Bernard Boxill. Self-Respect and Protest
1976, Philosophy and Public Affairs 6(1): 58-69.
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, Contributed by: Henry KrahnAbstract:
Must a person protest his wrongs? Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois debated this question at the turn of the century. They did not disagree over whether protesting injustice was an effective way to right it, but over whether protesting injustice, when one could do nothing to right it oneself, was self-respecting. Washington felt that it was not. Thus, he did not deny that protest could help ameliorate conditions or that it was sometimes justified; what he did deny was that a person should keep protesting wrongs committed against him when he could not take decisive steps to end them. By insisting on "advertising his wrongs" in such cases, he argued, a person betrayed a weakness for relying, not on his "own efforts" but on the "sympathy" of others. Washington's position was that if a person felt wronged, he should do something about it; if he could do nothing he should hold his tongue and wait his opportunity; protest in such cases is only a servile appeal for sympathy; stoicism, by implication, is better. Dubois strongly contested these views. Not only did he deny that protest is an appeal for sympathy, he maintained that if a person failed to express openly his outrage at injustice, however assiduously he worked against it, he would in the long run lose his self-respect. Thus, he asserted that Washington faced a "paradox" by insisting both on "self-respect" and on "a silent submission to civic inferiority," and he declared that "only in a . . . persistent demand for essential equality . . . can any people show . . . a decent self-respect." Like Frederick Douglass, he concluded that people should protest their wrongs. In this essay I shall expand upon and defend Dubois' side of the debate. I shall argue that persons have reason to protest their wrongs not only to stop injustice but also to show self-respect and to know themselves as self-respecting.Comment: Boxill characterizes the debate between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois over protest and offers an original intervention: the self-respecting person has reason to protest in order to know that they have self-respect. This paper could be valuable as part of an advanced political philosophy syllabus on protest or as part of a syllabus on Africana philosophy.
Du Bois, W.E.B.. Criteria of Negro Art
1926, The Crisis, 32: 290-297
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Added by: Quentin Pharr and Clotilde TorregrossaAbstract:
Published in The Crisis of October 1926, DuBois initially spoke these words at a celebration for the recipient of the Twelfth Spingarn Medal, Carter Godwin Woodson. The celebration was part of the NAACP's annual conference and was held in June 1926.Comment (from this Blueprint): In this selection, Du Bois discusses the nature of aesthetic value, how black artists have been historically excluded from creating it for false and racist reasons, and what role black artists actually have to play in creating beauty. Firstly, he establishes an expansive conception of aesthetic value. Secondly, he sets out various examples of how black artists have been historically excluded from producing art in general and art which portrays "blackness" more specifically. And lastly, he sets out a vision for the arts which not only includes black artists, but also recognizes the aesthetic and political value of their work for creating fair and equal societies where beauty is ever present and sought. It will help readers to understand the costs and wrongs that come with exclusionary practices in the production of aesthetic objects.
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