06/30/2026
. . . you do the math + see what you get.
". . . would the negro problem be suddenly and eternally settled [if the name negro could be changed to something else]?
would you be any less ashamed of being descended from a black man, or would your schoolmates feel any less superior to you?. . .
your real work, my dear young man, does not lie with names. it is not a matter of changing them, losing them, or forgetting them. . .
the feeling of inferiority is in you, not in any name. the name merely evokes what is already there. exercise the hateful complex and no name can ever make you hang your head"
- W.E.B Dubois, written to Roland Barton (1928)