Abstract
I regretfully write that I learned so much about W.E.B. Du Bois in The Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line that I am thoroughly embarrassed. My professors did not assign Du Bois’s work in my theory course in graduate school. What I learned from this great thinker, I read on my own. I could recite Du Bois’s notion of double consciousness, and my fellow Black graduate students and I fronted like we represented the Talented Tenth. After reading Itzigsohn and Brown’s work, I realize I know very little about Du Bois. Through a critical and detailed analysis of Du Bois’s vast body of work, Itzigsohn and Brown set out to articulate a Du Boisian sociology. Unfortunately, mainstream sociology does not fully recognize Du Bois’s contributions. These scholars comprehensively and thoroughly address this gap.
They start where most scholarship ends on Du Bois, placing the “color line”—a division of individuals based on racial classifications—at the center of analysis addressing modernity and subjectivity. They contend that Du Bois asserted that modernity was racialized, not merely an advancement into industrialization and urbanization according to Weberian theory. Furthermore, modernity engendered colonialism, whiteness as a structure of oppression, and a denial of the humanity of people of color across the globe. Du Boisian sociology offers a critique of this racialized modernity. For Du Bois, racism is the organizing structure that determines the lived experiences of Black folk. Du Bois argued for a phenomenological approach to Black subjectivity, whereby Black people convey their personal thoughts and feelings regarding their existence in a white racist world. Here, we witness his articulations of double consciousness and its elements (e.g., “twoness,” “the veil,” and “second sight.”). Whereas Marxism stresses the perspective of the alienated working-class European worker as a result of capitalism, Du Bois contends that this system exploits racialized labor globally. White colonial powers created and maintained a division of labor and granted “rights” based on socially constructed racial categories. Hence, Du Boisian sociology posits racism, enslavement, and coloniality as fundamental elements of historical capitalism.
Du Bois did not consider Black people powerless due to their circumstances. Instead, he attempted to detail how much “chance” (or agency) they possessed given the constraints of a racist social structure—what he refers to as “law.” For Du Bois, this is empirically verifiable by employing sociological methods. By collecting quantitative and qualitative data on Black folks in places such as Philadelphia and Atlanta, the scholar and his associates created what we now understand as urban and community studies. Itzigsohn and Brown write that in his early years, Du Bois believed that rigorous and systematic analysis, incorporating longitudinal data of the “Negro problem,” would change the hearts and minds of white elites. Moreover, empirical research presented to whites would eliminate racism, leading to the full inclusion of Blacks in American society. Sadly, this outcome did not occur. As a result, in his later years, Du Bois soured on the idea of white liberalism, believing that their racism was deeply rooted. Instead of focusing on integration, he turned to activism and organizing, promoting Pan-Africanism and Black cooperative economics.
Du Bois believed that the color line extended to the Black diaspora. In his later years, he moved away from the notion of the Talented Tenth as the salvation for Blacks worldwide. Instead, Du Bois concluded that Black nations should look inward for their liberation. Influenced by the anti-colonial movements in Ghana and Trinidad, he posited that building stronger ties with Blacks outside of the United States was an effective strategy. Also, until the time came when whites destroyed the color line, Du Bois suggested that Blacks build an economic base for wealth accumulation. He led and invested in the Harlem Renaissance and organized conferences in Ghana and the Soviet Union, encouraging decolonialization and equality. For Itzigsohn and Brown, Du Boisian sociology seeks the liberation of the subaltern across the world.
Despite Du Bois’s keen insights and contributions to the discipline, the authors write that the scholar did possess blind spots. First, Du Bois’s work does not address indigeneity and settler colonialism. Also, he undertheorizes the intersections of gender and patriarchy as a part of racialized modernity. Finally, current issues that address sexuality and the environment received little attention. A Du Boisian sociology includes and builds on these aspects. Overall, this impressive monograph acknowledges and reclaims Du Bois’s contributions to sociology. It is part of a growing movement that addresses the discipline’s neglect of this scholar (see Aldon Morris’s, Marcus Anthony Hunter’s, and Earl Wright II's works, among others). I highly recommend this monograph for advanced undergraduate and graduate theory courses in sociology and the social sciences. Indeed, I could have used it in graduate school, but now I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about this preeminent scholar and public intellectual.