Was reading through some Du Bois today, and I came across a piece he published in 1935 entitled A NEGRO WITHIN A NATION and was struck by how these words, written 86 years ago, still say so much about where we are today, in this moment. Here is an excerpt from the essay:

“The colored people of America are coming to face the fact quite calmly that most white Americans do not like them, and are planning neither for their survival, nor for their definite future if it involves free, self-assertive modern manhood…”

“…This does not mean all Americans. A saving few are worried about the Negro problem; a still larger group are not ill-disposed, but they fear prevailing public opinion. The great mass of Americans are, however, merely representatives of average humanity...”

“…They muddle along with their own affairs and scarcely can be expected to take seriously the affairs of strangers or people whom they partly fear and partly despise...”

“…For many years it was the theory of most Negro leaders that this attitude was the insensibility of ignorance and inexperience, that white America did not know of or realize the continuing plight of the Negro…”

“…Accordingly, for the last two decades, we have striven by book and periodical, by speech and appeal, by various dramatic methods of agitation, to put the essential facts before the American people…”

“…Today there can be no doubt that Americans know the facts; and yet they remain for the most part indifferent and unmoved.”

I've been thinking a lot about that last part, "Americans know the facts; and yet they remain for the most part indifferent and unmoved" in the context of Black people dying at higher rates from covid & in the context of Black people continuing to be killed by police & vigilante

It's a reminder, I think, of the limits of increasing "awareness" of certain phenomena. It is not enough to simply say "look at these Black people being killed on video" or "look at these statistics of Black people dying at such high rates." Awareness, by itself, is not enough.

People can become more aware of disparities without attributing those disparities to any larger historical or structural forces. This is why, for example, it is irresponsible to speak of the disparate outcomes in terms covid-19 w/o also speaking to the history that's caused them.

Anyway, I found this essay, particularly this section, both compelling and useful in thinking through this moment.