A Little Play (1914)
Time: Now.
Place: Here.
Enter the Pale One and the Brown One, dressed alike, speaking English, but coming from opposite entrances.
The Pale One: “Colored people are dirty, ignorant, lazy, poor and rude. Until they become clean, intelligent, thrifty, well to do and polite they must expect to be treated badly.”
The Brown One: “Are all colored people dirty, ignorant, lazy and rude? If so, I am colored and therefore I must be—”
The Pale One: “Oh, no! I mean most colored people; or at any rate some colored people.”
The Brown One: “And therefore should all colored people be treated badly, or only the dirty and ignorant and lazy and poor and rude?”
The Pale One: “Only the dirty and ignorant and—”
The Brown One: “And is it only dirty, ignorant, lazy, poor and rude colored folk who are to be badly treated?”
The Pale One: “Certainly not. All people who are dirty, ignorant, lazy, poor and rude must expect bad treatment.”
The Brown One: “And has history proven that ‘bad treatment’ is the best cure for dirt, ignorance, poverty and rudeness, or is bad treatment their cause?”
The Pale One: “I can’t go into that. At present they are treated badly.”
The Brown One: “They surely are. And now, finally, how shall I be treated?”
The Pale One: “You shan’t marry my sister.”
The Brown One: “I don’t want to; but to return to the subject—”
The Pale One: “You are seeking social equality!”
The Brown One: “If that means I’m seeking decent treatment—”
The Pale One: “You belong to an inferior race!”
The Brown One: “For Heaven’s sake—”
The Pale One: “Oh, bother!”
Exit the Pale One in anger.
Exit the Brown One in thought.
Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1914. “A Little Play.” The Crisis. 7(5):241.