The Cave of Whiteness: Du Bois, Baldwin, and Wright Recast Plato’s Imagery

Abstract

This paper seeks to locate a means for counteracting the philosophical canon by re-reading Plato’s allegory of the cave with three Black thinkers – W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. Rather than direct argumentation or strict historical analysis, my strategy attends to the images, allegories, and metaphors in Plato to unleash their conceptual force and meaning. Attuning to these nonargumentative elements of thinking is great strength of Black thought, one underappreciated by the discipline of philosophy. Doing this will teach draw images: (1) Leisure or Crisis?, (2) The Examined Life, (3) Twilight Philosophy. Next I put these lessons into practice through Richard Wright’s posthumously published The Man Who Lived Underground, and then conclude by clarifying my general strategy, aligning it with Christina Sharpe’s reading of “the wake,” and finally reducing it into a simple argument.