4 - Of the Culture of White Folk (1917)

Summary

This 1917 essay, which appeared in revised form in Du Bois’s 1920 book Darkwater, develops the argument of “The African Roots of War” that increasing political and economic equality among whites had been achieved through expanded exploitation of the “darker peoples.” That exploitation in turn was enabled by the culture of white supremacy, and by an international order in which European nations could abuse their colonial subjects with impunity and without scrutiny. The essay marks out the United States as particularly unsuited to play the role of peacemaker, given the country’s history of white supremacy and racial domination. The essay predicts that the violence perpetrated by whites in the rest of the world will be a prelude to revolution on the part of “these despised and raped peoples” unless Europe commits to “world democracy” and the equality of all races and rejects industry based on theft.