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“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls.”
—W.E.B. DuBois
—W.E.B. DuBois
Been sitting w/ this quote for an hour. So much in it. But I’ll share one take-away:
Until one is able to exegete this quote in its historical, legal, literary, social, pedgagogical and political context, you’re sorely unqualified for counseling the reading habits of others.
Until one is able to exegete this quote in its historical, legal, literary, social, pedgagogical and political context, you’re sorely unqualified for counseling the reading habits of others.
Until one grasps the fact that reading and writing itself has been the site of racial control, arguments for racial supremacy/inferiority, and the transmitter of racial animus, one can’t appreciate the sheer wonder of what DuBois writes here. The writing and thought are wonders.
We take for granted the ability to read and write. For centuries that was not the case as some were poor and ignorant and some systematically denied the ability. We may even take for granted the tightness of the perspectives of those who did write in those eras.
But the very fact of literary disenfranchisemeant begs us to question what we read AND, to DuBois’ point, read across the color line for input and perspective otherwise missed and necessary for testywhat we take for granted as “right.”
That we can do this at a sophisticated level across the color and linguistic lines (both Shakespeare and Dumas) simultaneously affirms the ability of all to intellectually engage and the ability of all to PRODUCE, an ability explicitly rejected for much of our history.
That such engagement should be without “wince” and “arm in arm” even during the height of American apartheid (DuBois’ day) makes the rightness, necessity and should-be ease of reading across ethnic, linguistic and cultural perspectives self-evident in our day.
That some contend diversified reading is unnecessary and tantamount to divisive demonstrates: a failure to marvel that some DO read/write when once they were forbidden, a lack of that inquisitiveness that seeks understanding, and a construction of inquiry to tribe.
We ought LIVE in the gilded halls where men and women glide, halls DuBois could only imagine and gave his life championing. He intellectually strode those halls against custom, convention and connivance. We prove foolish if we forsake those halls so rich with winder and truth.
But from now on, I’ll take reading advice from folks who can exegete that quote and do so with reading lives that prove their ability and appreciation.
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