Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mis-Education of the Negro, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Education
Mis-Education as Social Control
Failures of Black Leadership
Business and Economic Development
Summary
Analysis
It’s important for Black students to learn practical skills in universities, so many Black schools focus on “vocational guidance.” But these schools generally fail to achieve their goals: they often teach outdated methods that are no longer used due to the development of industrial machinery. Despite their training, then, most Black workers get stuck in the worst available jobs, and few advance in their careers.
Readers might have thought that vocational schools were an exception to Woodson’s critique, since their goal is to teach technical job skills and not prepare students for the world more broadly. However, Woodson argues that they make the same error as other schools: they assume that their students just need to absorb a certain set of information and develop a predetermined set of technical abilities in order to succeed. They don’t care about understanding their students’ needs or developing their abilities. And because they have few resources compared to white schools, they can never hope to produce the most technically competent graduates, even within their narrow specialties. This makes flexibility all the more important.
Themes
In contrast to what these Black schools teach, true “vocational guidance” must be based on critical thinking. This is because critical thinking allows Black people to build skills and companies for themselves, rather than just imitating the way white people do their jobs. In turn, teaching critical thinking requires training teachers to truly care about their students’ condition, rather than just drilling facts into their heads. Woodson finds that many Black teachers resent their students, or even other Black people in general. This suggests that their education has successfully convinced them of their own inferiority. Woodson asks how Black people can unlearn this belief and create new economic opportunities for themselves.
In fact, Woodson opposes the whole idea of narrowly training people for specific job functions. First, he knows that people and jobs transform over time, which means that they eventually require different skills. Critical thinking is essential because it’s the foundation of all learning—it’s what allows people to acquire other skills. And secondly, Woodson knows that the Black community won’t benefit much if a few of its members get better jobs, because the profits they help their companies earn will flow out to white owners and investors. Therefore, while technical skills can be important, they only matter as a supplement to critical thinking skills.
Themes
Because most Black elites think of themselves as superior to the rest of their community, they often insist on doing business with white people and institutions that discriminate against them, rather than with other Black people. This has led to the formation of two Black communities: one for the corrupt elites who do business with white people, and another for the disenfranchised masses. Woodson asks how these two communities can reconcile and argues that teachers and educators have to determine the answer.
Woodson returns to his key point about the Black community’s division between the elites and the masses, in order to tease out its economic implications. Now that he has presented a vision of a more equitable education system and firmly established the link between education and economic advancement, it's clear that he thinks a better education would allow the elites and the masses to work together. This would, in turn, allow them to build successful Black enterprises that reinvest their profits in the community.
Themes
Woodson argues that the elite has as much to learn from teachers as the masses. He tells anecdotes about selfish Black businesspeople who spend far too extravagantly, then complain about not having enough money to maintain themselves when their fortunes turn around. Woodson argues that Black communities should educate themselves about how to manage money properly and how to compete wisely, without undermining one another. For instance, two identical restaurants, banks, or insurance companies will often open next to each other, causing both to fail and depriving the Black community of the services they are supposed to provide.
Because Black elites have been mis-educated rather than truly educated, they also desperately need education reform. Woodson hopes that financial literacy classes can help them make financial decisions and build businesses that contribute to the community rather than sucking resources out of it. In the long-term, he hopes that this can create jobs for the masses and prevent wealth from leaking out of the Black community.
Themes
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Critical thinking can help people start innovative businesses that actually turn a profit and drive the community forward, rather than just repeating what others have already done. Woodson gives examples of innovative Black businessman, like the North Carolina furnituremaker Thomas Day, the bedmaker Henry Boyd, and women who invented new recipes for fried chicken and sweet potato biscuits. While all real fortunes come from innovations, Woodson concludes, Black businesspeople are stuck imitating what other people have already done. In spiritual matters, too, critical and creative thinking can help Black people live more fulfilling lives. With education, Woodson repeats, “the door of opportunity is wide open.”
Woodson returns to the conclusion that critical thinking—the opposite of imitation—is the most important skill for students to learn through education, regardless of what kind of school they attend. This is because critical thinking gives them the flexibility to successfully cope with a wide range of challenges and adapt to changing social and economic circumstances. Most of all, it’s the engine behind innovation, which is the key source of profit (and eventually wealth) in a functioning capitalist economy. Woodson affirms that for scholars, businesspeople, educators, politicians, and artists, originality is the key ingredient for success. Therefore, he concludes that the Black community’s future depends on its ability to develop and spread critical thinking skills throughout its ranks.
Themes
