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The Colour Line and Sociology

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The Politics of Social Science Research

Part of the book series: Migration, Minorities and Citizenship ((MMC))

Abstract

‘The problem of the twentieth century would be the problem of the colour line — the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Africa, in America and the islands of the sea’, wrote W. E. B. Du Bois in 1903. This article traces the ‘problem of the color line’ through the experiences of African-American sociologists (and other cultural workers) within the institutions and practices of the academy.1 My concern is not so much with the individual merits of researchers, white and black, within the academy, but how the power relations inscribed within white American academia can selectively silence, sanction and marginalize those who are black, and spurn the sociological insights they bring to the analysis of ‘race’. There are, of course, effective white researchers, scholars and other cultural workers who have been able to evoke deep sympathy, understanding and intellectual fortitude in their analysis of black people (Liebow, 1967; Valentine, 1968).

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Authors
  1. Dipannita Basu
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Warwick, UK

    Peter Ratcliffe (Reader in Sociology) (Reader in Sociology)

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© 2001 Palgrave Publishers Ltd

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Basu, D. (2001). The Colour Line and Sociology. In: Ratcliffe, P. (eds) The Politics of Social Science Research. Migration, Minorities and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230504950_2

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