Le problème de la race

So then was W. E. B. Dubois some malevolent wizard cursing humankind into stupidity and intolerance when he said that the problem of the 20th century was going to be that of race? Or was he just an honest prophet? One thing is certain. Seventy years after he spoke and with only a few years of the century left, the issue of race is still allowed to assume all forms, subsume all controversies and consume every little bit of human energy, vision and imagination. The 21st century is almost upon us, and we are still imprisoned in the colours of our skins.

How absolutely awful! How humanly pathetic!

Ama Ata Aidoo. “Male-ing Names in the Sun”,
in The Girl Who Can (1997), pp. 120-1.