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THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY:
A GENEALOGY OF W.E.B.DU BOIS’ DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS

BY

Rieko Tomisawa

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of American Studies

2003

 

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ABSTRACT

THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY:
A GENEALOGY OF W.E.B.DU BOIS’ DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS

BY

Rieko Tomisawa

The present study considers the multi-layered
meanings of W. E. B. Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness .
It establishes a genealogy of the concept by examining how
the discourses of double consciousness are embedded in a
wide variety of texts and how those function over time.
Du Bois' concept involves observation of the past,
prognosis for the future, and counter discourses to the
oppressive discourses of his time. This dissertation
traces threads of the genealogy from the early
nineteenth-centurytthhe early'twenty first centuryu The
dissertation argues that the concept emerges fronrAfrican
American experience generally and is inseparable from
pragmatic tactics for overcoming oppression. His emphasis
on having multiple perspectives as an advantage, the active
stance of African Americans, and the problems and solutions
illustrated in double consciousness, also exist in other
social problems. Du Bois’ education of both African

American and non-African American readers about what the

 

 

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Rieko Tomisawa

refusal of democracy means is significant for contemporary
experience. This dissertation contributes to the
scholarship on American Studies, cultural studies, Du Bois,
AfricancAmerican Studies, American intellectual history,

philosophy, literature, and film studies.

Copyright by
RIEKO TOMISAWA
2003

To my family, friends, and all of
my important people

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My debts to the faculty at Michigan State University are
deep. That Dr. Geneva Smitherman, Dr. Kenneth David, Dr.
Gretchen Barbatsis, Dr. Leonora Smith and Dr. Larry Landrum are
my committee members is the most important event in my
intellectual life. Dr. Smitherman's lectures on language and
African—American culture heavily influenced my construction of
discourse and African-American philosophy, and widened my
Perspective on my dissertation theme. Dr. David inspired my
interest in cross-cultural and multicultural studies. Dr.
Barbatsis taught me the importance of "reading" all visual
materials. I thank Dr. Smith for reading my manuscript closely ,
and catching even subtle senses of each of my arguments.

I thank Professors in Japan, Shinya Nomoto, Kanshun
Sakamoto, Kyoko Shiojiri, Masahiro Hosoya, Koichi Mori, Takashi
Sasaki, Soichiro Shinohara, Masao Takenaka, Otis Cary, Nagayo
Honma, Shunsuke Kamei, Shiro Yamada, and Yasuo Sakakibara for

helping me to establish the basis of my study of America.

I also thank Janice Barns, Pamela R. Minifee Norm and Mary

Anne LaPorte, Sandy Leto, George, Diane and Louise Ferhat,
Sheila Ward, Yoshie Iwamura Baker, Akiyoshi Takemoto, Miyuki
FujiWara, Mikuni Ohmae, Jun Yamagami, Yumiko Imanishi, Yuki
Wakamatsu, Hiroyuki and Kaori Ikeda, Toshiro Komazawa, Juan

vi

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Martinez-Demedina, Masaki Mitani, Maki Hatanaka, Yuki Hirose,
Shaunna Howat, Yuko Yamada, Maki Hakui, Noriko Sugaya, Akiko
Yagi, Jerry McAllister, Young Jun Jung, Naoki Okumura, Haruko

Yabe, Toru Miyazawa, Tae Sun Kim, Kaori Sawasato, Lary and Carol

A. York who have supported and cheered my study in the U.S.

I thank Dr. Alice Kessler Harris, Dr. Thomas Jaffee, Dr.

John Patterson, Dr. Michael Barton, Dr. Linda Shopes, Dr. Simon

Bronner, and my aunt, Masumi Tomisawa who encouraged me to go

On to Ph.D. program.

I thank Dr. Nancy Pogel who has introduced me various kinds

of American culture that are crucial part of my field, American

Studies -

I thank Dr. Gloria Randle, Dr. Eric Lot, Dr. Barry E. Gross,

Dr. PEter Levine, and Dr. Sandy Bryson for giving me much

precious advice in the early stages of my study in Ph. D. program.

Thank you to the staff in American Studies department, Ms.

Ka thleen Johnston.

Thank you for my comrades and supporters, Shinji Uozumi,

M .
asanori Fujimoto, Getnet Bekele, Taeko Iwamoto, Nookuthula

vii

‘
—

Cele, Kenichiro Shinohara, Anthony Joseph Michel, Cecilia

Samonte, Kenichiro Shimatani, Patrick Lee Lucas, and Nathalie

Drougraz -

I thank Ms. Cathy Evans and Dr. Jamon Fordham for helping

my research on film.

I thank my past students in Japan. Their eyes, pure hearts,
and wisdom gave me motivation to study in America and their sense
Of justice made me choose Du Bois' thought as the focus of my

dissertation.

I thank my parents, Terushi Tomisawa and Reiko Tomisawa
for long time support for my study. My desire to mediate what
is democracy in this dissertation derives from their education
to me, philosophy, experiences, and the ways they have lived

so far.

Finally, especially, I thank my chair, Dr. Larry Landrum.

Nat only his introduction of Foucault, Deleuze, film theories,
and Philosophy, but also his insight on various topics and deep
understanding of what I think about those topics encouraged me
to

engage the dissertation. Also, his genius for guidance

e
Dabled me to keep working on it. I have no word to express

viii

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my gratitude .

I cannot list all to whom I am thankful, but thank you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
CHAPTER 1: DEFINITION OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. . . . . . . 18
CHAPTER 2: DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS AS SOLUTION: AN

CHAPTER 3:

Chapter 4 :

CHAPTER 5 :

CHAPTER 6:

C HAPTER 7 :

CONCLUSION,

AFRICAN AMERICAN PEOPLE'S PHILOSOPHY. . . . . . .59

DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS DISCOURSE BEFORE 1897. . .86

HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: CONDITION FOR A COUNTER
DISCOURSE.....................l37

INTELLECTUAL DISCOURSE OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS

162
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS DISCOURSE IN POLITICAL
DISCOURSE IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA. . . . . . .214
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS DISCOURSE IN FILM AND
LITERATURE.....................299

333

BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................345

INTRODUCTION

W.E.B. Du Bois, African American sociologist, historian,
philosopher, and commentator on race issues first introduced his
signature concept, “Double Consciousness,” in 1897. Double
consciousness is popularly known as African Americans’ unique
psychological condition in the U.S. in which one grasps a self
image partly through others’ perspective toward him or her.
Throughout most of the history of the United States the concept
signi fies a psychological condition in which one' s
consciousness belongs to two kinds of “races,” African Americans
and European Americans . Now at the beginning of the 21St century,
more than one hundred years has passed and social conditions have
changed. Although the society has changed, Du Bois’ concept has
survived and has been widely influential in studies of social
IGlations and artistic representations.

Originally, Du Bois formulated this concept in a particular
SitUat ion surrounding African-Americans from Reconstruction to
the turn of the century, although the concept existed in

fragmentary forms among African Americans much earlier. Du Bois
33391188 that African Americans have had to cope with oppression

and discrimination since before the creation of the nation,

;

leaving them with the problem of constructing a “truer self” than
has been possible in the past.

Other scholars have noted the durability and significance
of Du Bois’ logic. Randall Kennan points out the “complexity”
of Du Bois' concept (xxxii). Historians David W. Blight and
Robert Gooding-Williams point out “a complex, tragic, and deeply
compelling vision of the fate of black folk in America” in Souls
of Black Folks where Du Bois elaborates the concept of double
consciousness (1). Eric Sundquist identifies an “ambiguity”
in Du Bois’ concept of race, saying that “race is a concept of
great ambiguity and power in Du Bois’ thought—the power, one
could say, deriving precisely from the ambiguity” (5) . Keith E.
Byerrnan argues that the concept is “richly ambiguous” (15) . And,
in Souls, Du Bois himself demonstrates these points as one of
his own ways of writing: “I have sought here to sketch, in vague,
uncertain outline, the spiritual world in which ten thousand
thousand Americans live and strive” (1) .

