July 7th 2015

Mr. Wesley Brown

Ms. Thulani Davis
Ms. Toni Bambara
Mr. Amiri Baraka
Filmmakers/Writers
United States of America
Dear Mr. Brown & Mr. Baraka, Ms. Davis & Ms. Bambara,
The first part of the documentary was about his beginnings and his earlier perspective of
being a colored person. I adulate that W.E.B. Dubois never encountered inferiority complex.
Inferiority complex is a degenerative mentality that is caused by learned helplessness. The
operational definition of learned helplessness is a behaviour in which an organism forced to
endure aversive, painful or otherwise unpleasant stimuli, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid
subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are escapable according to Wikipedia.org.
Indeed in 2015, inferiority complex is still present. For example, most secondary schools who
have Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses are mostly filled with
Caucasian students and usually less than 10% of African American students. However, if you go
the same school but to a different class such as regular or special education class the majority of
the students are people of color. Even examining the psychology of these classes names deal with
superiority and inferiority complex. For example special education class (mentally handicapped),
regular class (for regular students), honors class (better than regular students), Advanced
Placement class (smart students). I think a profuse amount of African Americans acquired
learned helplessness without knowing so due to conditioning.

The second part of the documentary initiated the theme which is self-determination of
finding himself within his African civil rights ventures. W.E.B. Dubois traveled outside United
States of America in early 1900s. By traveling outside America, he indulged of learning more
about the African Diaspora and being Black. Dr. Dubois traveling and acquiring emic
perspectives of Black people marked the theme of his life and the documentary. Relating back to
my class, last week we had a discussion about the definition of diaspora. Diaspora has
characteristics such as victimization, homeland myth, hostility with host country, etc. The
discussion also mentioned our perspective of African diaspora. Although W.E.B. Dubois didnt
like Marcus Garvey he subliminally was fond of Marcus Garvey due to Garvey Pan-African
movements. Even though W.E.B. Dubois never acknowledged his movement or
accomplishments, Dr. Dubois did went to Africa and spent his final years in Ghana similar to
what Marcus Garvey movement was trying to do.
W.E.B. Dubois diverging from the NAACP constructions, ideas, ventures, and conceptual
perspectives marked his identity of what he wanted to do with his dreams regarding African
descent people. Later in the 1900s during the cold war, propaganda marginalized him as antiAmerican. Dr. Dubois involvement of what he believed that will change the society for the better
was halted by many people. These same people turned against him even some of the members of
NAACP and the government. I have a question for Mr. Wesley Brown, Ms. Thulani Davis, Ms.
Toni Bambara and Mr. Amiri Baraka. At the beginning the NAACP and government officials
were supporting his ideas, did W.E.B. Dubois fulfilled their agenda (whatever agenda that was)
and later abandoned their (NAACP, government, etc) concepts, agendas, and ideologies thats
why they didnt support him or there are other factors that contributed to that?

In conclusion, this documentary breaks down his story, legacy, tribulations, and his
diasporic self determination of finding himself through his African civil rights ventures.

Thank you,
Tatiana Bernard.