2 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2018
  2. ds-pages.swarthmore.edu ds-pages.swarthmore.edu
    An Appeal to the World!
    2
    1. jrashid1 04 Mar 2018
      successful effort to achieve, to deserve

      This phrasing really stuck with me... in the language of international human rights we presume all humans to inherently deserve rights by virtue of being human. Here, however, DuBois positions Black Americans as successfully "achieving" a demonstration of how greatly they deserve human rights through their actions and self-advocacy. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I would love to hear what others think about what DuBois may be insinuating about the paradox of human rights at large.

    2. jrashid1 04 Mar 2018
      This question then, which is without doubt primarily an internal and national question, becomes inevitably an international question and will in the future become more and more international, as the · nations draw together, In this great attempt to find common ground and to maintain peace, it is therefore, fitting and proper that the thirteen million American citizens of Negro descent should appeal to the United Nat ions and ask that organization in the proper way to take cognizance of a situation which deprives this group of their rights as men and citizens, and by so doing makes the functioning of the United Nations more difficult, if not in many cases impossible.

      This section felt like what all previous statements were building up to: the argument that Black Americans are positioned to hold the sympathies and responsibilities of the international community at large. As DuBois goes on to explain, this population is no less significant than the populations of entire nations, which the United Nations regularly intervenes on behalf of without question.

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