In fact, Du Bois seems to define double consciousness in
several different ways in Souls. The multi-layered character
Of double consciousness not only expresses the complexity or
difficulty of race issues, but also produces various
implications, messages, and readers’ interpretations. In other

wordS, multiple layers have enabled this concept to be flexible

a nd to transform itself in order to explain different historical

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situations and to function differently in each period. This is
one of the reasons it has been important and has survived as a
useful concept to the present.

So we need to consider this concept in some detail in order
to grasp all its implications. In a “Forethought” of Souls, Du
Bois suggests that we “receive my little book in all charity,
studying my words with me, forgiving mistake and foible for sake
of the faith and passion that is in me, and seeking the grain
of truth hidden there” (1) . As Du Bois promotes the readers’
consideration of the meaning of his words, we need to reconsider
his sense of double consciousness in the hidden truth. The
purpose of the present study is to explore the multifaceted
definition of double consciousness, its fragmentary emergence
in earlier and later discourses, and how it worked or functioned
before, around and after 1897.

Many people have discussed the concept. Some have tried
to find thinkers who presented similar concepts before Du Bois
first introduced the concept. Hegel and Frederick Douglas have
been taken up as two of these thinkers. Sandra Adell has
explored how Hegel’s philosophy influences the Du Bois’ concept
and David W. Blight points out the dilemma of having

“ twOl’less”—double identity—in a common link between Douglass and
Du BOis. Dickson D. Bruce Jr. and others have pointed out

p recursors in literary and medical sources. Some scholars such

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as John Thomas Askew Cobb have regarded the concept as a solution
(or prescription) for the problem that African Americans face
in the United States. Finally, some have emphasized the dilemma
of being an American and a black in Du Bois’ sense as one of the
universal themes of African American novels. Why has the concept
continued to be significant? What implications does the concept
have? Do we really understand the connotations of the concept
in Du Bois’ sense? Has the original meaning of the concept
survived or changed over time? Can we apply this concept to the
context of the contemporary multicultural situation and that of
the 2 lst century, to the case of other “race” and ethnic groups,
and to the case of other kinds of conflict? If the concept has
been modified according to historical contexts, or functioned
differently in each era, how does this occur ?

These conditions give rise to a number of questions
discussed in the course of this study. I regard the concept not
as one influenced or formulated by earlier or contemporary
thinkers, but as an intersection of multiple discourses around
1897- Du Bois’ concept engages those discourses and at the same
time presents his counter discourses to the existing dominant
discIOurses. Du Bois also introduces the concept as a slogan that

would enable those who feel oppression to challenge several
di fferent kinds of dominant discourses. He weaves his messages

for readers into the concept, providing the means to help explain

 

 

 

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awestructure of social relations surrounding the problems of
African-Americans in the United States.

Du Bois’ illustration of time psychological nechanism
functioned in pragmatic ways, principally as a prescription for
uplift. As Du Bois himself says in his autobiographical Dusk
ct'Dawn (1940), “I wanted to explain the difficulties of race
muithe ways in which these difficulties caused political and
economic troubles” (54) , and in Souls that “We feel and know that
there are many delicate differences in race psychology,
numberless changes that our crude social measurements are not
yet able to follow minutely, which explain much of history and
social development” (134) , he argues that the analysis of
psychological conditions would provide keys for social change.

Because of the famous “twoness” argument of Du Bois’ double
consciousness, many scholars have argued that Du Bois'
problematization of African-Americans’ experience compelled
affiliation with two racial identities—African and American—
and of their separated selves. Many have regarded the “merging”
of two identities as Du Bois’ solution. But I argue that Du Bois’
<fimracteristic solution, synthesizing, means more than that.
Rnrexample, Du Bois’ “merging” relates both to his promotion
CE the simultaneous realization of several ideals and to his
rePUdiation of gradualism as a means to democracy.

DU Bois also problematizes African Americans’

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pswflmflogical mechanism, “second sight/’ in which one sees
oneself through others’ gaze. Du Bois warned that this mechanism
cmprives African Americans of self-esteem and their loss of
guide'would result in a loss of their ability to acquire basic
rights they deserve. This psychological mechanism is directly
related to the creation of blacks’ plight historically, and
results in lowering blacks’ ideals. At the same time, however,
this seemingly metaphysical concept directly relates to the
resolution of problems that African Americans have experienced
in the United States.

Few scholars have explored the concept of double
consciousness in terms of other kinds of conflict. I argue that
Uneconcept of double consciousness is not limited to “racial”
issues, but includes ethnicity, class, anui gender. Double
consciousness discourse and Du Bois proposed solutions for race
issues comprehend other kinds of conflict. In the famous first

Paragraphs of the Souls of Black Folks, Du Bois declared:

HEREIN LIE buried many things which if read.with patience
may Show the strange meaning of being black here in the
dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not
without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem
Of the'Twentieth Century is the problem of the color—line
(Souls 1).

This Statement not only includes Du Bois' warning that

 

 

 

 

 

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color-line problems will increase, but also his revelation that
the conditions for “the problem of the color-line” would provide
the basis of other problems of the 20th century.

The methodology of this study is a multidisciplinary one.
haterms of self/other or the construction of identity, I draw
on Michel Foucault’ s concept of discourse and genealogy as well
as other works on discourse and subjectivity. In his definition,
genealogy suggests continuity and discontinuity of the
discourses that make up evidences of the past. I investigate
various representations and concepts relevant to Du Bois’
concept not only in philosophical or academic writings, but also
hithose found in various sources such as novels and films. I
also work with earlier discourses that were part of the African
Imerican community of expressicun The dissertation focuses on
the ways in which Du Bois’ concept enters into narrative
stnxmures, images, concepts and the construction of
subjectivity. This means that I will not necessarily do a
thorough analysis of each text, but that I will be interested
in how elements of certain kinds of texts are drawn into
conflicts that Du Bois recognized as double consciousness. The
examples, then, are meant to illustrate selected discourses over
time rather than to assume that the discourses are stable in
Particular texts.

Since the purpose of this study is to establish genealogy

 

of double consciousness and its fragmentary implications or
messages, the first two chapters explore the definitions of Du
Bois’ concept around 1897 as a culminating stage. Chapters 3
to 5 identify elements of the discourse prior to Du Bois and at
the time he was working out the concept.

Some researchers have pointed out that Du Bois defined
double consciousness in several different ways in The Souls of
Black Folks. In order to find various implication of this
concept, in Chapter 1 I look into the definition of double
consciousness in the Souls of Black Folks, in other books and
writings around the turn of the century and in his later writings
in order to find how the concept changed or was modified in
relation to change in the historical context. I draw on
Darkwater (1920) , Dusk of Dawn (1940) , ABC of Color (1963) , The
Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois (1968) , and selected essays. I
also consider double consciousness in terms of other conflicts
such as gender and class.

