Double consciousness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

Double consciousness, in its contemporary sense, is a term coined by W. E. B. Du Bois. The term is used to describe an individual whose identity is divided into several facets.

[edit] Origin

The term originated from an 1897 Atlantic Monthly article titled "Strivings of the Negro People." It was later republished and slightly edited under the title "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" in his collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk. He spoke of “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”, and of a two-ness, of being "an American, a Negro; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

Du Bois explained:

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa; he does not wish to bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he believes that Negro blood has yet a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without losing the opportunity of self-development.

The concept of Du Boisian "double consciousness" has three manifestations. First, the power of white stereotypes on black life and thought (being forced into a context of misrepresentation of one's own people while also having the knowledge of reflexive truth). Second, the racism that excluded black Americans from the mainstream of society, being both American and not American. Finally, and most significantly, the internal conflict between being African and American simultaneously.

Double consciousness is an awareness of one's self as well as an awareness of how others perceive that person. The danger of double consciousness resides in conforming and or changing one's identity to that of how others perceive the person.