W.E.B. Du Bois: “Murder may swagger, theft may rule and prostitution may flourish and…”

On the record

Murder may swagger, theft may rule and prostitution may flourish and the nation gives but spasmodic, intermittent and lukewarm attention.

Said by

W.E.B. Du Bois

Source

Du Bois critiques the inconsistent societal response to crime based on the race of the perpetrator, highlighting systemic bias.

More from W.E.B. Du Bois

Jan 1, 1903

In song and exhortation swelled one refrain—Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand.

Jan 1, 1903

He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world.

Jan 1, 1903

And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe.

Jan 1, 1903

Three things characterized this religion of the slave,—the Preacher, the Music, and the Frenzy.

W.E.B. Du Bois: “Murder may swagger, theft may rule and prostitution may flourish and the nation gives but spasmodic, intermittent and…”