Race is a complex thing. But one of the ways in which race exists and impacts our society is living as marginalized “other” in society. Du Bois’ proclamation of double-consciousness is a powerful theory about marginalized identities.
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double- consciousness, 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. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two souls … two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body … 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 would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has 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 having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.” ( Du Bois 1903/ 1969: 45— 46)
The experience of double-consciousness is something people in positions of power may not experience nor understand. But people who are in positions of marginalization, whether it be because of race, ethnicity, poverty, gender, sexuality, or religion, may be able to apply this concept to various situations of their life experiences.
Do you find Du Bois’s “double-consciousness” a useful sociological concept that captures social reality? Find an example in the U.S. society today (or in the global society) to which this concept can be applied. When and why does this “two-ness” occur? To whom does “double-consciousness” happen? What is responsible for this group’s experience of “two-ness,” while others do not have to suffer from this split?