Du Bois’ core definitions of double consciousness are
blacks' double identity and the existence of a white gaze as an
element in people’s psychological makeup. The polar
construction of identity in African American psychology always
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employment), and even basic political rights. Through the
illustration of these mechanisms, Du Bois turns seemingly
disadvantageous possession of blacks' “second-sight”—
internalization of others’ views toward him/her—into blacks’
advantage of having multiple perspectives. He advocates the
retention of these two identities and perspectives as distinct
conditions in creating a better identity by “merging” the two.
Du Bois argues that one of the two identities—Africanness—
reveals blacks' active stance at uplifting, and emphasizes that
its “message for the world” plays a significant political role.
Also, Du Bois emphasizes how the complexity of race
consciousness produces difficulty in such practical aspects of
the lives of African Americans as economy and politics.
Chapter 1 considers how thinkers developed Du Bois' concept
in later times. I explore African American philosopher, Cornel
West’s “Race and Modernity” (1982), a French philosopher,
Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (1965), a French
Philosopher, Gilles Deleuze’s concepts, “in—between-ness,”
“becomings” in Dialogue (1977) , and an Algerian theorist of the
African struggle for liberation, Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin,
White Masks (1967) . Fanon’s illustration of “comparison”—
blacks’ View of themselves through others’ views toward them is
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the “slave” of others’ gaze toward us. This is related to Du
Bois’ “the eyes of others” discourse. Sartre’s emphasis on the
importance of “choice”—having an active stance—and Du Bois’ idea
of escape from passive existence and of having eyes to see
ourselves are similar.

Chapter 2 focuses on double consciousness as means to a
solution for problems that African Americans had experienced in
the U.S. He formulated and introduced the solution to both
whites and blacks. What whites should do, Du Bois argues, is
to modify their perspective. What Du Bois criticizes primarily
is their becoming bystanders or onlookers of blacks’ plight.
Based on his belief that what African Americans suffer is not
their problem but an American problem, Du Bois urged white
Americans to grapple with the common theme between them and to
promote equality among human beings. He also explains how
disadvantageous conditions imposed historically on blacks
helped construct a lie—the myth of alleged inferiority—and how
its effect on blacks’ psychology and lives is damaging. On the
other hand, Du Bois argues that possible solutions involve
understanding oneself, trust in self-value, understanding the
meChanism of self-degradation that white hegemony imposes,
establishing “true self-consciousness,” and standing UP ‘30
oppressive power. As counter measures to oppressive power, Du

BOiS advocates the importance of education, but recognizes that

 

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cooperation, understanding, and respect of blacks enable
Americans to realize democracy.

In chapter 3 I discuss ideas relevant to the concept prior
to the time Du Bois was writing in order to deepen the
significance and implications of the concept and to find what
earlier discourses contributed to it. This chapter also
explores the double consciousness discourse in terms of
class, gender, and cross-cultural identity. In terms of African
American/race discourse, I will examine such works as those of
an American black abolitionist, David Walker’s (1785-1830)
Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) , an African
American leader and intellectual of the 19th century, Frederic
Douglass’ (1818-1895) Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass (1845) and My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and other
discourses. As a complement to these texts I consider
comparatively “anonymous” slave narratives, written by several
women. In terms of cross-cultural subjectivity formation, I
Will include William Apess’ (1798-1838) writings such as The
Increase of the Kingdom of Christ: A Sermon and the Indians:
The Ten Lost Tribes (1831) . Some scholars have discussed the
relationship between several of these narratives and Du Bois’
CODCEpt. For example, David W. Blight points 01111 that the

dilemma of having double aims is the common theme for both Du

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compelling symbiosis of different natures (personalities) of
Linda Brent, the protagonist of Harriet Jacob’s slave
narrative—a devoted mother and sexual victim of her slave
master-as an example of Du Bois’ concept. But I argue that in
power relations between slave masters and slaves, slaves
actively made use of the power of the gaze in Du Bois’s sense
in order to escape from slavery or from their masters’ violation
of them. This is what Du Bois advocated and fits his “message
for the world” which is the notification of injustice to the
broader world. Du Bois’ double selves or theories of fluid
identity were also found in these narratives. For example,
Frederic Douglass is aware of his self under slavery and
discusses it after he has escaped. He uses the multiple
PorSpective (past one and present one) as crucial data to come
Up with a solution. This fits Du Bois’ emphasis on the advantage
of having multiple identities and perspectives. These
narratives show that the relation between Oppressive power and
the oppressed in double consciousness occurs in terms of gender,
class, and cross-cultural aspects.

In Chapter 4, I examine the historical context of the
Reconstruction era and the turn of the 20th century conditions
Of the U.S. and the South. I analyze the dominant discourses

that led Du Bois to present counter discourses found in his work.

 

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In the time of prosperity of materialism and industrialization
of the nation, the freed blacks confronted a new kind of plight
which Du Bois calls “the second slavery.” Southern whites tried
to prevent blacks from voting, blocked their first class
citizenship as Americans, and deprived them of political rights .
Lynching and the rise of Ku Klux Klan were outrages suffered by
blacks. The principles of Booker T. Washington reflect dominant
white discourse that attempted to induce blacks to give up
various rights. Du Bois resisted Washington’s policy, and
advocated the need to demand full rights, opportunities to
develop talents fully, and to pursue jobs in the areas of
culture.

Chapter 5 examines academic and other intellectual
discourses around the turn of the 20th century such as Social
Darwinism and Pragmatism. I argue that the rise of new academic
disciplines such as anthropology and psychology characterized
the era’s intellectual production, and trends incorporating
Social Darwinism formed discourses which help to justify white
supremacy, absolutism, Americanism, and oppression of blacks
and immigrants. One of the counter discourses to those
discourses was pluralism, and Du Bois’ affirmation of democracy,
of the equality of all human beings, of blacks’ capacity for
COmplex identity and perspective, and of blacks’ acquisition of

full citizenship, were among the discourses. Du Bois made use

13

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of the rise of science as a tool to prove that the various
negative myths about blacks are lies, and this was the basis of
his formulation of double consciousness. The rise of empirical
psychology paved the way for the exploration of the complexity
of human minds and informed Du Bois’ theory of the psychological
mechanism of African Americans. The problem of having double
selves was considered by William James and his solution—
combining split selves—provides a significant background for
aspects of Du Bois’ formulation of double consciousness. The
importance of choice advocated by James and Du Bois’ promotion
of active andindependent black perspectives are complementary
di scourses. But above all pragmatist discourse in the era is
Consistent with Du Bois' promotion of solutions through double
C O nsciousness .
In Chapter 6, I explore if or how the double consciousness
di scourse existed or functioned in black leaders' political
d i scourses. I focus mainly on the Civil Rights era, and examine
SE>eeches, autobiographies and essays of Martin Luther King, jr.
a nd Malcolm X. Although King and Malcolm have been regarded as
representatives of different political perspectives
( ir‘ategrationist and separatist), I found that as black leaders
of a crucial time in African American history both confronted
t 1’1 8 themes which Du Bois had illustrated in the concept of double

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views of white Americans, definitions of blacks’ selfhood and
solutions show several common points and agree on Du Bois' sense

of double consciousness. Among those, Du Bois’ emphasis on the
importance of blacks’ having self-respect as the practical
solution for acquiring civil rights was emphasized by both King
and Malcolm X. Du Bois’ sense of “the veil”—the division between
tflack and white worlds which tears at blacks' psychology and
selfhood—was expressed as such in King’s perception of
:segregation in the South and in Malcolm's perception of his
teacher’s disregard of the fair merit system. Under the
ea><istence of the veil, King proposed the blacks and whites'
s i de-by-side society model, and Malcolm proposed blacks’
Separation from the white society. Both emphasized that these
3 O lutions are not forced by whites, but result from active choice.
F‘C>;I'example, King argues that blacks should be at the head of
t h e march of blacks and whites—a metaphor of an integrated
S O Ciety. This solution fits Du Bois’ promotion-of active choice
0 r leadership in overcoming the negative influence of the white
géa-:ze on their inner psychology and the conduct of their actual
‘lWi—‘Ues in societyu .Also, they emphasized Du Bois’ sense of‘“the
€5§r<33 ofldthers" discourse—whites’ oppression, ignorance, pity,
and contempt of blacks in various ways and forms. But the times
in which they lived also offered them the possibility of

manipulating the white gaze. The expansion of media in the

15

 

 

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1950' s and 1960’ s became the significant tool for King, Malcolm,
and ordinary blacks to transmit Du Bois' sense of “the message
for the world”-blacks’ notification of injustice in the U.S. and
voice to demand justice, freedom, and pride. Herman Gray and
David J. Garrow discuss the relationship between media
development and the Civil Rights Movement, but the present study
examines the relationship between black leaders' and black
people’s uses of media and Du Bois’ double consciousness. This
use of media also expresses Du Bois’ sense of blacks’ active
participation in efforts to overcome oppression.

