We bury genius; we send it to jail; we ridicule and mock it, while we send mediocrity and idiocy to college, gilded and crowned.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “We bury genius; we send it to jail; we ridicule and mock it, while we send mediocrity and idiocy to college, gilded and…”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois laments the societal tendency to overlook true talent in favor of mediocrity.
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If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.
Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this…
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.