In 1903, W. E. B. From Wood prophetically: „The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.“ This is a well-known phrase that is rarely quoted in its entirety. Du Bois further describes the color line as „the question of how far the differences in race. will henceforth be the basis for denying more than half of the world the right to share the possibilities and privileges of modern civilization with its greatest possible capabilities. In The Souls of Black Folk, he says that it is „the relationship between the darkest and lightest races of the peoples of Asia and Africa, in America and in the islands of the sea,“ and says, „It is a phase [of me that highlights] this problem that caused the civil war.“ Du Bois introduced the concept of the color line in his 1899 work The Philadelphia Negro, when he discussed the social interactions between black and white Philadelphia residents. „In all areas of life, the Negro may encounter objections to his presence or rude treatment; and bonds of friendship or memory are rarely strong enough to hold beyond the color line. [6] Du Bois goes on to illustrate this by discussing various social contexts in which black Americans face social dilemmas as to whether or not to enter white-dominated spaces: not entering means „being held accountable for indifference,“ but it means that „he can hurt his feelings and enter into unpleasant arguments.“ He goes on to write: „No, the racial problem I was interested in extended beyond the boundaries of color, physique, creed, and status, and was a matter of cultural patterns, perverse doctrine, human hatred, and prejudice that reached all kinds of people and caused endless harm to all peoples. [9] These quotes are notable because they reflect an extension of Du Bois`s original definition of color line to include discrimination beyond color discrimination, Du Bois also reduced his definition to recognize that the „color line problem,“ as he originally envisioned it, existed in the United States and did not manifest itself identically throughout the world.
Although discrimination exists everywhere, Du Bois has broadened his mindset to include discrimination beyond that of simple black versus white. Lyons carefully avoids the boundaries of what Juan Perea and Richard Delgado call the „black-and-white binary paradigm“[9] of race by integrating the racialized history of Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and others — rather than focusing solely on black-white relations, as is traditionally the case in the history books. Lyons aptly begins the book with an examination of conquest and the doctrine of discovery. [10] It gives ample account of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the subordination of the mestizos. [11] In doing so, he shows how racism began in the United States – not with black slavery, but with attacks on the native. Lyons succinctly explains how those in power used law and politics to activate racism. This contradicts the traditional narrative that racism stems from a natural aversion to others who look different. A striking example is the report on how slave codes and anti-fraternization laws were implemented in the South to defeat powerful alliances between enslaved blacks and indentured whites who banded together to rebel. [3] For these indentured whites and enslaved blacks, common interests outweighed differences.
[4] However, laws were deliberately enacted to racially define and divide groups in order to anchor power in white elites. [5] When Du Bois arrived at Atlanta University, two studies had already been conducted and a third planned. Of the 20 monographs published by the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory between 1896 and 1917, Du Bois directed the preparation of 16. Despite his achievements before and after his tenure at Atlanta University, it can be argued that his most impressive sociological contributions to the study of the color line were made during this period. Three of the most important studies conducted by Du Bois are highlighted below. Exactly one hundred years after Du Bois` The Souls of Black Folk, Indian author and human rights activist Arundhati published Roy War Talk. She writes: „Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are colorful pieces of cloth that governments use first to weld into people`s minds, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. 2) Arundhati Roy, War Talk (Cambridge: South End Press, 2003). The violence of nationalism is based on the logic of belonging. The failure of capitalism and modern liberal democracy stems from the fact that they rely on belonging as the basis for different assessments of human life. Ruth Wilson Gilmore sums it up in a few words: „Capitalism demands inequality and racism anchors it.“ 3) Ruth Wilson Gilmore, „The Worrying State of the Anti-Prison Movement: Social Justice,“ Socialjusticejournal.org, February 23, 2015.
Not everyone can be equal in value, so liberalism creates the folklore of race and nation to explain the boundaries between those who are part of it and those who are excluded/oppressed/expropriated. In this world of the living, the real identity politics that brought down the Democratic Party in the 2016 elections is thriving: the urban neoliberal, the progressive who is in order in his own skin, who benefits from the uprooting, expropriation or death of another, as long as there is a net gain in the record of progress – measured by GDP, average life expectancy, unemployment rates and other data points. The logic, structures, institutions and policies that produce this identity are the „giant triplets“ that Dr. King says would lead to „violent annihilation“ – racism, war and capitalism. It is the invisible sharp edges of power that separate the world from the living from the dispossessed, necessitating phrases like „Black lives matter“ and „Water is life.“ [33] Stephan C. Finley, Biko M. Gray & Lori Latrice Martin, „Affirming Our Values“: African American Scholars, White Virtual Mobs, and the Complicity of White University Administrators, 9 J. Acad.
Freedom 1, 4 (2018) Christine Nguyen & Lynda Duran, Performing and Deconstructing Whiteness in Student Affairs, 39 Vt. Connection 113, 114 (2018) („The tacit definition of „professional“ is primarily based on a white standard – a standard monitored by those who embody whiteness in higher education, including people of color as well as white people. »). The result of these three visits, and in particular my vision of the Warsaw ghetto, was not so much a clearer understanding of the Jewish problem in the world, but a real and complete understanding of the black problem. First, the problem of slavery, emancipation, and caste in the United States was no longer in my head a separate and unique thing as I had conceived for so long. It wasn`t even just a matter of color and physical and racial characteristics, which was especially difficult for me to learn since the color line had been a real and effective cause of misery for a lifetime. Black submission, settler colonialism and war diminish the universal meaning of life itself. Oppressed groups have fought to break the wall that separates the free from the non-free, the normal from the deviant, the world from the living from the world from the dispossessed, in order to make America`s declarations of equality less false. But the wall endures – the line of color on which the breed performs its „wild sorting“. On one side of this line, the world of the living is populated by the creative class, winners, gentrifiers and political descendants of yesterday`s settlers. Today`s prison industrialists are the descendants of yesterday`s eugenicists; Today`s national border policy is the result of yesterday`s redlining.
In queer studies, „queer“ is not a population, but a verb, a political vision, and an action – for example, queer a relationship or queer a criticism. Disability research is also not about describing people`s attributes, but about challenging the idea of normality.