“Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question…How does it feel to be a problem? I seldom answer a word. And yet, being a problem is a strange experience—even for one who has never been anything else…” In the opening of his classic text, The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois reflected on what became known as the “Negro Problem;” the conflict and contradiction of being Black in the United States. Perhaps more than any other intellectual, DuBois articulated the essence of Blackness; the feeling of living within a Black body. Even more, he expressed both the joys and sorrows of existing as a Black person in a society that despises you. Poised at the beginning of the 21st century, DuBois’ century-old words are eerily illustrative of our contemporary experience. For as he noted, there is still an empty space between us and the “other world,” where a series of unasked questions lie, particularly the accusatory and unspoken one, “how does it feel to be a problem?” One hundred years after the publication of The Souls of Black Folk, it is appropriate to examine what DuBois taught, and more importantly, what we have learned. In many ways, Black folks in America are still considered a “problem,” and we are plagued by the feelings of frustration and desperation that result from being misunderstood and mocked by mainstream society. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about the “clouds of inferiority” that form on the “mental skies” of young children who are first victimized by racism, but DuBois remarked more than 50 years earlier on the same phenomenon; the despair that racism creates for African Americans. As DuBois poetically described, racial prejudice builds limitations like prison walls that are “relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue [sky] above.” Some may argue that conditions for African Americans have dramatically improved over the past hundred years, and ostensibly, this observation appears accurate. After all, both DuBois and King wrote during times of intense racial violence and segregation. We are now in the new, post-segregation era, a time in which African Americans have achieved and progressed more than our ancestors imagined. Or have we? Even a brief review of DuBois’ analysis of the race problem reveals that there is still a long journey ahead, and reminds us that we need to reconsider the meaning of progress. In contemporary times, it is easy to become confused about what progress means, particularly as a few folks manage to ascend in society; becoming famous, wealthy and even admired. But this ignores the core of the “problem,” because progress for the few is not progress for all, and as Nelson Mandela said in his early years, “I am not free unless we are all free.” Progress, to DuBois, had little to do with individual advancement or the outer trappings of success. For him, progress would only be realized when American society was finally able to reconcile its past (and current) treatment of African Americans, with the founding principles of the United States like freedom, justice, and equality. His was an admirable goal, but how can it be achieved? According to DuBois, the solution to the race problem began by “lifting the veil” and allowing Black people to live authentically. In DuBois’ view, white people remained remarkably unaware of Black folk, as if the races occupied totally different worlds and realities. In many ways, DuBois’ reflections echoed the feelings of his predecessors who had sadly remarked on the same predicament fifty years earlier, “our white countrymen do not know us. They are strangers to our characters, ignorant of our capacity, oblivious to our history and progress, and are misinformed as to the principles and ideas that control and guide us, as a people...The great mass of American citizens estimate us as being a characterless and purposeless people; and hence we hold up our heads, if at all, against the withering influence of a nation’s scorn and contempt.” These remarks, and those of DuBois, are startlingly descriptive of current race relations and reveal the essence of our plight. How can African Americans gain true equality when mainstream society knows nothing of our past, and ridicules our hopes for the future? Most Americans still know very little of Black history and culture beyond what they learn from television, movies and hip-hop music. With all due respect to popular culture and the hip-hop generation (of which I am a member), mass media does little to educate mainstream society about the reality of African Americans; our lives, our culture, our history and our future. Instead, distorted images of us are commodified—packaged and sold—for individual profit and ultimately only serve to reinforce stereotypes of what American society believes we are.     [NEXT]