We feel and know that there are many delicate differences in race psychology, numberless changes that our crude social measurements are not yet able to follow minutely, which explain much of history and social development.
This statement from his seminal work acknowledges the subtle complexities of racial differences and the limitations of current social analysis in fully grasping them.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.
Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.