvard (M.A.)
• University of Berlin
• Harvard (Ph.D.) dissertation  The Suppression
  of the African Slave Trade in America
• Eventually taught at Atlanta University
  (sociology)
• "acknowledged as the father of Social Science"
• 1903  The Souls of Black Folk
• Part of the NAACP at its beginnings

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Group Activity Understanding Myers

• Three groups (10 minutes)  Try to work with
  people whom you do not know well.  Each group
  should summarize what Myers says about one of the
  following things and then report to the class. 
  Find at least two key passages to support your
  position.  If you finish your topic early, begin
  discussing one of the other topics. 
• Group 1  Community
• Group 2  Prejudice
• Group 3  Conformity

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Application of Myers to DuBois

• How do Myers's statements about community,
  prejudice, and conformity apply to DuBois's text
  (or not)?  Stay in your groups and keep working
  and then report to the class after 10 more
  minutes.

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Whole Class Understanding DuBois

• Read par. 3 twice.
• Let us work together now to establish definitions
  of terms that DuBois uses 
• seventh son (next slide)
• "second-sight"
• "self-consciousness"
• "double-consciousness"
• "twoness

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Seventh Son

• The Legend states the 'Seventh Son of a Seventh
  Son' is the unborn one in the poetic sense, 'He'
  being preordained by his birthright too be a
  'Maker of Things' endowed with gifts of 'second
  sight' 'predicting the future' 'healer' 'lucky'
  and a 'devil may care attitude' being referred to
  as the 'Divine One' or the 'Chosen One' who has a
  'special purpose in life' for the 'Lord of Hosts'
  who is also cursed by the good evil forces
  battling for his eternal soul.
• Source http//www.mystical-www.co.uk/7son.htm
  (all errors are in the original text)

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Next Step DuBoiss Allusions

• What allusions strengthen DuBois's argument? 
  What do these allusions imply regarding the
  nature of human disillusionment?  What power do
  they lend to DuBois's argument?
• Quotations that suggest the problems that black
  folks face in the present
• Par. 2  "The shades of the prison-house closed
  round about us all..." (Wordsworth's "Intimation
  Ode").
• Par. 10  "In those sombre forests of his
  striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw
  himself,--darkly as through a veil..." (1
  Corinthians 13).
• Quotations that suggest black folks hope for a
  better future
• Par. 6  Emancipation was the key to a promised
  land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before
  the eyes of wearied Israelites" (Exodus)
• Par. 9  "...a pillar of fire by night after a
  clouded day" (Exodus 13)
• Par. 9  "the mountain path to Canaan" (Genesis
  12)

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Large Group Connection to Plato

• What would Plato say about the following
  quotation (par. 12)? 
• Whisperings and portents came borne upon the
  four winds  Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried
  the dark hosts we cannot write, our voting is
  vain what need of education, since we must
  always cook and serve?  And the Nation echoed and
  enforced this self- criticism, saying  Be
  content to be servants, and nothing more what
  need of higher culture for half-men?

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Connection to Lakoff and Johnson

• We concluded that Lakoff and Johnson's work on
  metaphor supports the idea that "thoughts are
  things."  In other words, how you think about
  something shapes your reality. 
• In the context of DuBois's work, then, black
  people are not only receiving objects but also
  acting subjects with the power to determine their
  own situation and destiny.  Are there glimmers of
  this idea in DuBois's text?
• Consider, for example, the following from par. 8
• the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon
  the Negro people,--a disappointment all the more
  bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded
  save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people
  (my emphasis).

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Whole Class Critique of DuBois

• Do you disagree with anything in his text?  The
  Souls of Black Folk is over one hundred years
  old.  Are DuBois's ideas still current? 
• Identify specific places in his text where you
  find things that are either accurate or
  questionable in terms of your contemporary
  experience. 
• For example, are African Americans still guilty
  of "often wooing false gods and invoking false
  means of salvation" (par. 5)?

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Broadening

• Although DuBois is writing about black folk, is
  it fair to say that the struggles he recounts are
  the story of all people, no matter what their
  specific race might be?
• In other words, even if you are NOT a black
  person, is DuBois telling YOUR story too?

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Last Slide

• How do you understand yourself better, no matter
  what race or gender you are, as a result of
  reading and discussing the texts by Myers and
  DuBois? END