In Chapter 7, I show how the concept as well as discourses
and images relevant to the concept have survived in literary and
fi :Lm texts after 1903 and how double consciousness is embedded
in texts. In doing this, I discuss double consciousness
di scourse not only in terms of race, but also in terms of other
kinds of conflict such as class, gender, and cross-cultural

COInflicts. In the analysis of visual images, I do not focus on
arlalysis of the directors’ intention of constructing themes.
Ra ther, I focus on how the construction of images and discourses
fI‘ame and limit audience perceptions. Many studies have
eJ’Kgblored race consciousness in visual images. Michael Harris
aIlatlyzes stereotypical images of blacks in paintings. Donald
BOgle and others discuss stereotypes in film and television.

SOl'ne have explored double consciousness in film texts by

16

 

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analysis of plot. For example, James C. McKelly takes up
“two-ness” in Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing. But there
is still much to be done in the analysis of double consciousness
discourse in terms of its visual construction. I have found that
Deleuze's concepts of sensory-motor-circuits and other aspects
of movement-images are helpful in examining the functions of
discourse.

As for African-American discourse, I examine black
independent movie director, Oscar Michaeux’s Within Our Gates
(1919) , Clarence Muse’s Broken Strings (1940) , Toni Morrison’s

Beloved (1988), Spike Lee's films, Jungle Fever (1991) and
Bamboozled (2000) , and John Singleton' s Boyz N’ the Hood (1991) .
In the discourse of mixed race (mainly the “passing” issue), I
di scuss Nella Larsen’s novels, Passing (1929) and Quicksands
(1 924), James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of An Ex—
Colored Man (1927) , and two versions of a film, Imitation of Life
(1 934) and (1959) . I consider how the concept has survived in
forms of other kinds of conflict such as class conflict in
VaJ:‘ious literary and film texts, including The Great Gatsby
(l 924) , The Jazz Singer (1927) , and Korean American, Chang—Rae
Lee ’5 novel on the assimilation issue, Native Speaker (1995) .
This discussion allows me to explore the ways in which the
di 8 courses of double consciousness clarify situations of social

Centrist.

17

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Chapter 1 Definition of Double Consciousness

In this chapter I will explore the possible definitions of
the concept, its implications, and messages in his
autobiographical writing, The Souls of'Black Folks in which Du
Bois originally presented this concept and elsewhere in order
to grasp its layered design.1 The chapter will also address the
ambiguity and complexity of the concept found in Du Bois’
vvritings such as his later autobiographies, Darkwater (1920),

.Ehlsk of Dawn (1940), and The Autobiography of W.E.B.DU Bois
( 1.968) and essays such as “The Conservation of Races” (1897),
“<:Iredo” (1904), and “The Frank Truth” (1905). The notion of
“'Ciuouble consciousness” is discussed throughout The Souls of
31 ack Folks, especially in chapter 1, “Of Our Spiritual
53‘tl.rivings,” where the notion is introduced for the first time

i9r). the book. Du Bois notes that African Americans are:

born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this
American world,—a world which yields him no true
self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through
the revelation of the other world.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double

consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s

1 The Souls of Black Folk (1903) is a collection of Du Bois' writings
t171611: had been published before 1903. The original draft of the chapter 1
of Soul, “Strivings of the Negro People," was published as an article of
Atl antic Monthly in 1897 and revised as chapter 1 of Souls. As Eric Sundquist
eXp lains, Du Bois had kept revising The Souls of Black Folk through 1953 (97) .

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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 thoughts, two unreconciled
strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose
dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder
(Souls 5).

Many researchers quote this section as the definitive statement
‘that directly explains the concept for the first time. But in
carder to find Du Bois' messages contained in the concept, we

sshould pay attention to the succeeding part as well:

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 souls 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 (Souls 5).

:[I1 these two quotations, Du Bois explains the psychological
djLll_emma of African Americans and hints at the promise, at what
tlkleayrhave hoped and needed so far historically. On the other

1“and, the following part explains what needs to be done. In

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other words, after explaining basic notions of double
consciousness in the former two paragraphs, Du Bois puts up a
concrete motto for the improving blacks’ conditions: “to be a
coworker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and
isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent
genius” (Souls 5). From these accounts, we can see that his
description of the concept of double consciousness focusing on
blacks’ identity and psychological mechanism was a preliminary
move to provide a practical prescription for uplifting blacks,
and for improving economic and political conditions. In this
sense, Du Bois’ use of psychological and philosophical
illustrations in the concept of double consciousness is a
Pragmatic tactic for presenting solutions to ongoing political
an d economic problems. Although Chapter 1 of Souls explains the
CO ncept of double consciousness in various ways, these passages
are the core parts that explain implications and messages
CZontained in the concept of double consciousness.

As Du Bois recollected the time from the end of the 19th
C:entury to the beginning of the 20th century in his
autobiographical writing, Dusk of Dawn (1940), “I wanted to
el'fiplain the difficulties of race and the ways in which these
di :fficulties caused political and economic troubles” (54) . In
his teaching years (from 1894 to 1910), the cause and effect

re lationship between race and these troubles was one of the main

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themes (54). Also, he confronts the need for presenting the
complexity of race for non-blacks. In this senses, the
psychological mechanism as an example of “the difficulties of
race" and “the end of strivings” are discussed together in the
introduction of double consciousness.

In Du Bois’ observation, one of the reasons for “the
difficulties of race” is “twoness”—a double identities
structure, of African-Americans. One pattern of the double
identities problems is the “second-sight” function of the
concept. Among several definitions, what Du Bois primarily

mentions and directly calls “double consciousness” is the
p8 ychological mechanism in which an African American has “no
true self-consciousness” and sees himself “through the
re velation of the other world." Du Bois calls this reverse sight
“ S econd-sight” and repeatedly explains its mechanism by
pa Iaphrasing. In this definition, the “double self” signifies
t he existence of “the eyes of others” in one person’s mind. The
S LIllbjectivity is defined as the object of the white gaze-“the eyes
of others.”

Second-sight, “the eyes of others” functions in various
wa 323. One of the functions concerns the social milieu. Du Bois
QC>r‘isidered that blacks have a sense of being outsiders in
A*I‘nerican society. In his double consciousness model, his self

is always excluded by the other self—the white gaze toward him.

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In Chapter ].(of Souls, Du Bois laments the inequality of
opportunity after he received the devastating impact from his

discovery of difference in his childhood:

Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger

in mine own house? The shades of the prison—house
closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn
to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and
unscalable to sons of night who nmst plod darkly on in
resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the
stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak
of blue above (Souls 5).

£>c>uble consciousness is the internalization of the view of the
t>L1.ack and white relationship in American society shown in this
Pa ssage. As he is determined to be an outsider in his own house
(«2%umerica), his self as a black is regarded as an outsider from
“‘t:.he eyes of others”-white gaze in his own psychology. This
e)‘iample shows that the double consciousness concept is not just
an abstract metaphor or psychological trait, but portrays the
S O Cial structure. The “American world” that “yields him no true

S e lf—consciousness” signifies black alienation in America where

he or she resides. Later in Dusk of Dawn (1940) , Du Bois argued:

In the folds of this European civilization I was born
and shall die, imprisoned, conditioned, depressed,
exalted and inspired. Integrally a part of it and yet,

much more significant, one of its rejected parts; one

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who expressed in life and action and made vocal to many,
a single whirlpool of social entanglement and inner
psychological paradox, which always seem to me more
significant for the meaning of the world today than other

similar and related problems (Dusk 301).

