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The Prophetic and Pragmatic Philosophy of "Race" in W. E. B.
DuBois’s "The Comet"
Ronald R. Sundstrom
University of Minnesota
In his 1897 "The Conservation of Races," DuBois argued that
"race" was a sociohistorical concept, and that it ought to be conserved for both
cultural and political reasons. 1 This remained DuBois’s basic position on the ontology and
conservation of "race" throughout his life. In his subsequent works DuBois did,
however, make minor adjustments to his sociohistorical conception of "race." His
sociohistorical conception became more sociohistorical as he slowly shed his commitments
to "racial" and historical idealism—ideas he adopted from European,
especially German, historiography and the Ethiopianism of nineteenth-century American
black nationalists.2 Indeed, as he matured, DuBois’s social conception of
"race" became increasingly aligned with another one of his major influences, the
pragmatic philosophy of William James.
"The Comet," a melodramatic short story which is included as the tenth
chapter of his 1921 book Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil, is an exceptional
piece, because it unambiguously displays DuBois’s view of "race" as a
social construct. 3 Further, his depiction of "race" as purely the
creation of social forces, in "The Comet" along with some of his other works of
fiction, in particular his "romance" novel Dark Princess, offers a
prophetic, but also illusive, humanist vision of the world sans the veil of
"race." The content and message of "The Comet," I believe, displays an
ironic stance towards "race." A vision, a dark vision, if you will, that
saw through the pathology and absurdity of "race," and sought to display the
sickness of the American "racial" politic.
This prophetic vision is nascent in DuBois’s works, and all too often is ignored
by his interpreters; as well as by the interlocuters of the recent debates over
DuBois’s sociohistorical conception of "race." This vision deserves
attention as it serves to qualify and inform many of the ideas he pursued in his
nonfiction, such as his advocacy of strategic separatism and nationalism, his
internationalist project of Pan-Africanism, his struggle against colonialism, and his
efforts in the international peace movement.
In "The Comet," a tail of a passing comet sweeps through New York City and
nearly kills all the people with deadly gasses. Jim, a young black father and husband who
was employed as a message courier for a bank, had been sent to look for lost records in an
old neglected basement vault, and, thus, escaped exposure. 4 The other
survivor was Julia, a young white woman from a wealthy family, who had been sealed in a
darkroom developing photographs.5
After they discover each other, they team up to look
for their loved ones. Discovering some of their loved ones dead and others missing, and
seeing no others, they begin to fear that they are the lone survivors. They retreat to the
roof of Julia’s father’s tall business building to shoot off emergency flares;
eventually, they come to believe they are the only humans alive on earth.
Afraid, numb from the loss of their families, and astounded at the loss of human life
surrounding them, they reflect on the depth of their common plight. Almost literally
having been passed through "fire," they are (re)born into a new world:
the two . . . looked upon the horror of the world, slowly, gradually, the sense of
all-enveloping death deserted them. They seemed to move in a world silent and asleep, not
dead. They moved in quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had,
at last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide Friedhof, above which
some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept until—until, and quick
with the same startling thought, they looked into each other’s eyes—he, ashen,
and she, crimson, with unspoken thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty—of
vast, unspoken things, swelled in their Souls. 6
Friedhof and potential lay unlimited before them.
The fire from the sky had descended, and with the death of humanity—"who had, at
last, found peace"—the old social order of "race" and class had burnt
away. Death, always a "leveler," was now a "revealer." 7 "Human distinctions now seeming "foolish," they see each other
with new eyes.8 Julia, in high Wagnerian drama, experiences epiphany:
A vision of the world had risen before her. Slowly the mighty prophecy of her destiny
overwhelmed her. Above the dead past hovered the Angel of Annunciation. She was no mere
woman. She was neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal woman;
mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked upon the man beside her and
forgot all else but his manhood, his strong, vigorous manhood—his sorrow and
sacrifice. She saw him glorified. He was no longer a thing apart, a creature below, a
strange outcast of another clime and blood, but her Brother Humanity incarnate, Son of God
and great All-Father of the race to be. .9
Staring off into the sky, Jim sees, in yet another
sensational celestial event, a metaphor for the lifting of the Veil that has shadowed his
life, and experiences his own epiphany: 10
Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the
west. Behind them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffered
the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as though gathered back in
some vast hand, the great cloud curtain fell away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white
star—mystic, wonderful! And from it flew upward to the pole, like some wan bridal
veil, a pale, wide sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars.
. . . Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead recesses of his mind. The
shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his soul. Up from the crass and crushing and
cringing of his caste leaped the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the
shadows, tall, straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters hovering
to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, or curled Assyrian lord. 11
Jim and Julia turn to each other, and motivated not by
lust, but a feeling vaster than love—a "thought divine"—move toward
another in an epochal embrace. 12 Before they can consummate their divine relationship, however,
Julia’s father, her suitor, and an anonymous white mob spring upon the scene.
Unbeknownst to the couple, the world outside of New York city was spared. Their emergency
flares were spotted by her father and her suitor, who were out test-driving a new car in
the countryside.
The old world with its "foolish" distinctions of "race" and class
crashed in around them. The white mob quickly comes to the "protection" of Julia
and threatens to lynch Jim. Julia, however, has him spared. Julia’s father, with a
patronizing thankfulness, gives Jim some money. Jim is left standing as the mob begins to
leave, he stares at the money and his missing son’s cap that he had retrieved from
his apartment. The story ends with Jim’s wife appearing out of the crowd, holding the
corpse of her and Jim’s son in her arms.
Julia is folded back into the world of white privilege, but for Jim this end is tragic.
He had experienced the world outside the Veil, but now the Friedhof and potential
he had tasted moments ago evaporated with the return of white men. The Veil has descended
once more, and again, he was not of this world, but a thing apart from it. Worse, in a
scene that conjures up DuBois’s own personal tragedy, Jim’s son is dead. As
DuBois wrote about his son’s death:
0 Death! Is not this my life hard enough,—is not that dull land that stretches its
sneering web about me cold enough,—is not all the world beyond these four little
walls pitiless enough, but that thou must needs enter here,—thou, 0 Death? About my
head the thundering storm beat like a heartless voice, and the crazy forest pulsed with
the curses of the weak; but what cared I, within my home beside my wife and baby boy? Was
thou so jealous of one little coin of happiness that thou must needs enter
there,—thou, 0 Death? 13
With the death of the boy, the future is dead, hope is
dead. 14
DuBois’s "The Comet," like his 1928 novel Dark Princess, has an
operatic story line and is just as melodramatic. 15 DuBois was a fan of
nineteenth-century Germanic Volk mythmakers such as Wagner, and much of that genre
has influenced DuBois’s style.16 Wagner and Goethe’s mythical style fit well with the
Etiopianist messages and themes in "The Comet."
DuBois’s Ethiopianism differs, however, from orthodox Ethiopianism in that the
utopian vision it offers does not involve the uplift of only Africa and its peoples;
rather, in "The Comet" human distinctions are portrayed as "foolish,"
and, if Jim and Julia were the lone surviving humans, the distinctiveness of Africa and
its peoples would have been extinguished. 17 DuBois’s unorthodox
Ethiopianism in "The Comet" parallels his growing disavowal of his earlier
idealistic notion of "race."18 In his "The Conservation of Races," DuBois argues that
although we need to end "racial" hierarchy, we ought to conserve
"race" for cultural as well as political reasons. The message of "The
Comet," in contrast, is: "Race" is foolish, artificial, and the world would
be better without it.19
DuBois’s depiction of "race" in the story implies an ontology of
"race" as a socially constructed category. In the "Conservation of
Races," DuBois defines "race" as:
a vast family of human beings, generally of common blood and language, always of common
history, traditions and impulses, who are both voluntarily and involuntarily striving
together for the accomplishment of certain more or less vividly conceived ideals of life. 20
To his basically sociohistorical definition DuBois adds
the idealist notion that "races" have in common "voluntary" and
"involuntary" strivings, as well as "more or less vividly conceived ideals
of life." 21 In "The Comet" there is none of this. In the story,
"race" and class distinctions are depicted solely as the construction of human
society. Without society and its "racial" and class politic, Jim and Julia, as
they recognize, are "raceless" and classless. Alone on top of her father’s
office building experiencing their respective epiphanies, "race" and class are
not facts about Jim, Julia, or the world. When the world returns, "race" and
class return. In this story DuBois has presented a conception of "race" that is
entirely the result of social forces—primarily human intentions and institutions.
