The Talented Tenth ideal assumed northeastern white culture as the universal standard

Evidence

The concept of the Talented Tenth was rife with northeastern chauvinism. Members of the ABHMS hailed the great institutions of learning in the Northeast and considered them models for emulation. Baptist missionary educators presumed the superiority of the North’s public school system, endowments, colleges, theological seminaries, and technical schools. Since they defined northeastern culture as the correct standard for all Americans, they identified the northern liberal arts colleges as the source of America’s cultural and intellectual progress. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 161

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Whiteness defines the standards of merit and judgment others must aspire to — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 448; External education lets whites accept the black man as culturally white — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 249; Mastery of the colonizer’s language confers honorary whiteness on the colonized (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Whiteness defines the standards of merit and judgment others must aspire to #corroborates (0.92) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 448
• Du Bois’s Talented Tenth concept blended assimilationist civilizing and class racism #expands (0.88) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 773
• Whiteness functions as an unmarked standard against which black intellectuals are judged. #exemplifies (0.86) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2649
• External education lets whites accept the black man as culturally white #expands (0.85) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 249
• Mastery of the colonizer’s language confers honorary whiteness on the colonized #corroborates (0.82)
• Whiteness was sanctified as divine and made synonymous with Americanness. #qualifies (0.78) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 219
• The ideal of a universal civilization serves Western dominance interests #expands (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 176