The frontlines of racial tension are divided by the color line, and the war is in full swing. Soldiers on opposite sides find themselves ducking and dodging the social complexities of race relations. It seems that despite the many social gains minorities have attained, the war hasn’t let off. The wars of attrition were fought out in the open, for all to see. With time, the enemy of social justice began fighting in the dark, conducting covert missions, quietly attacking and ambushing people of color with new tactics. The landscape of war has changed, and the fighters for social equality are finding it harder to fight an enemy that has seemingly become invisible.

W. E. B. Du Bois presented post-Civil War Americans with a work so profound, it has remained relevant for over 100 years. “The Souls of Black Folk” is a striking commentary on the social injustices Blacks suffered at the hands of Whites. With the end of slavery, White Supremacy was forced to reconsider its tactics. Du Bois is an eyewitness to this shift, referencing experiences where the perceived progress due to the abolition of slavery is undermined by racially charged actions. When meeting with a commissioner to secure a schoolhouse, Du Bois was surprised to be so well-received. But his surprise was short-lived when at dinner the White men ate first, and then he did… alone.

Perhaps a small detail in the grand scheme of things, but this point reinforces the shift in the racial tension and relations in America. After the Civil War, racial relations weren’t magically repaired. In fact, I posit that while the overall condition of Blacks improved in this country, discrimination and racism became even harder to fight because it went into the shadows. Southern Blacks were having trouble finding homes and finding work. They were lucky to find a job, let alone one that paid. The real threat came from the dominant white American sentiment at the time towards Blacks: they were a problem. In fact, “How does it feel to be a problem?” is one of the first questions posed in Du Bois’ writing, and he states that he “seldom answers a word.” This implies that Du Bois himself struggled to answer this question. How does one fix an issue if they are told that they themselves are the issue? How does one, then, “fix” oneself if anything one does is considered wrong? One’s mere existence was an issue. With a seemingly rhetorical question, Du Bois was able to indirectly articulate the changing landscape of racial discourse in America. While overt racism and discrimination were still rampant, a push was made to mask that hate and operate under the cover of ideology.

The racism and prejudice Du Bois faced was revolting and sickening, but it was destined to die out. It was no longer acceptable, nor logical, to hate someone based on their phenotypical features. Prejudices had to be scientifically backed. Respected men in the natural and social sciences, such as Voltaire, Jefferson, Gobineau, Galton, and Risch, all claimed and asserted that there were biological factors that distinguished the “Negro” race from their own, despite any similarities between them. Such beliefs, especially when espoused by these figures, perpetuated the idea that Blacks were an inferior race, incapable of attaining high status in life. Interestingly enough, Du Bois strongly disagreed with Booker T. Washington in that Washington believed Blacks should learn trades by attending vocational schools. Washington felt the Black man was better suited for trade work to secure a job, while simultaneously relinquishing any political power. Washington may have had his opinions, but Du Bois argued that this was not the correct path to social justice. This schism within the Black community was a result of internalized racism.

The dominant culture in any society will always do its best to maintain its superiority. White Americans were successfully able to infiltrate the minds of minorities in this country and make them feel as if they were lesser than. This was done by furthering the notion of the color line. Omi and Winant describe it as a component of racial despotism. They state, "Racial despotism did not only elaborate, articulate, and drive racial divisions institutionally; it also hammered them into our psyches, causing untold fear and suffering, and extending, up to the moment in which you are reading this, the racial obsessions and oppressions of the conquest and slavery periods."

Simply put: the status quo has set up institutions that emphasize racial tension and division, but they also exert complete hegemony over minorities, so much so, that minorities have internalized the false hateful rhetoric of the dominant group. Such is deviousness and nefariousness of the new color line war. When physical domination was no longer possible after the Civil War, the dominant White culture moved to mental oppression. How better to control a people than by rewiring their own thought processes and making them believe in their own inferiority? How better to dispel any claims of racial discrimination if the people who are allegedly being discriminated against believe that their struggles in life are due to their own inherent flaws?

The mental imprisonment of minorities, especially the Black mind, in American society, has transfigured into the predatory imprisonment of Black bodies as well. In efforts to make gains in the war of the color line, the dominant powers of the United States have set up a legal system that disproportionately targets Blacks and Latino individuals. These laws help solidify the disgusting, false, longstanding idea that minorities are somehow more “savage” in nature. The fact that Blacks are incarcerated in exponentially higher rates than Whites gives the disgusting and misleading impression that that alone serves as proof of an inherent character flaw. What the dominant culture fails to recognize are statistics. “Although the majority of illegal drug users and dealers nationwide are White, three-fourths of all people imprisoned for drug offenses have been Black or Latino” states Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow. Many studies have shown that Blacks and Whites use drugs at around the same rates, but the Black person is much more likely to be arrested and charged for it.

Given this historical context, it comes as no surprise that one of the candidates running for president can get away with, and have millions of people all over the country agree with him, saying what he says. The problem has always been the "other." The problem has always been that which is different from us. The problem has always been the color line.