“I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations that on earth do dwell. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the possibility of infinite development.”
The title of the short essay form which this quote derives is “Credo.” That simple title pretty much says all there is to say about the quote. Dubois is staking a claim toward equality here. Which would—indeed, should—be simple and obvious. The mere fact that he has to assert for publication is equally telling. This fundamental declarative assertion should not be controversial in any way. And yet for many, it was and for many it still is.
She paused. He was a man,—no more; but he was in some larger sense a gentleman,—sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his hands and— his face. Yet yesterday——
The comet has truck and to the two protagonists of the story—a privileged white woman and a poor black man—all lives except their own appear to have been extinguished. The story is about a coming to terms with a reality that has been conveniently constructed so that neither has had to face it within the company of the other. Earlier, the woman mused that this black man was less than a man if not less than human. Eventually, they discover that not all humanity was wiped out. And progress reverts to the status quo. Except, of course, these two have both been changed by their experience.
“Why—won’t—Negroes—work! I have given money for years to Hampton and Tuskegee and yet I can’t get decent servants. They won’t try. They’re lazy! They’re unreliable! They’re impudent and they leave without notice. They all want to be lawyers and doctors and (venomously) ladies!”
This particular quote is uttered—and by the end spat out—by an unnamed woman who attended a speech that Dubois was giving. Afterward, she approached him with a query about where she might possibly be able to get a “good colored cook.” When he has no answer nor desire to provide one, the woman launches into her tirade, apparently without the slightest sensibility of the inherent irony of her complaint. It is the perfect opening for this work which examines the notion of laziness among “Negroes" and the expectations among some whites that all work is important enough to do well. Even that work which they would never condescend to undertake for themselves.
The milkman has neglected me. He pays little attention to colored districts. My white neighbor glares elaborately. I walk softly, lest I disturb him. The children jeer as I pass to work. The women in the street car withdraw their skirts or prefer to stand. The policeman is truculent. The elevator man hates to serve Negroes. My job is insecure because the white union wants it and does not want me. I try to lunch, but no place near will serve me. I go forty blocks to Marshall’s, but the Committee of Fourteen closes Marshall’s; they say white women frequent it.
This litany of everyday discrimination is the response by Dubois to a white friend who accuses him of being too sensitive before asking why he doesn’t stop being so. Much of the essay then continues along in the same way with Dubois explaining to his friend the underbelly of daily prejudices which must be met and dealt with before they arrive. From there the essay delves into those discriminatory practices that even many whites should not have been able to ignore: “Jim Crow cars” on trains, military segregation followed by military disregard for services rendered before transforming the factual nature of the essay into a semi-metaphorical trip around the world where the author unleashes his poetic fancy as a means of addressing the strange duality of a world which simultaneously be so beautiful and so ugly.
