Sarah Cant and Jennifer Hardes
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963), a contemporary of Marx, Durkheim and Weber, should be given his rightful place as a founding father of sociology, and credited with drawing attention to the pervasive reality of racial inequality, segregation and discrimination. Du Bois argued that the ‘most significant problem of the 20th century is the colour line’ (1903/1968:1) and as such, this was the proper subject matter for sociology.
In The Philadelphia Negro (1899), Du Bois described an in-depth study of the lives of African Americans based on census data and over 2,500 in-person interviews. At this point in time, although slavery had been officially abolished in 1865, American society remained highly segregated. A number of laws were passed in the 1890s that established separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, restaurants, hotels, trains, beaches, parks and theatres along the colour line. Du Bois drew attention to continued structural racism and focused on revealing the racial inequalities produced through capitalism, showing how racism served the interests of the (White) capitalist class. Racism permitted both extreme exploitation and prevented radical social change, he argued. He called for African Americans to develop a double consciousness – to see themselves as ordinary people, members of families and communities, but also to be aware of the way that they were seen through the eyes of White people, who viewed them as inferior.
William Edward Burghardt Du BoisA segregated water-cooler in Oklahoma, USA, 1939
Du Bois campaigned against racism and cultural assimilation, demanding equal rights and championing the cultural achievements of people of African descent. It is therefore astonishing that his work has taken so long to be considered central to the sociological canon.
This speaks to the enduring legacy of racism, even within sociology as a discipline, and underscores a need for the decolonisation of the curriculum (see Chapters 5 and 6).
Du Bois’ work needs to be read alongside the work of many other Black scholars. For instance, in his famous work The Black Jacobins (1938), C.L.R. James (1901–89) documented the slave revolution in Haiti (1791–1804), showing that this was as important as the 1789 French and 1776 American revolutions for understanding the rise of modernity. It would be very easy to infer from history books that the Global North was responsible for the rise of liberty and equality. However, these writers reveal the silencing of non-European and non-Anglo American histories and knowledges. Indeed, as Bhambra (2007) states, the Haitian revolution was more radical in bringing about equality and rights than either the French or the American revolution, both of which continued to disenfranchise large swathes of the population.
Frantz Fanon (1925–61) extended the concept of double consciousness in The Wretched of the Earth (1961/2007), showing how Black people in White-dominated societies have to ‘perform whiteness’ to be able to live in the world, which prevents the possibility of ever knowing oneself. He thus showed the importance of reworking sociological concepts so that they could speak to the experiences of all people. For instance, as Meghji (2021) outlines, he argued that while the Marxist concept of alienation could provide insights into the impact of capitalism on the working classes in the Global North, it did not capture the experience of alienation that emanates from colonialism and the oppression of Black peoples.
Fanon was referring to the ways in which Black people internalise knowing themselves as ‘other’, as a ‘sub-species’ existing in a ‘zone of non-being’, distinct from White people. The internalisation of these self-definitions, Fanon argued, alienated Black people from themselves. The feelings of stigmatisation and judgment by White standards mean never being able to know or feel oneself except in terms of the imposed categories of selfhood that derive from colonialism and define Black people as subordinate and ‘other’.
Understanding the causes and consequences of racial and ethnic differences remains central to the sociological project. Sociologists show how ‘race’ remains a powerful construct for organising social relations. Importantly, it also establishes that race is not a fixed biological category but a social construct. The idea that we can be neatly divided into distinct human ‘races’ is a product of social processes of categorisation, rather than a reflection of natural and biological differences between people. (In Chapter 4, you will see that there is no scientific evidence for significant biological differences across ‘races’.) However, the idea of biological and racial difference has a long and dangerous history: it supported the racism that permitted enslavement and the Holocaust, for example, and continues to explain contemporary examples of differential and oppressive treatment.
Frantz FanonThis way of thinking has been developed by several important writers. We cannot do justice to their work in this introduction, but one illustration is Edward Said’s (1978) work, Orientalism. This describes how the telling of history reflects colonial interests, producing a binary between the East and the West, between the Orient and the Occident. The East, Said argued, is exoticised, and is depicted in derogatory terms that exaggerate differences, while the West is depicted as culturally superior. Said’s work highlights the importance of interrogating history and the way it is told. This is a lesson that needs to be applied to sociological theory, too.
Importantly, sociological work in this area has explored three key areas. Firstly, it has interrogated the concept of race to show that it is a socially constructed idea. In this way, sociological studies have helped develop a more widespread use of the concept of ethnicity to understand social diversity, while also alerting us to its own inherent dangers (see Chapter 4 for more on this).
Secondly, sociological work has shown how racism comes in many forms but, importantly, endures. Sociology teaches us that racism is not simply a set of ideas held by individuals, but is located within and generated by societies. From the late-17th century through to the Second World War, there were dishonourable attempts to establish biological differences between races. This form of scientific racism has been discredited now, but racism did not disappear with it. The latter part of the 20th century saw the rise of cultural racism, in which some cultural practices and beliefs are judged and stigmatised. Some sociological cultural deprivation theories have been criticised for reproducing this type of thinking. For example, these deprivation theories tend to blame doing less well at school or having poorer health on the values and lifestyles of some groups. Sociology has also named and documented institutional racism – a form of racism that is much harder to see, but which occurs in the practices, rules and decisions made within organisations such as schools, the police, banks and health services. All these different forms of racism reinforce the more visible and lived everyday racism that minority groups continue to experience.
Thirdly, sociological studies have explored how race and ethnicity intersect with gender and class. This idea is explored in more detail in the next section and in Chapter 4.
There has never been a more important time to study sociology and to become a sociologist.
Whether you are studying sociology at A Level, college or university, or would like to know more about the discipline, this fascinating introduction will show you what sociology can do, as well as where it can take you.
The book celebrates the promise of sociology, detailing the six key dispositions required to be a sociologist.
Contemporary research and case studies help to develop sociological knowledge and awareness, while questions and prompts for discussion encourage critical thinking.
Dr Sarah Cant and Dr Jennifer Hardes teach and research sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University in the School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences. Sarah Cant is a Principal Lecturer and the Director of Academic Studies and Jennifer Hardes is a Senior Lecturer. They are the authors of numerous academic books and articles.
Sarah Cant and Jennifer Hardes