W. E. B Dubois Double Consciousness Analysis

According to W.E.B. DuBois, “double consciousness” is the “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring ones soul by a tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (DuBois 5). In other words, “double consciousness” is the self that you view yourself as, compared to self that comes from the outside perspective where you view it is part of yourself also. It is a peculiar situation where the world is filled with no self-true consciousness especially when looking at oneself at the eyes of the others. It’s like when the Blacks are caught in the White gaze, people who cannot see African-American people as equal. But how can you have racism and human equality? That is what is happening in the Enlightenment; and that is why there are democracy, for people to have alienable rights, interior to Blacks having natural rights. This moment is really important for epiphanal blackness (when DuBois first encounters …show more content…
America lives up to his principles but not the Whites living in it. “To be an American is to be opposed to humankind, against the dignity of the individual, and against the striving in man for compassion and tenderness” (Gayle 1917). From Gayle’s view on America’s society, some of the best words about individual freedom were written in the Declaration of Independence by American men. But when the men decides that those words only applies to certain people, the Whites, it is hard to know Blacks privilege because for the Whites it is seen as natural. For who is it theoretical and for who is it reality? It is a bizarre moment to imagine being slave to a founding father, standing in the room where the Declaration of Independence conversation were being discussed, hearing all these ideas, and yet they are invisible to the Whites. All of these ideas and they are embodying the opposite of