W.E.B. Dubois: "Double Consciousness and the Veil"
Text: Excerpt from first chapter of //The Souls of Black Folk//.
Background
(1868–1963)
Tweets
- A fundamental question faced by some but not others: how does it feel to be "a problem"?
- An acquired awareness of there being two worlds, one of which I am of, and one not.
- Double consciousness: always simultaneously aware of being seen through eyes of others. Two selves.
- Question: how to merge double self, not losing either.
- This double consciousness has real effects on people who try to live a "normal" life as a person.
- Freedom was the dream…
- xx
- …but the promise was not delivered as expected.
- Post emancipation strategy shifted from new political power to seeking education and intellectual power, to do as whites do.
- A new realization that he needed to "be himself," not another.
- A component of prejudice based in real facts/values could be honored but the irrational residue beyond that is intolerable.
- Such prejudice undermines the self, but also makes the mission clear.
- Is all the "betterment" a waste? No, but it needs to be synthesized. A sense of whole people needs to be built.
- Seems to suggest that African-Americans need to become seen as a group along side other groups/dominant culture — a lateral sameness rather than hierarchical otherness.
- Trasnscending existence of any group as "a problem" is fundamental challenge to American principles.
Other Material
page revision: 9, last edited: 07 Sep 2010 16:51