Talk:W. E. B. Du Bois

Latest comment: 12 years ago by Ningauble in topic The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois suggested merge

Relevance of WEB Dubois today

In THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK I input the COMING OF JOHN story, and had a little edit war. It loses meaning if cut into separate quotes. I just read SOULS OF BLACK FOLK and was amazed by this touching passage, written in 1903 but so relevant today.... Heart of WEB Dubois and American Class War: Regardless of race, many workers yearn to do Great Work to give our lives PURPOSE, but oppressors would rather keep us as toilet cleaner slaves. John pays for his opera ticket, sublime beauty of LOHENGRIN inpsires him to do Great Work, and at that instant, usher kicks him out for being a Negro, despite the fact that he paid for his ticket. Denied beauty, back on street, ultimately John gets lynched at the end of this sad story. Very haunting.

WEB Dubois was the Malcolm X of his generation. Other wikiquotes amazingly relevant in 2007:

  • "The cause of war is preparation for war." ...That's the Bush neocon game.
  • "The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world's need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this—with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need—this life is hell." ...That's the whole point of THE COMING OF JOHN. I suffer lousy meaningless McJobs and underemployment, like many in USA today. Haunting and relevant quote for American workers in 2007.
  • "In my own country for nearly a century I have been nothing but a nigger." ...Sounds like Malcolm X.
  • "The Soviet Union does not allow any church of any kind to interfere with education, and religion is not taught in public schools. It seems to me that this is the greatest gift of the Russian Revolution to the modern world. Most educated modern men no longer believe in religious dogma." ...Such Atheism is especially relevant in USA today. Atheism was a central tenet of his socialism. Dare African Americans admit this truth today, that religion is for the uneduated, while Atheism is a natural result of higher education? Dubois was far ahead of his time, and far ahead of USA today!

The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois suggested merge edit

The historic distinction of The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois and the fact that the title has a contemporary living co-author/editor makes it more suitable to stand as a separate entity rather than as one section merged into another. However, linking the pages by adding this page under "See Also" on the W.E.B. Du Bois page serves to extend and in a sense merge both, thereby successfully fulfilling the intent of the initial suggestion. —This unsigned comment is by Ode2scribblers (talkcontribs) 19:25, 22 July 2011.

I disagree. When a biographer quotes his subject, the quotes belong in the article about his subject, i.e. W. E. B. Du Bois. When a biographer remarks about his subject, the remarks belong in a section for quotes about the subject or in an article about the biographer, i.e. Aberjhani. There should only be a separate article for the biography if those pages would otherwise be excessively long. (To speak of the historic distinction of a recent work is a bit of an oxymoron. History will decide later, much later.) ~ Ningauble 12:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
I fully agree with Ningauble that there are no significant reasons not to merge quotes from this work into the W E B Du Bois page, where it could have its own section for quotes of Du Bois — and perhaps some of them into a sectionn for others about him. This page can then be simply retained as a "redirect" page to that one. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 12:49, 23 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
The book consists primarily of a collection of unsourced attributions, which makes merging difficult. Either someone needs to research the actual sources of the quotes, or else we just cite this collection as an attributor. The latter is a very marginal outcome, for compilations that do not cite sources are just about the lowest form of quotation collections, second only to, and difficult to distinguish from, the sort that contain made-up stuff. ~ Ningauble 14:15, 1 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Merge these ~ They are practically the same and both hold the correct information that I would need or want to find when looking up "W. E. B. Dubois quotes" - Anonymous editor

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