“Foolish and vain indeed is the workingman who makes the color of his skin the stepping-stone to his imaginary superiority.”

The Negro and His Nemesis (1904)
Context: Foolish and vain indeed is the workingman who makes the color of his skin the stepping-stone to his imaginary superiority. The trouble is with his head, and if he can get that right he will find that what ails him is not superiority but inferiority, and that he, as well as the Negro he despises, is the victim of wage-slavery, which robs him of what he produces and keeps both him and the Negro tied down to the dead level of ignorance and degradation.

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Eugene V. Debs photo
Eugene V. Debs 108
American labor and political leader 1855–1926

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