Double-Consciousness Essay
W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent African-American scholar in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wrote many significant essays that challenged the dangerous societal view that black Americans weren’t capable of progress. In one of those essays, Strivings of the Negro People, he develops new terminology to discuss the many forces that act upon black Americans in a white dominated society, the most important of which is double-consciousness. The phrase, “double-consciousness”, refers to the division of the African-American self into two, conflicting facets: one being the American and the other the Negro, ever being forced to look at themselves through the eyes of a racist society.
In Du Bois’ essay, Strivings of the …show more content…
The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card-refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil” (Du Bois 2015, [67]). In this anecdote Du Bois is describing the first time he felt the presence of the veil, of the mental color line, that separates whites from blacks. White Americans cannot see inside the veil, they cannot understand the oppression and adversity to which African-Americans were subjected. Of course, Jim Crow laws and the segregation that they entailed served only to reinforce the veil. The veil gave rise to double-consciousness; without race-based separation there would be no internal conflict between being both black and an American. However, the veil did provide black Americans with a certain advantage. Du Bois says that “After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,-a world which yields him no self-consciousness but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world” (Du Bois 2015, [68]). Second-sight is the …show more content…
2017, [Appendix]) These are the ideals upon which our country was founded. The blatant hypocrisy is, in itself, self-evident; the country fighting for its own autonomy and freedom was being built upon the ravaged backs and bodies of black slaves. Phillis Wheatley, in her poem, On Being Brought from Africa to America, recognizes this irony and says, “‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,” (Wheatley 1773). The key word in the first line of the poem is “mercy”; this choice of diction is dripping with irony, considering she was stolen from her home, and her captor’s motive for doing so was greed. Again, the values upon which the United States is being built are null and void in regard to black slaves. She continues with, “Remember, Christians, negros, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.” (Wheatley 1773). Here, Wheatley is describing an occurrence, to which double-consciousness can be attributed, 120 years before it was officially coined by Du Bois. She describes herself, and others like her, as being descended from Cain, a damned biblical figure, to show that she understands that this is how she is seen by society; she then goes on to assert that black Americans
W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent African-American scholar in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wrote many significant essays that challenged the dangerous societal view that black Americans weren’t capable of progress. In one of those essays, Strivings of the Negro People, he develops new terminology to discuss the many forces that act upon black Americans in a white dominated society, the most important of which is double-consciousness. The phrase, “double-consciousness”, refers to the division of the African-American self into two, conflicting facets: one being the American and the other the Negro, ever being forced to look at themselves through the eyes of a racist society.
In Du Bois’ essay, Strivings of the …show more content…
The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card-refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil” (Du Bois 2015, [67]). In this anecdote Du Bois is describing the first time he felt the presence of the veil, of the mental color line, that separates whites from blacks. White Americans cannot see inside the veil, they cannot understand the oppression and adversity to which African-Americans were subjected. Of course, Jim Crow laws and the segregation that they entailed served only to reinforce the veil. The veil gave rise to double-consciousness; without race-based separation there would be no internal conflict between being both black and an American. However, the veil did provide black Americans with a certain advantage. Du Bois says that “After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,-a world which yields him no self-consciousness but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world” (Du Bois 2015, [68]). Second-sight is the …show more content…
2017, [Appendix]) These are the ideals upon which our country was founded. The blatant hypocrisy is, in itself, self-evident; the country fighting for its own autonomy and freedom was being built upon the ravaged backs and bodies of black slaves. Phillis Wheatley, in her poem, On Being Brought from Africa to America, recognizes this irony and says, “‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,” (Wheatley 1773). The key word in the first line of the poem is “mercy”; this choice of diction is dripping with irony, considering she was stolen from her home, and her captor’s motive for doing so was greed. Again, the values upon which the United States is being built are null and void in regard to black slaves. She continues with, “Remember, Christians, negros, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.” (Wheatley 1773). Here, Wheatley is describing an occurrence, to which double-consciousness can be attributed, 120 years before it was officially coined by Du Bois. She describes herself, and others like her, as being descended from Cain, a damned biblical figure, to show that she understands that this is how she is seen by society; she then goes on to assert that black Americans