DuBois’s message is simple and clear: Without social forces, social categories, such
as "race" and class are no more.22
Unlike his earlier sociohistorical conception of "race," which was infused
with idealism, the ontology of "race" DuBois presents in "The Comet,"
and in Dark Princess, also draws more from William James, a friend, teacher, and
major influence in DuBois’s intellectual development. 23 According
to James’s pragmatic philosophy, the uniquely human project of classification is
dependent on human interests. Rather, we carve up the world the way we want it
carved up, and not because it was somehow "cosmically" meant to be carved up
that way. In the words of James: "What shall we call a thing anyhow? It seems
quite arbitrary, for we carve out everything, just as we carve out constellations, to suit
our human purposes."24 At least in regard to the social identities of "race"
and class, DuBois’s conception is Jamesian; an important shift from the Ethiopianist
and Herderian ontology he offered in 1897.
At story’s end this opera has revealed itself as a tragedy. Nevertheless, through
his pragmatic ontology of "race" and class, and prophetic vision of the world
without the Veil, DuBois offers a prophetic and pragmatic politic. "Races" are
not to be conserved in perpetuity for their own sake; rather, DuBois sees them evolving to
match the needs of liberatory politics. In "The Comet," DuBois expresses the
political value of the waning of "race," and the political, as well as sexual,
union of blacks and whites ("race" and gender coalition?).
It may be that the tragic ending of "The Comet" problematizes my
interpretation of this short story as prophetic; however, the similar stories "The
Second Coming," "Jesus Christ in Texas," and Dark Princess support
my interpretation. 25 In all three, DuBois depicts "miscegenation," and
"racial" hybridity and flexibility as full of political potential.26 In "The Second Coming," DuBois depicts the infant messiah as a black
child whose mother is "passably" white. In "Jesus Christ in Texas,"
the adult messiah is depicted as a "yellow" mulatto. In Dark Princess, the
hero is a black American, the heroine a South Asian princess of the Brahmin caste, and
together they have a child that symbolically unites Africa and Asia, and is destined to
lead the nonwhites of the world against the whites. Although in "The Second
Coming" and "Jesus Christ in Texas" the messiahs are black, DuBois makes a
point of displaying their mixed "racial" heritage as meaningful. And in Dark
Princess, the resulting son is Afri-Asian, neither black nor South Asian, but
something in between, yet having access and reference to both Africa and Asia:
"Messenger and Messiah to all the Darker Worlds!"27
What is more, DuBois’s prophetic and pragmatic philosophy of "race" is
displayed in his playful use of the trope of "darkness." As is apparent in the
titles, and throughout the texts, of his Darkwater and Dark Princess, DuBois used
darkness as a trope, brimming over with "racial" innuendo, to advocate the
political unity of nonwhite against the hegemony of white supremacy. "Darkness"
for DuBois functioned on the surface as an evocative "racial" metaphor, but it
also signified his pragmatic use of "race," and the prophetic vision and
humanism that informed his use of "race. 28
Till the end of his days, DuBois remained committed to his prophetic and pragmatic
philosophy of "race. 29 Discussing the Veil in his third autobiography, in a passage
remarkably evocative of the closing scene of "The Comet," DuBois wrote:
And then—the Veil, the Veil of color. It drops as drops the night on southern
seas—vast, sudden, unanswering. There is Hate behind it, and Cruelty and Tears. As
one peers through its intricate, unfathomable pattern of ancient, old, old design, one
sees blood and guilt and misunderstanding. And yet it hangs there, this Veil, between then
and now, between Pale and Colored and Black and White—between You and Me. Surely
it is but a thought-thing, tenuous, intangible; yet just as surely is it true
and terrible and not in our little day may you and I lift it. We may feverishly unravel
its edges and even climb slow with giant shears to where its ringed and gilded top nestles
close to the throne of Eternity. But as we work and climb we shall see through streaming
eyes and hear with aching ears, lynching and murder, cheating and despising, degrading and
lying, so flashed and flashed through this vast hanging darkness that the Doer never sees
the Deed and the Victim knows not the Victor and Each hate All in wild and bitter
ignorance. 30
Although DuBois remained a nationalist and separatist, he
did not do so out of a commitment to an idealist conception of "Race," but out
of pragmatic reaction to this nation’s relentless racism. His vision remained broader
than the political choices he had felt compelled to make.