Cornel West interprets this black identity model in “Race and
Modernity” (1982) as follows: “For Du Bois, the dialectic of
black self-recognition oscillated.between being in America but
not of it, from being black natives to black aliens” (The Cornel
West Reader 58).

The Souls of Black Folks was published about forty years
after Emancipation. Freed blacks became Americans literally,
but they did not receive political rights as white Americans did.
For example, they received suffrage and civil rights once, but
those rights were restricted immediately. Also, new kinds of
prejudice against blacks emerged.2 In this sense, blacks did
not become substantial Americans, but were marginalized in the
Society. The concept signifies conditions that still
Imarginalized them while they bridged two kinds of communities.

[klvid B. Blight and Robert Gooding—Williams note that “For Du
Bois, the refusal of whites to recognize black Americans'
hlJrnanity and culture has resulted, first, in whites seeing
blaicks as strangers and, second, in the tendency of blacks to

2 I will discuss in detail in Chapter 4 and 5.

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see themselves as strangers” (11).

As his declaration of the “end of striving” also shows,
blacks confront the possibility in which they would be isolated
from both white and black society; In Du Bois’ view, as far as
the alternative t1) choose—either blacks cu: whites-exists,
blacks are outsiders. In other words, gaze also signifies
whites’ stance as twstander or onlooker of all conditions
surrounding blacks and their plight. Du Bois' definition of
“the eyes of others” which “look on” blacks signifies this
spectatorship. Du Bois problematizes whites’ bystander
perspective, as when a white man asks him, “How do you feel to
txaa problem?” (3) 'This signifies that whites have constructed
blacks as “others.” Although blacks and whites live in the same
land, whites do not see blacks as their own folks.

Chapter 3 of Souls starts with epigraph written by Byron:

From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed,
unmanned! Hereditary bondsmen! Know ye not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
(Souls 36)

In this chapter on the accomodationist discourses of “Booker T.
Wa shington and Others,” Du Bois explains that “the eyes of
<3t:k1ers” “enslave” and “unman” blacks. Du Bois points out “the

eInasculating effects of caste distinctions" (Souls 50). The

24

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need for blacks to “strike the blow” represents a reason for Du
Bois to present his counter discourse to the contemporary
dominant discourse, and his advocation of resistance against
accommodationist discourses. [hlBoiS shows how this white gaze
causes blacks tx> distrust themselves. He also argues that
“Seeing himself from the white world’s perspective, Du Bois'
American Negro views himself in a dark and false light, as if
‘born with veil'” (Souls 11). In the Souls of Black Folks, Du
Bois analyzes the kinds of discourses that circulate race issues.
He finds white discourses that do not regard blacks as human

beings. In the antebellum South,

the sincere and passionate belief that somewhere between
men and cattle, God created a tertium quid, and called it
a Negro,—a clownish, simple creature, at times even
lovable within its limitations, but straitly
foreordained to walk within the Veil. To be sure, behind
the thought lurks the afterthought,-some of them with
favoring chance might become men, but in sheer self
defence was dare not let them, and we build about them
walls so high, and hang between them and the light a veil
so thick, that they shall not even think of breaking
through (75).

On the other hand, the black side may not be able to resist this

Opsaressive discourse and learns to accept white discourses.

And last of all there trickles down that third and darker

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thought,-the thought of the things themselves, the
confused, half-conscious matter of men who are black
and whitened, crying “Liberty, Freedom, Opportunity—
vouchsafe to us, 0 boastful World, the chance of living
men!” To be sure, behind the thought lurks the
afterthought,-suppose, after all, the World is right and
we are less than men? Suppose this mad impulse within is

all wrong, some mock mirage from the untrue? (Souls 75)

Du Bois does not mention directly the need to think about
the meaning of the other’s gaze on blacks, but, the nature of

II II

the gaze-“pity, contempt”*reveals his concern about the
negative effect on blacks' psychology.3
Not only as a psychological metaphor, but as a key to
finding time discourse embedded if} the reality surrounding
African Americans, Du Bois’ concept contained various
implications of defining “the eyes of others.” In 1968 Du Bois
explains that the reason “he did not seek white acquaintances”
was that “I wanted to meet my fellows as an equal; they offered
Or seemed to offer only'a status of inferiority and submission”
h4utobiography'283). In terms of a practical slogan, Du Bois
Wants to avoid “having the doors of opportunity closed roughly

in his face” (Souls 5), and in “Credo” (1904) he defines a Devil

afS someone “who wantonly works to narrow the opportunity of

 

 

3 Dickson D. Bruce Jr., emphasizes Du Bois’ metaphor as a practical
one , arguing that Du Bois refers to “the real power of white stereotypes in
black life and thought” and “the double consciousness created by the
practical racism that excluded every black American from the mainstream of

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struggling human beings” (Du Bois: A Reader 105) . This signifies
a white gaze that attacks blacks’ psychology and physical
well-being. In its extreme form this gaze is associated with
actual assaults and lynchings. Du Bois perceives that white
discourse meticulously justifies discrimination of blacks as
rational, and he urged opposition to this discourse.

In his View, the problem created for blacks is that “the
eyes of others” is constructed with their psychology. In other
words, in his model, blacks coexist with the perspective of other
people toward,thenu Du Bois defines “the eyes of others” as an
assessment device» that hinders ‘“true—self’ consciousness.”
Blacks are encouraged to regard the judgment of “the eyes of
others” toward them as their own views.4 Since he defined “no
true self—consciousness” as the condition in which America “only
lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world,”
the term‘Ntrue-self consciousness” suggests that the condition
in which people who can see or assess themselves without being
influenced by others' views or assessment toward them results
ill “self-conscious manhood.”

Du Bois’ definition of gaze is complex. He presents not

 

 

the society” (301) .

‘ Many researchers reveal this interpretation of the concept. For
eJI-{ample, Keith E. Bryerman argues an extreme position that blacks “are
SOmpelled to accept white definitions of their being” (15) . Furthermore,

this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others"
signifies “a lack of self-definition, a dependence on others for one’s
image," so that he problematizes the function of “the eyes of others” (15) .

27

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only his direct accounts of double consciousness, but various
definitions are scattered throughout his writings. Deprivation
of blacks’ knowledge is also a function of the gaze. Souls begins
with reference to an “unasked question” between Du Bois and the
other world. This “unasked question” is an effect of the gaze
in double consciousness. In the beginning of Souls, white people
ask various questions of Du Bois. The questions include silence.
In this dialogue, Du Bois problematizes the structure that
presents whites as questionner and blacks as questioned.
Question/answer dialogue in this case signifies whites'
unconscious contempt for and humiliation of blacks.’ Although
Du Bois does not name this structure itself as humiliating, the
fact that he brings this episode at the beginning of Souls
signifies his problematization of this dialogue.

One of Du Bois’ assertions in introducing the double
consciousness concept is the necessity for blacks to escape from
being assessed by whites. He thinks that establishing
“true-self-consciousness” or having the ability to assess
themselves would bring them liberation. This was important

because prejudice was being rationalized as natural.

Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as
the natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning
against ignorance, purity against crime, the "higher"
against the "lower" races (Souls 9-10).

28

 

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In “Frank Truth” Du Bois notes that the existence of

prejudice in the society is dangerous for human minds:

It is wrong to introduce the child to race consciousness
prematurely. It is dangerous to let that consciousness
grow without intelligent guidance (ABC of Color 45).

