Du Bois rejected the exceptional-Negro argument that statistical Black suffering disproves racial equality

Evidence

However, he complained, “as this Talented Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the Average cry out in alarm: ‘These are exceptions, look here at death, disease and crime—these are the happy rule.’ Of course they are the rule, because a silly nation made them the rule.” Du Bois fumed about the extraordinary-Negro conception, this “silly” conceptual loophole to uplift suasion. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 773

Categorization

• SEED: Could seed an essay: how the ‘exceptions prove the rule’ argument is deployed to sidestep structural causation — Du Bois’s 1903 rebuttal against a still-common evasion.