Washington v. DuBois Essay

Washington v. DuBois

Assignment/Activity Title- Washington v. Dubois Essay
Year— Freshman
Skill— Writing, Research
Portfolio Category— Critical Reasoning

     This assignment was basically a summarization of two arguments on racial separation, and how to make African-Americans equal to whites. We were assigned to choose between two arguments; Booker T. Washington’s argument that the path of racial equality led to economic independence first and foremost – and from there to racial recognition as they became indispensable to American economics. W.E.B. DuBois argued that the only way to overcome segregation was to win political power and voting rights. In the assignment, we were instructed to pick a side and argue for it, while countering and explaining the ideas of the opposition. Somewhat like a debate.

           In our history class, Mr. Grossman explained that the majority of us would pick DuBois’ arguments to support. When he said that, I was immediately determined to go the other way, since there’s nothing I enjoy more than a good challenge. In reality, this issue played out the way DuBois wanted it to – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his peace marches, attempting to gain political power. Therefore, it was a lot easier to see how DuBois’ ideas would have worked, and to feel more comfortable with them. In order to argue the opposite points, I would have to dig deeper into the arguments. I turned to the modern world’s most used research tool – Google. By entering Booker T. Washington’s name, I was rewarded with a flood of information regarding his ideas. The same with DuBois. The new issue, then, was to create my own argument for black economic development and against the ideas that had actually worked. Looking over quotes by DuBois, I discovered that some of his speeches had a somewhat inflammatory tone, that he was more excitable than Washington. I decided to portray DuBois as a rebel, by omitting certain quotes and using ones that made him seem insolent and otherwise inflammatory. On the other side, I focused on mature, calm quotes from Washington as well as explaining with logic and my own thoughts why his ideas would have worked. I’m guessing this tactic worked, since I got 37/40 on the two and one half page essay.

            While writing, I learned things about myself. I realized, again, how much I relished the prospect of arguing something that majority of my peers had chosen to oppose. I wanted to stand out. I realized that the drive for my need of challenge was in part, a strong desire to be seen as smarter than my peers. I also learned about my writing style – I have a tendency to use unnecessary words like ‘influx,’ and a lot of what I say is fluff. Since there was a length limit on this essay, I had to make it more concise – which was hard for me to do. And finally, I also liked painting a picture of someone based on omission, manipulating facts, I realized.