Among several versions of whites’ negative gaze toward
blacks, Du Bois problematized whites' “pity” of blacks.
Du Bois regards “pity,” “compassion,” or curiosity as
problematic in the white gaze toward blacks because these values
signify the whites’ sense of supremacy. In terms of the effect
of whites’ views toward blacks, Du Bois thinks that “ignorance”
has the worst effect on blacks, concluding that a significant
problem African Americans confront is the problem of ignorance.
True, African Americans suffered from‘“ignorance—not simply of
illiteracy, but a deeper ignorance of the world and its ways,
Of the thought and experience of men; an ignorance of self and
Possibilities of human souls,” but it was whites' ignorance that
‘bIRDught blacks' plight (The Oxford Du Bois Reader 355).5 In
‘Ltlne Niagara Movement” (1906), he wrote, “Either the United

'Stléates will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the

5 Although Du Bois did not directly refer to the “ignorance" as “white
93 2e" in his introduction of the concept of double consciousness, “ignorance”
l S one of the main features which he takes up during the same period.

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United States” (The Oxford Du Bois Reader 33).

As a result of degradation by the white gaze, a “Being black
is shameful” discourse emerges. [X1 Bois warned (ME the
possibility in which the effect of the second-sight on the inner
psychology of African—Americans relates to their giving up
acquisition of time full rights they deserve. This inner

discourse takes the form of:

self-questioning, self-disparagement,

and lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression
and breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate.
Whisperings and portents came borne upon the four winds:
Lo! We are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we
cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education,

since we must always cook and serve? (Souls 10).

This is [NJ Bois' concrete illustration CHE the relationship
between the inner psychology of African-Americans and the
external reality that they confront. By degrading African
American education, promoting a servant class and preventing
Voting. America also produced “something of good,-the more
<3areful adjustment of education to real life, the clearer
Fmerception of the Negroes' social responsibilities, and the
55C>bering realization of the meaning of progress” (Souls 10).
Du Bois observed the atmosphere of his time that made blacks self

Critical. He also observed the relationship between these

psychological mechanisms in the minds of African-Americans and

   

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the tendency to give up demanding their political rights. In
short, “the eyes of others" deprives one of “true-self
consciousness,” self-esteem, and one' s own grasp of self-image.
The others’ assessment of oneself becomes one's assessment of
him/herself in Du Bois’ model is not just an effect on the subject.
The self manipulated by the “the eyes of others” is made passive.
American society and.the white gaze toward.blacks deprive
blacks of power and reproduce blacks who are victims of this
structure. The resulting self-contempt hinders blacks’
development of their talent and ability, resulting in further
contempt for Blacks. Blacks must become aware of the vicious
circle of this hidden psychological mechanism. Although “the
eyes of others” signifies the gaze or idea of others, it is also
a part of one’s self. The relation between self and “the eyes
of others” is one's relationship to oneself. Du Bois' emphasis
on an “I” to “I” relationship is part of his logic. In his
autobiography in 1968, he notes that “I was in fact rather
desperately hanging on to my self—respect. I was not fighting
tHD dominate others; I was fighting against my own degradation”
(283) .6 He also points out the importance of “self-examination”
(2 77) . This formulation of second-sight signifies blacks’ fight

agyainst the mechanism of degradation occurring in their own

6 This passages come from Du Bois’s explaining the reason why he “did
Ilot seek white acquaintances” (Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois 283) .

31

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psychology.
Du Bois’ definitions of the eyes of others are various.

His thoughts cannot be defined aSImonochromatic consciousness.
He describes that “At these [questions], I smile, or am
interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion
may require” (Souls 4). Du Bois observes the dialogue between
whites and himself signifies whites as questioners, and blacks
as “to be questioned.” In this dialogue, Du Bois observes what
feeling the whites’ questions and “unasked question” embed.7 As
he writes that he is “interested” in the whites' questions, Du
Bois does not completely reject the whites' view. Ck1the other
hand, he states, “I answer seldonla word” when he is asked'“How
does it feel to be a problem?" (Souls 4) . Whites’ View of blacks
as “a problem” shocks hinlmost. Du Bois’ feeling is the swing
of the pendulum.between the possibility that whites understand
blacks and that they regard blacks as cause of “a problem.”8

Double consciousness illustrates another kind of problem
derived from‘“twoness”—African-Americans’ double identity. 131
the case of the second-sight argument, “merging” was the
solution. Then, what is the solution for another “twoness”

argument? The primary characteristic of the double

 

7 This relationship is related to Du Bois’ definition that “America
has too much to teach the world and Africa” (Souls 5). As for the
interrelation of “twoness,” I will discuss later.

° Du Bois problematizes whites' tendency to regard blacks as cause
of the social problem. He argues that blacks are victims of American society.

32

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consciousness concept which Du Bois signifies is “one ever feels
his twoness.” Du Bois describes “an American, a Negro; two souls,
two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in
one dark body,” as the content of the “twoness.” Among these
several forms of “twoness,” the first indication is that a black
is “an American, a Negro.” That means that one has two
citizenships (identities) or a single double identity.9
Keith Byerman argues that Du Bois’ accounts of “twoness”
implies “a cultural and political situation of marginality in
which the problem is not lack but excess of self” (15) . Byerman
further argues that “Blacks in this case are not nothing, but
two things, both of which are coherent and meaningful” (15) . His
interpretation is that Du Bois problematizes the “excess of
self,” at the same time affirming the advantage of having this
excess. In 1897, Du Bois revealed blacks’ dilemma in defining
their own identities in his article “Conservation of Races”

(1897):

Here, then is the dilemma, and it is a puzzling one,
I admit. No Negro who has given earnest thought to the
situation of his people in America has failed, at some

time in life, to find himself at these crossroads; has

 

9 Keith E. Byerman interprets that Du Bois “places blacks in the context
of cultures, not races or nations, and gives them equal status in this
context” and that it is vague if Du Bois intends the term, double
consciousness “metaphorically as a cultural conditions” or not (15). The
present study regards the concept as a political slogan, and includes the
concept in the context of races.

33

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failed to ask himself at some time: What, after all,
am I? Am I an American or am I a Negro? Can I be both?
Or is it my duty to cease to be a Negro as soon as
possible and be an American? (The Oxford Du Bois Reader
23).

Some researchers agree that this question has been a traditional
question among black writers.lo

As several researchers point out, Du Bois did not determine
which is the “truer and better” self. 11 Furthermore, this
twoness argument results in some of‘“the end of strivings”-“to
be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death
and isolation. . .” (Souls 5).

Du Bois lamented the difficulty of having twoness saying
that there were “two warring ideals in one dark body, whose
dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”” In
thinking about Du Bois’ twoness concept, we should pay attention
to his view on black and white relations. Du Bois emphasizes
the polar nature of blacks and whites. In his essay,

“Conservation of Races,” he categorized the two races as “the

 

1° For example, William Cosgrove argues that modern writers such as Imamu
Baraka, Ralph Ellison, and Malcolm X have tried “to answer the same question:
What is the place of the black writer, and black man, in American society?
The two alternatives open to the black artists are clear: he can be either
an “invisible man” because he is black, or a “native son” because he is
American” (“Modern Black Writers” 120).

n For example, William Cosgrove argues that “A divided self-and no clear
indication which is the better and truer self” in Du Bois' defining double
consciousness (“Modern Black Writers” 120).

‘2 Dickson D. Bruce. , Jr. , argues that “Du Bois referred most importantly
to an internal conflict in the African America individual between what was
“African” and what was “American" (301) .

