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The Duality of Blackness

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The most impactful metaphor of the first chapter of Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folk is the central idea of a “double consciousness”. He argues that Black people have been robbed of a true identity or “self-consciousness” due to the experience of being both black and American. He interprets this double consciousness as a type of veil covering Black Americans, which really stood out to me when considering the details of a veil covering a whole group of people. By only understanding the world through other people’s eyes, the pain and strife that Black people have had to live with is unimaginable. The fact that all Black people are under the veil made me imagine a collective consciousness, one that may recognize the greatness of Black people, but struggles under white supremacy and the constant degradation they face.

The duality of being both Black and American at the point of Du Bois’ writing, and even now, seems contradictory. In a society that appropriates, steals, and utilizes black culture while simultaneously treating them as a lesser group is but one of the contradictions of being a Black American. How could a black person reconcile with the fact that their culture has been commodified all the while black people are still oppressed by the many systems making up America? Du Bois’ paragraph about his childhood highlighted possible reactions to this duality of Blackness in America. He writes, “With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?” (Du Bois 9). The fact that the only two options for black youth is silent obedience in hopes of success, or a hatred of the world around them demonstrates how this duality hinders black Americans. If those are the only options, and self determination and success is impossible without interacting with white supremacy or a white society, then it seems that Blackness and being American will always clash when it comes to identity. The feeling of being an outcast in your own house has been prevalent for Black Americans since their ancestors were stolen from their homelands. Du Bois hints at a solution towards the end, when he writes about Black people fostering their talents and traits together in a unifying manner. Although in the years since his writing, I feel that this has been accomplished somewhat, there is still the issue of how to deal with the duality of Blackness in America, being that it seems like the only two options are still obedience or resistance.

The Relevance of Du Bois’s SOULS OF BLACK FOLK in Today’s World

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The most relevant point, and the most consistent in its relevancy, is perhaps Du Bois’s statement that “…being a problem is a strange experience.” This sentence highlights one of the main ways of handling problems in the United States (in general), which is to blame the victim. It’s not that Du Bois and the black community actually are a problem, but that the system, the oppressors, white people, have set up a narrative that pins the blame squarely on the black community. According to this narrative (and this narrative is American history, especially as is taught in classrooms), it is entirely the fault of the black community that they are poor, that they live ‘in the hood,’ that they are stupid, that they are unwilling to educate and better themselves (and additionally for not “appreciating” education when it is given to them, regardless of its quality), that they are unable to keep a proper family (that age old tale of the “absent black father”), and that they are incarcerated at such high rates, among many other things. Never is there a recognition that it is white supremacy that has created the circumstances in which black people suffer. The system, from its conception (reinforced and made most concrete during the era of slavery), was designed for white people to prevail at the expense of the black community (and I say white people as opposed to white men because white women have historically used their power, their white femininity, to further exploit and abuse black men and women). It is because of this systemic abuse of black people, of the abuse and exploitation of these people in the very foundation of American government and society, that it is black people who are perceived as being the problem, rather than the system.

The idea of the evolution of the goal of the black community was also interesting, and arguably a testament to the evolution of slavery. Freedom as a primary goal made sense to the enslaved black community, but with reconstruction and Jim Crow, it became obvious that the shackles had morphed from the institution of slavery to the institution of the government. It was not merely official channels that had morphed to continue to oppress black people, but the idea of black inferiority has become ingrained in American culture. It wasn’t just a part of the system, but it was part of being a good American to, in essence, “show the black man his place,” to remind black people, in every instance, in every aspect of their lives, of their inferiority. Slavery was abolished, but the power dynamic, the abuse of white (and white-passing) people, didn’t change. That black men and women start at a disadvantage is the main thread in the narrative of blackness in the United States (and I say main thread because the experience of blackness should not, in any way, be reduced to only its negatives). Du Bois brings up the idea of the whole group (that is, of black people) beginning in poverty. The ignorance of black people that he speaks of (ignorance through no fault of their own – in fact, it is ignorance forced upon them) meant that black people had several generations of catching up to do in a system already rigged to hold them back.

And yet there is something missing in this excerpt, which is perhaps understandable given that Du Bois is a man, and it is the gendered aspect of blackness. Blackness is stigmatized regardless of gender, but the struggles of black men and women differ. This can arguably be traced back to the extremely gendered roles of enslaved black men and women. Black women have more to work through, given that they are oppressed because of their race and their gender. It would be interesting to explore a more nuanced approach to the points Du Bois makes with the intersection of gender and sexuality, especially in the modern age.