Racism

NEW: The Gift of W.E.B. Du Bois and Double-Consciousness [Spring 2013 JustSouth Quarterly]

By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.

Racism is a spiritual wound that afflicts all Americans. No one escapes it. For white Americans to attend to this wound, we will need to pray incessantly for God’s grace and to “see ourselves as others see us.” [1] Among countless ways that whites might begin to see ourselves as people of color see us, I suggest W.E.B. Du Bois’s critical way of autobiography, including his articulation of “double-consciousness.” While many have examined this wound, few have probed the depth of this wound more insightfully, compassionately, and fully as Du Bois. More>>

OUR PERSPECTIVE:

An Introduction to Race, Racism, and Whiteness

By Dr. Alex Mikulich

Over 100 years ago, in his introduction to The Souls of Black Folk, W.E. B. Du Bois wrote: “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.” Despite claims that we live in a “post-racial” society after the historic election of Barack Obama, the fact remains that the color line and racial hierarchy endures in the 21st century. At issue for the Jesuit Social Research Institute, from the perspective of Roman Catholic social teaching and thought, is the persistence of disproportionate advantage for white Americans in relationship to pervasive and persistent disproportionate disadvantage for people of color in every sphere of life including health, wealth, income, education, housing, and the criminal justice system. More than one issue among others, the contradiction between Gospel values and practices of racial inequality is scandalous. The contradiction between Roman Catholic and American claims for universal human dignity and equality, and the reality of social, political, and economic advantage that white Americans consciously and unconsciously accept and assume, betrays this scandal. This article continues here.