34

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two most extreme types of the world's races,” whose encounter
is “not only of intense and living interest to us, but forms an
epoch in the history of mankind” (The Oxford Du Bois Reader
20).13 In this passage, the polarity is the cause that tears
two races or two kinds of selves in blacks. In other ways, Du
Bois shows the twoness as “the two worlds within and udthout
the Veil” and stress environmental differences (Souls 1) . David
W. iBlight and .Robert Gooding-Williams argue that. “double
consciousness” and “the veil” are the metaphors which portray
“a two-dimensional pattern of estrangement that shaped the lives
of black Americans in the age of Jim Crow” (11).

In signifying this two world-ness, Du Bois situates himself
as someone who can go back and forth between white and black
worlds. And, in writing Souls, he declares that he situates
himself inside the veil, “raising it that you may view faintly
its deeper recesses,—the meaning of its religion, the passion
of its human sorrow, and the struggle of its greater souls”
(Souls 1).

Du Bois’ emphasis on the vast difference between inside and
outside the veil still continues, not only in regard to aim, but
also in relation to duty, class, and words. He calls this

dichotomy “double lives”:

 

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The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are
changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate,
not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar
wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and
bewilderment. Such a double life, with double thoughts,
double duties, and double social classes, must give rise
to double words and double ideals, and tempt the mind
to pretence or to revolt, to hypocrisy or to radicalism
(Souls 164).

In this sense, Du Bois had two selves: one in the neighborhood
in Great Barrington and the other in the South, the white
supremacist society. Also, two selves signify Du Bois and
white racism in his neighborhood. Fanon also had two selves:
one in a neighborhood in Martinique and the other in France, the
white world. Du Bois defined blacks’ lives inside and outside
of the veil as “double lives” each changing at a “different
speed” and “time period” (Souls 256).

This model emphasizes the vast difference of the
environment between the inside and the outside of the veil. The
difficulty for blacks and whites to go back and forth between
these two sites supports Du Bois' theory that in American society
blacks and whites are extremes. Two citizenships contradict
each other, creating the difficulty of being both blacks and
Americans (or citizens in white society). In this sense, the
double selves of Du Bois and Fanon exemplify this model,

illustrating the discourse of double consciousness in which

36

 

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blacks want to be both blacks and citizens of the nation.

The disadvantage of the polarity of whiteness and blackness
tears black consciousness apart. Du Bois emphasis on the
contradictory or opposite character of this dichotomy is shown
in his defining double consciousness as “two unreconciled
strivings,” or “two‘warring ideals” (Souls 6).14 He argues that
the doubleness of the black aims weakens the power of blacks.
Du Bois referred to this negative effect of having twoness as
the “waste of double aims,” “the contradiction of double aims,"
and “the double-aimed struggle of the black artisans” (Souls 6) .

This “waste of double aims” argument derives from the
America/Black twoness issue. Du Bois brings up this issue to
deny the discourses of the black inferiority myth. He
deconstructs the structure in which the public image of blacks
as “absence of power” were created (Souls 6). In doing this,
he emphasizes how large the blacks' disadvantage of having this
twoness was.

As noted above, at the beginning of the introduction of the

concept of double consciousness Du Bois emphasizes the

 

“ Manning Marable interprets the “twoness” as “opposite" (Black
Leadership 43). Dickson D. Bruce Jr., argues that Du Bois’ formulated the
concept of double consciousness draws from European Romanticism, American
Transcendentalism, and psychology. Bruce refers to historian Arnold
Rampersad's interpretation that the term “double consciousness" was
originally a medical term, especially used to cases of “split
personality”(301). Bruce argues that “In the classic cases of double
consciousness, the dual personalities were not just different from each other
but were inevitably in opposition” (301).

37

 

 

 

 

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disadvantage of having double identities because these two have
different ideals and aims. Blacks have a difficult time in
fulfilling these contradictory needs. If blacks choose to
remain within the black community, they will lose both job and
money, and if they try to be in the white society, and “to be
a co-worker in the kingdom of culture,” they are isolated from
both white and black society. That he calls black and white
“the extremes” (ABC'of Color 45) or “the opposites” also shows
the difficulty of fulfilling “the double aims” (Souls 28).
Geneva Smitherman calls this “ambivalence among blacks” in Du
Bois’ double consciousness “the ‘push-pull’ syndrome in Black
America”—“pushing toward White American culture while
simultaneously pulling away from it” (Talkin and Tbstifyin
10-11).

As researchers onlhiBois’ race concept, Shamoon Zamir and
David W. Blight argue that the double consciousness concept as
a symbol of plight derives from blacks' contradictory ideals,
and is the focus of Du Bois' term “double aims” (Zamir 34; Blight
45). Du Bois brings up the “waste of double aims” argument to

deny the discourse of the black inferiority myth.

Here in America, in the few days since Emancipation, the
black man's turning hither and thither in hesitant and
doubtful striving has often made his very strength to
lose effectiveness, to seem like absence of power, like

38

 

 

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weakness. And yet it is not weakness,—it is the

contradiction of double aims (Souls 6).

A key passage follows in which Du Bois identifies the depth

of the chasm between whites and blacks:

The would-be black savant was confronted by the paradox
that the knowledge his people needed was a twice-told
tale to his white neighbors, while the knowledge which
would teach the white world was Greek to his own flesh
and blood (Souls 6).

The passage outlines the core message in Du Bois' concept of
double consciousnsess: that each had knowledge the other needed
but neither was willing or able to communicate. The passage
signifies Du Bois’ rejection of the inferiority myth by
attributing knowledge to blacks as well as whites . “The paradox”
that “the would-be black savant” experience is knowledge without
the ability to communicate it.

As a negative aspect of blacks' twoness or double
consciousness, Du Bois explains the dilemma of those who
confront their difficulties of fulfilling ideals as both blacks
and American citizens. Since the ideals of blacks and whites
ck>not.match, blacks cannot pour their power into one important
purpose and this tendency weakens blacks. Du Bois calls this

dilemma a “waste of double aims,” showing an example of a black

39

 

 

 

 

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artists’ dilemma:

The innate love of harmony and beauty that set the ruder
souls of his people a-dancing and a-singing raised but
confusion and doubt in the soul of the black artist;

for the beauty revealed to him was the soul-beauty of
a race which his larger audience despised, and he could

not articulate the message of another people (Souls 6).

He regards this dilemma as an effect of black self-esteem and
the seeming impossibilities for people to accomplish their
dreams.

Thus, knowing the difficulty of fulfilling ideals as both
blacks and as American citizens, Du Bois searches for the way
that enables blacks to have two kinds of citizenship, and some
discourses that bridge the differences of both blacks and whites
as one significant goal of blacks. If blacks find these
discourses, they can break the limitation of possibilities
imposed on them. They can open much wider opportunities to
obtain jobs and to develop their talents fully in various fields.
In other words, they can find their position in a wider society
and get wider recognition.

Du Bois' phrase, “to merge his double self into a better
and truer self,” also suggests a combination of two citizenships,
black; and. American. In ‘these assertions, he rejects the

“alternative”—choose life as a black or as an American—which has

40

 

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been imposed on blacks for a long time. He asserts that blacks
do not need to choose one fixed identity or citizenship socially,
that one can demand identity both as black and as American. Both
have merit and blacks deserve both of them. The phrase “Can I
be both?” in the “Conservation of Races” shows that being both
is a better way than choosing one identity (nationality). Du
Bois knows how cruel this alternative is for blacks. As his “end
of strivings” shows, either way, blacks suffer. So Du Bois
avoids this cruel alternative.

