On the surface, W.E.B. DuBois was focused on dismantling racism. An avid fan of anthropology and genetics, he wrote scathing fact-based responses to white supremacists who dared to belittle our people. But there was a little-known dark side to this civil rights icon.
When he edited The Crisis Magazine for the NAACP, for example, he used the platform to feature articles on biology and evolution. To him, science was the path to Black liberation. But there was one area of science that makes him eligible for a severe side-eye.
He believed in eugenics, which argued that better human beings could be created by breeding out those with undesirable characteristics. DuBois agreed with this!
When it came to Black people, he believed that only “the best” should be able to have children! But how did he define the best?
If his actions indicated his definition of the best Black people, he was most likely referring to light-skinned people. He surrounded himself with hardly any darker-hued people.
DuBois undoubtedly thought that only certain Black people were worthy of building strong Black communities, but he was absolutely WRONG. True liberation means we must always be suspicious of ANYTHING or ANYONE that would have us exclude or degrade our own people!