Notes
1. What DuBois’s concept of "race" was in that essay has
been a point of contention. Whether or not he successfully outlined a sociohistorical
concept of "race" is debatable, but it is uncontroversial that this was his
project. Moreover, it is straightforward that the reasons he argued for the conservation
of "race" were political and cultural. See, for example, Anthony Appiah’s
"The Uncompleted Argument: DuBois and the Illusion of Race," and "Race,
Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections"; Robert Gooding-Williams’s
"Outlaw, Appiah, and DuBois’s ‘The Conservation of Races’"; Tommy
Lott’s "DuBois on the Invention of Race"; and Lucius Outlaw’s
"Against the Grain of Modernity: The Politics of Difference and the Conservation of
Race," and "‘Conserve’ Races? In Defense of W. E. B. DuBois." The
debate over the interpretation of DuBois’s conception of "race" and the
appropriate interpretation of this particular work of his is taken up in my dissertation,
"Rending The Veil: A Critical Look at the Ontology and Conservation of ‘Race,’"
which at this time is still in progress. I would like to acknowledge and thank Bernard
Boxill, Robert Gooding-Williams, Wilson Jeremiah Moses, Michael Root, and John Wright for
the contributions they have made to my thoughts on the subject of this paper.
2. For a good discussion of DuBois’s influences, see David
Levering Lewis’s biography of DuBois, as well as Wilson J. Moses’s "W. E.
B. DuBois’s ‘The Conservation of Races’ and Its Context: Idealism,
Conservatism and Hero Worship."
3. See DuBois’s 1921 Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil.
4. It is no small thing that DuBois thought only an "act of
God"—the killing off of most Americans, black and white, could bring to a halt
American "racial" politics. The social forces that hold together our social
identities are a thick web, as DuBois recognized; only a shift in the social fabric of
some consequence could bring change. Of course, the image of the comet is playing other
roles in this story. The comet, in various folk traditions, is a portent or omen of
catastrophe. To various sects of millenarians, it was a "sign" of a coming
apocalypse. In using the image of the comet, DuBois was referencing the apocalyptic
elements in Ethiopianism that permeated the "racial" uplift ideology of black
nationalists and "racial" uplift theology of black American theology: This time
water, the fire next time. The millenarian and apocalyptic themes in the story also engage
DuBois’s belief in the power of death to illuminate the beauty and value of life.
This belief of his is apparent throughout the fiction and nonfiction of Darkwater, most
directly, of course, in the essay "Of Beauty and Death." See Arnold
Rampersad’s discussion of "The Comet" and Darkwater in chapter 8 of
his Art and Imagination of W. E. B. DuBois.
An important aspect of the comet’s onslaught is how Jim evaded death. He had been
in a basement vault searching for lost records; however, while in the vault he happened on
a forgotten chest which he discovered was full of gold. This story line is evocative of
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. In Ellison’s novel, the protagonist goes
"underground," hiding in a forgotten basement to a luxury high-rise to find
himself. Likewise, Jim is "underground," above him is the bank, full of credit
and paper money. But there in a forgotten vault, Jim has found real treasure—gold.
Perhaps, DuBois meant this as an allegory for the discovery of some humanist truth in a
forgotten part of ourselves, or of society, far below the world of "race"
distinctions and wealth disparity. DuBois’s use of the "underground" image
is also evocative of womb and birth metaphors, which relate to the general theme of
rebirth that DuBois is exploring in "The Comet."
5. By making Julia a white wealthy woman, to appear opposite Jim,
DuBois was referencing the fact that the American "racial" politic is a complex
intersection of "race," class, gender, and sexuality. "Interracial"
sexuality serves, in this story, as sounding board for the presence of the Veil. It is
also important to note that it was a white girl who first introduced the
"shadow" of the Veil in DuBois life (see chapter 1 of his The Souls of BIack
Folks). In this story, the lifting of the veil occurs with a white women; perhaps this
signifies a restoration of sorts for DuBois. Thus, at the intersection of "race,
gender, and sexuality, the Veil both begins and ends.
6. See supra, note 3 (266).
7. See supra, note 3 (268).
8. See supra, note 3 (268).
9. See supra, note 3 (269).
10. In several works DuBois uses "Veil" to signify the
"racial" bigotry that prevented white Americans from seeing blacks (American or
not) as humans. At other places he is using it to refer to "race" and
"racial" distinctions. DuBois seems to be doing the latter in "The
Comet." Contrast his usage of "the Veil" in The Souls of BIack Folk with
his later works, such as Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (notice the usage
in the title) and Dusk of Dawn. Also, DuBois frequently refers to the Veil as
something that cast his life in a "shadow." See "Of Our Spiritual
Strivings" in Souls ("I remember well when the shadow swept across
me," p. 8), and chapter one, "The Shadow Of Years," in Darkwater. See
also Arnold Rampersad’s discussion of DuBois’s use of "the Veil" in
his The Art and Imagination of W. E. B. DuBois (79).
