The NegroDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
History
The Negro
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
Africa -- History; Black race
In sharp contrast to this usage the term "Negro" in Africa has been more
and more restricted until some scientists, late in the last century,
declared that the great mass of the black and brown people of Africa were
not Negroes at all, and that the "real" Negro dwells in a small space
between the Niger and the Senegal. Ratzel says, "If we ask what justifies
so narrow a limitation, we find that the hideous Negro type, which the
fancy of observers once saw all over Africa, but which, as Livingstone
says, is really to be seen only as a sign in front of tobacco shops, has
on closer inspection evaporated from all parts of Africa, to settle no one
knows how in just this region. If we understand that an extreme case may
have been taken for the genuine and pure form, even so we do not
comprehend the ground of its geographical limitation and location; for
wherever dark, woolly-haired men dwell, this ugly type also crops up. We
are here in the presence of a refinement of science which to an
unprejudiced eye will hardly hold water."[67]
In this restricted sense the Negro has no history, culture, or ability,
for the simple fact that such human beings as have history and evidence
culture and ability are not Negroes! Between these two extreme
definitions, with unconscious adroitness, the most extraordinary and
contradictory conclusions have been reached.
Let it therefore be said, once for all, that racial inferiority is not the
cause of anti-Negro prejudice. Boaz, the anthropologist, says, "An
unbiased estimate of the anthropological evidence so far brought forward
does not permit us to countenance the belief in a racial inferiority which
would unfit an individual of the Negro race to take his part in modern
civilization. We do not know of any demand made on the human body or mind
in modern life that anatomical or ethnological evidence would prove to be
beyond the powers of the Negro."[68]
"We have every reason to suppose that all races are capable, under proper
guidance, of being fitted into the complex scheme of our modern
civilization, and the policy of artificially excluding them from its
benefits is as unjustifiable scientifically as it is ethically
abhorrent."[69] What is, then, this so-called "instinctive" modern
prejudice against black folk?
Lord Bryce says of the intermingling of blacks and whites in South
America, "The ease with which the Spaniards have intermingled by marriage
with the Indian tribes--and the Portuguese have done the like, not only
with the Indians, but with the more physically dissimilar Negroes--shows
that race repugnance is no such constant and permanent factor in human
affairs as members of the Teutonic peoples are apt to assume. Instead of
being, as we Teutons suppose, the rule in the matter, we are rather the
exception, for in the ancient world there seems to have been little race
repulsion."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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