They both act as reciprocal cause and effect, and a change in neither alone will bring the desired effect.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “They both act as reciprocal cause and effect, and a change in neither alone will bring the desired effect.”
Editor's note · Context
Following his analysis of racial dynamics, Du Bois emphasizes that prejudice and social conditions are mutually reinforcing, requiring change from all sides for progress.
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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.
So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.
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?