11. See supra, note 3 (269–70).
12. See supra, note 3 (270).
13. See DuBois’s The Souls of BIack Folk (I 67).
14. The symbolism of the dead man-child in this story is
phallocentric. Despite his early profeminism, in the fiction of Darkwater, as well
as in the essay "The Immortal Child," and in Dark Princess, DuBois
identifies the (nonwhite) male child as a symbol of hope, progress, and leadership.
15. For a discussion of "operatic" themes in DuBois’s
fiction, see Wilson J. Moses’s "DuBois’ Dark Princess and the Heroic
Uncle Tom" in his Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms (142–54).
16. See chapter 6 of Levering David Lewis’s W. E. B. DuBois:
Biography of a Race (Henry Holt, 1993).
17. Contrast the utopian vision offered up by "The Comet" or
Dark Princess with Pauline E. Hopkins’s orthodox Ethiopianist novel Of One
Blood (1903).
18. This disavowal was never consistent or complete. In the March 1928
edition of The Crisis, DuBois’s editorial, "The Name
‘Negro,’" seems to support his older idealistic notion of "race."
The editorial is included in The Emerging Thought of W. E. B. DuBois (55–57).
19. DuBois conveys a similar unorthodox Ethiopianism in Dark
Princess. In that novel, DuBois’s use of "race" is pragmatic.
"Race," an artificial distinction to be sure, is used by DuBois to redraw lines
of allegiance and conflict. He seeks to depict the dark peoples of the world as one in
political strivings, as set against the hegemony of the white world. Again, DuBois’s
use of "race" and Ethiopianist imagery goes against the grain of orthodox
Ethiopianism, which is limited to, in a wide sense, Ethiopia and its peoples.
20. See DuBois’s "The Conservation of Races" (485).
21. In the first chapter of my dissertation I argue in depth for the
connection between DuBois’s earlier conception of "race" and idealistic
notions of Volk that Herder and Hegel supported.
22. In Dark Princess, DuBois writes: "Black blood with us
in America is a matter of spirit and not simply of flesh" (I9), spirit here having
some connection with his beloved notion of geist, except it has none of the
naturalistic assumptions that come with Herder’s or Hegel’s use of the term.
Spirit, for DuBois, is created out of cultural and political strivings. Black spirit,
shwarzegeist, is derived from common experience of being black in America and continuously
exposed to antiblack American "racial" politics.
23. See Lewis, chapter 5 supra, note 16.
24. See William James’s "Pragmatism And Humanisne" in
his Pragmatism (114).
25. Both stories are in Dark Water. "The Second
Coming" is a vignette that follows chapter four, and "Jesus Christ in
Texas" follows chapter five. See supra, note 3.
26. Due, perhaps, to his own "mixed race" background, a fact
about himself he does not reject or is ashamed of.
27. See DuBois’s Dark Princess (311). For discussions of
Dark Princess, see chapter l0, "Dark Princess," of Arnold Rampersad’s Art
And Imagination of W. E. B. DuBois, as well as his "DuBois’s Passage To
India." See also chapter 9, "DuBois’ Dark Princess and the Heroic Uncle
Tom," in Wilson J. Moses’s Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms. Paul
Gilroy’s discussion of Dark Princess in the fourth chapter of his Black
Atlantic is also worthy of note; moreover, his "diasporic" reading of Dark
Princess is similar to my pragmatic reading.
28. DuBois’s philosophy of "race," as he would later
develop it in the pages of Darkwater, Dusk of Dawn, and Dark Princess, first
came to him during his earliest travels through Europe: "On mountain and valley, in
home and school, I met men and women as I had never met them before. Slowly they became,
not white folks, but folks. The unity beneath all life clutched me. I was not less
fanatically a Negro, but ‘Negro’ meant a greater, broader sense of humanity and
world fellowship. I felt myself standing, not against the world, but simply against
American narrowness and color prejudice, with the greater, finer world at my back" (I
57).
29. For example, in a speech in Beijing, China, DuBois remarks to
Africa: China is flesh of your flesh, and blood of your blood. China is colored and knows
to what a colored skin in this modem world subjects its owner" (407). It is probably
the case that DuBois’s use of "race" was always prophetic; however, over
time, the prophetic uses that he put "race" to changed (e.g., from Ethiopianist
uses to post-WWII and postholocaust humanist uses).
30. See DuBois’s The Autobiography of W. E. B. DuBois: A
Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (New York:
International Publishers Co., 1968), 412.
References
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