Darkwater: Voices from Within the VeilDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
General
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
Thus the world market most wildly and desperately sought today is the
market where labor is cheapest and most helpless and profit is most
abundant. This labor is kept cheap and helpless because the white world
despises "darkies." If one has the temerity to suggest that these
workingmen may walk the way of white workingmen and climb by votes and
self-assertion and education to the rank of men, he is howled out of
court. They cannot do it and if they could, they shall not, for they are
the enemies of the white race and the whites shall rule forever and
forever and everywhere. Thus the hatred and despising of human beings
from whom Europe wishes to extort her luxuries has led to such jealousy
and bickering between European nations that they have fallen afoul of
each other and have fought like crazed beasts. Such is the fruit of
human hatred.
But what of the darker world that watches? Most men belong to this
world. With Negro and Negroid, East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese they
form two-thirds of the population of the world. A belief in humanity is
a belief in colored men. If the uplift of mankind must be done by men,
then the destinies of this world will rest ultimately in the hands of
darker nations.
What, then, is this dark world thinking? It is thinking that as wild
and awful as this shameful war was, _it is nothing to compare with that
fight for freedom which black and brown and yellow men must and will
make unless their oppression and humiliation and insult at the hands of
the White World cease. The Dark World is going to submit to its present
treatment just as long as it must and not one moment longer._
Let me say this again and emphasize it and leave no room for mistaken
meaning: The World War was primarily the jealous and avaricious struggle
for the largest share in exploiting darker races. As such it is and must
be but the prelude to the armed and indignant protest of these despised
and raped peoples. Today Japan is hammering on the door of justice,
China is raising her half-manacled hands to knock next, India is
writhing for the freedom to knock, Egypt is sullenly muttering, the
Negroes of South and West Africa, of the West Indies, and of the United
States are just awakening to their shameful slavery. Is, then, this war
the end of wars? Can it be the end, so long as sits enthroned, even in
the souls of those who cry peace, the despising and robbing of darker
peoples? If Europe hugs this delusion, then this is not the end of world
war,--it is but the beginning!
We see Europe's greatest sin precisely where we found Africa's and
Asia's,--in human hatred, the despising of men; with this difference,
however: Europe has the awful lesson of the past before her, has the
splendid results of widened areas of tolerance, sympathy, and love among
men, and she faces a greater, an infinitely greater, world of men than
any preceding civilization ever faced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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