Responses to readings for April 17.
History is indeed cyclical in nature.
It seems as if I have read this argument before, and I suspect it is one that will resurface again and again. Years ago, Patricia Hill Collins cogently argued for an interrogation and a reconstruction of the term, but to no avail. Almost eighty years before, W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington engaged in a debate much like the one that is Giroux talks about in his essay. Although Du Bois was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard and conducted his postdoctoral work in Germany in 1890s, or so, his education did not preclude the fact that some blacks did not agree with his argument. For his progressive thoughts, he was labeled a communist and sought peace in Africa.