Chapter 2: The Archaeology of Critical Race Theory: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Critical Race Theory

W.E.B. Du Bois’s early, proto-critical race theory (hereafter referred to as Du Bois’s “critical theory of race”) and critiques of anti-black racism remain relevant for several reasons. First, his critical theory of race has been frequently interpreted as an “ideology of race”—that is to say, as an inert, inflexible, fixed and fast, singular notion of what race is, and which groups constitute constituent races (Appiah, 1985, 2014; Goodin, 2002; Gooding-Williams, 1996, 2018; Outlaw, 1995, 1996; Taylor, 2000). This is not only a gross misinterpretation of Du Bois’s incessantly evolving critical theory of race, but an example of the type of intellectual disingenuousness and, let it be said, epistemic apartheid that has long-plagued complex, unapologetically anti-racist black radical intellectuals.