A Changing U.S. Color Line?

Photograph Source: SWinxy – CC BY 4.0

I turned to W.E.B. Du Bois’ thoughts on the centrality of America’s color line when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Officer Jonathan Ross shot dead Renee Nicole Good on January 7, 2026. Let me explain.

What Du Bois called the “color line” in the U.S. is the racial division which is a part of–not apart from–labor conditions of a market economy. He viewed this separation of people via their appearances as an integral part of the global system of colonization and segregation.