Of this there is no doubt and never has been; but why is it better?
W.E.B. Du Bois: “Of this there is no doubt and never has been; but why is it better?”
Editor's note · Context
He asserts that while European culture is often deemed superior, the reasons for this superiority are worth questioning.
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To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes…
By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission.
Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.
This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.