The Weekend Edition of Race Inquiry Digest features the top stories from the two previous Digests published during the week. Click here for earlier Digests.
Editor’s Note: W. E. B. Du Bois: The Color Line and the Wages of Whiteness
At the dawn of the twentieth century, W. E. B. Du Bois announced in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.” For Du Bois, the “color line” was not confined to the United States. It stretched across Africa under colonial rule, into Asia under European domination, and throughout the Americas under slavery and segregation. It was, in his view, the defining moral and political fault line of modern civilization.
Yet Du Bois did not stop at diagnosing the existence of the color line. By the 1930s, in Black Reconstruction in America (1935), he probed more deeply into why this system endured. He posed a pressing question: why did poor whites, who often had little economic advantage, fail to join forces with enslaved or later freed Black laborers to challenge the power of elites? His answer was the concept of the “wages of whiteness.” Even when denied material prosperity, poor whites were compensated with a different kind of reward: a “public and psychological wage.” They were granted the social status of being “white,” access to public spaces and institutions denied to Black people, the right to vote and exercise civic power, and above all, the sense of superiority over a subordinated group. These wages cost the ruling elite little, yet they secured the loyalty of white laborers and prevented the formation of interracial solidarity.
Together, these two concepts form a coherent analysis of racial power. The color line describes the boundary that divides humanity into dominant and dominated groups. The wages of whiteness explain why that boundary persists, even against the economic interests of many who live just above it. For Du Bois, race was not merely a matter of prejudice or individual attitudes. It was a system of structured inequality, held in place by both tangible privileges and psychological rewards, designed to sustain white supremacy.
Du Bois’s insight remains profoundly relevant. The color line continues to shape American politics, from immigration regimes, attacks on DEI and Black history, to persistent economic disparities. The wages of whiteness still operate in the subtle and not-so-subtle privileges that attach to whiteness, sustaining divisions that prevent broader coalitions for justice. Together, these concepts illuminate not only how racial inequality has endured but also what must be dismantled to achieve genuine democracy: the belief that whiteness itself is a form of property and power worth defending.
The Week’s Top Stories
Political / Social
Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force. By Ezra Klein / NYT podcast Read more and listen here
The spirit of Old Dixie rises in D.C. By Colbert I. King / Wash Post Read more
Trump’s redistricting push could bring decades of Republican rule to the US House. By David Morgan / Reuters Read more
Lisa Cook, Who Broke Ground at the Fed, Faces Attack by Trump. By Ben Casselman / NYT Read more
Education
Some Programs for Black Students Become ‘Illegal D.E.I.’ Under Trump. By Dana Goldstein / NYT Read more
Justice department backs lawsuit seeking to end grants for hispanic-serving colleges, calling them unconstitutional. By CBS News Read more
World
With Moves on West Bank and Gaza City, Israel Defies Global Outcry. By Lara Jakes / NYT Read more
Here’s what Russia and Ukraine have demanded to end the war. By Sammy Westfall and Mary Ilyushina / Wash Post Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
At conference, pastors address racism in their churches as momentum fades. By Fiona Andre / RNS Read more
He was a child refugee. Now he’s a bishop navigating Trump’s deportation push. By Michelle Boorstein / Wash Post Read more
Historical / Cultural
How the Irish Liberator helped liberate America’s enslaved. By Christian E. O’Connell / Wash Post Read more
The Meaning of Trump’s Attack on the Smithsonian. By Clint Smith / The Atlantic Read more
Trump Wants to Make Art Into a Tool of the State. By Barry Schwabsky / The Nation Read more
Sports
2025 US Open a celebration of Althea Gibson. By Jerry Bembry / Andscape Read more
Kenny Lofton helps remember Black baseball’s Cleveland Buckeyes. By Justice B. Hill / Andscape Read more
Venus Williams’s comeback was about playing healthy again. Call it a win. By Ava Wallace / Wash Post Read more
Site Information
Articles appearing in the Digest are archived on our home page. A collection of “Books/Podcast and Video Favorites ” is also found on our home page. And at the top of this page register your email to receive notification of new editions of Race Inquiry Digest.
Click here for earlier Digests. The site is searchable by name or topic. See “search” at the top of this page.
About Race Inquiry and Race Inquiry Digest. The Digest is published on Monday and Thursday. The Weekend Edition is published on Saturday. Click here for earlier Editions.
Use the customized buttons below to share the Digest in an email, or post to your Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter (X) accounts.