In this model it is not necessary to choose one fixed
perspective. One person has both perspectives and can choose
either one as needed. THUjsalso serves integration, because it
carefully avoids the amalgamation of these two identities.
Advocating the need to contain the Twoness—identity as an
American and a black-establishes “a better and truer self.” By
retaining two identities, “neither of the older selves [are]
lost.”15 This divided subject makes possible the exchange
implied by the aphorisms, “America has too much to teach the
world and Africa,” and “Negro blood has a message for the world”

suggest.16

 

”.As for the interpretation, several researchers have commented. For
example, William Cosgrove interprets Du Bois' 5 solution as “To merge the two
selves without losing the individuality of either” (120).

“ Corey K. Creekmur regards Du Bois' double-consciousness or
“two-ness" as “unequal difference” of the “African-American's internal
division” (“Telling White Lies" 157). Keith E. Byerman interprets this
condition that “Blacks in this case are not nothing, but two thing, both of

41

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In Du Bois model of black.psychology, blacks move between
two identities as fluid or can choose to be a black or an American
(or can choose a black perspective or an.American perspective)
as needed in their psychology, using code-switching to
accommodate their identities. With double consciousness blacks
cannot be both blacks and Americans at the same moment. Although
each of these identities remain distinct, the subject position
shifts between the two. This ability gives blacks the capacity
for multiple perspectives.

Thus, the “merging” of two selves does not mean a melting
of two racial identities, but a uniting of them. In other words,
Du Bois introduced the identity model which contains three
elements; blackness, whiteness (Americanness), and a subject
that comprehends the two or can be both black or white in one
body.17

As I have argued and as most researchers agree, Du Bois'
“twoness” is basically “black and American” which relates to the
dichotomy between black nationalist and integrationist. His
emphasis on retention of “African blood” relates to his life long
assertion on Pan-Africanism.18

Dickinson D. Bruce, Jr. argues, “for Du Bois the essence

of a<iistinctive African consciousness was its spirituality, a

 

which are coherent and meaningful. . .” (15) .
‘7 The last one is later called Black Americans or African Americans.

42

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spirituality based in Africa” and that “double consciousness
related particularly to Du Bois’ efforts to privilege the
spiritual in relation to the materialistic, commercial world of
white America” (301). Also, Bruce argues that Du Bois had a
“desire to develop a positive sense of racial distinctiveness
out of a distinctively African heritage” in the time when “race”
had biological connotations, especially implying black
inferiority among whites (305). He thinks that “Double
consciousness” allowed for a sense of distinctiveness that
really did entail equality, a sense of distinctiveness that did
not imply inferiority” (305).

On the other hand, we can interpret “American” as “whites .”
Du Bois wrote that in merging two identities, “He would not
bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism. . .” (Souls
5) . “Americans” directly signifies “whiteness” because Du Bois
used the verb “bleach.” Henry Louis Gates Jr. interprets Du
Bois' dichotomy as black and “white” or “whiteness”
(“Introduction of the Autobiography of Ex-Colored Man” xii) . If
it is “white,” we can limit this argument only in a black
nationalist/integrationist argument centering on a demand for
full citizenship as Americans or in “double aims” which

signifies a contradiction between duty as blacks or as American

 

m Du Bois is often called the father of Pan-Africanism.

43

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citizens. In his poetry, “Song of Smoke” (1907) , Du Bois argued
that “Souls unto me are as stars in a night,/ I whiten my black
men-I blacken my white! (55) . Here Du Bois recognizes two kinds
of selves—my “black men” and “my white” in him and assumes the
dichotomy of the double selves is “black” and “white.” Du Bois
implies two kinds of dichotomy: “black and white” and “black and
American.” .He not only pursues having two identities and
citizenship as black and.American, but also advocates the need
of having a “black” self and a “white” self in one African-
American person.19

Du Bois' twoness model has two kinds of dichotomy, and as
his wordf“the truth lies between the extremes” suggests that he
believes that “between” two identities, a solution for blacks
to survive in American society exists (ABC of Color 45).20 In
this sense, double consciousnessrxfl:only'signifiesaa“twoness”
problem or “the eyes of others” problem, but also is a
dramatization of “between-ness” of various kinds of dichotomy.
This logic, that “the truth lies between the extremes” is to
admit both the importanC£eof having two separate identities and
of his avoidance of the exclusive alternative—either black or

white.

 

‘9 When King made speech, he gathered white brains in order to know
what white audience think. In this sense, Du Bois’s assertion on the need
of having “white eyes” might suggest the need of understanding other' 5 logic.

2° Du Bois repeatedly mentions this idea. In Darkwater (1920), he
notes that “The truth lies ever between extremes” when he takes up the timing

44

 

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In Du Bois’ model how do these identities interrelate?
One possibility is that the “older selves” have a mutual effect.
In the phrases, “America has too much to teach the world and
Africa,” and “Negro blood has a message for the world,” if “the
world” contains America, “Negro blood” and America are directed
toward each other. The mutual effect of “older selves” in one
African-American’ s psychology is related to his ideal that “some
day on American soil two world races may give each to each those
characteristics both so sadly lack.” This ideal implies the two
races' complementary relationship.

At the same time we can infer that the two identities do
not direct toward each other. In Du Bois’ definition, blackness
is not directed toward America alone, but toward “the world.”21
If the “world” toward which blackness throws a message does not
contain “America,” or if Du Bois intentionally omits “America”
as the exclusive destination of “a message,” the interrelation
of two identities does not have a mutual effect. Du Bois
Carefully avoids limiting his twoness argument to a simple
mutual-effect model between blacks and Americans or blacks and
Whites.22 Then, why did Du Bois use an unbalanced juxtaposition

Of the directions of two identities? That is, Why is only America

 

 

When parents should introduce race to their children (120).

2‘ As Dickson D. Bruce Jr. says, “Negro blood has a message for the
world” was “of spiritual sense and a softening influence that black people
could bring to a cold and calculating world” (301) .

”This idea relates to his linkage of the race argument in America with

45

clearly defined to direct toward the other side, toward
“Africa” ?23
This is an expression of his resistance to white America;
it is a declaration that he distrusts America, and that he would
not appeal to America on the need for justice.24 In the final
chapter of The Souls of Black Folks, “The Sorrow Songs,” Du Bois
defines African American folksongs as “the articulate message
of the slave to the world” (Souls 207) . He says that these songs
“are the music of an unhappy people, . . .they tell of death and
suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty
wanderings and hidden ways” (Souls 207). Further, they are
“music of trouble and exile, of strife and hiding” (Souls 210).
Du Bois also thinks that “through all the sorrow of the Sorrow
Songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of
things” (Souls 213) and argues that this “hope” is “assurance
Of boundless justice in some fair world beyond” (Souls 214) .
For him, a “truer world” in which blacks should tell their
“strife” and seek “justice” is not America, but “some fair world
beyond”—outside America or that includes America in a larger
World. So his definition of “the message" of “the Negro blood”

reveals his denial of America as a “fair” place. When Du Bois

 

 

tihat in the world.

” This is one of the complexities of Du Bois's logic.

“ Also, if Du Bois assumes a white middle-class readers in writing
Souls, he threatens them with what he or other African Americans would declare
t0 the world about what white Americans do to them.

46

introduced the concept of double consciousness in 1897, he had
just finished studying in Europe and came back to the “disturbed
world” of “‘nigger’-hating America”(Autobiography 183; 184).
For Du Bois in those years, Europe looked like a better place

5 So the contrast between America and the world

than America.2
outside of America might have deepened his distrust of America.

“The Negro blood” appeals to “the world” including other
black people in America and the rest of the world about what was
going on in America, and what constituted racism at the end of
the 19th century. This is the voice with which to seek a fair
judgment of racism, which does not exist in America and blacks’
declaration of dignity is ignored. This is Du Bois' sense of
'“the message” (Souls 5). Du Bois suspected that the people in
‘the world were not aware of the realities of racism in America
éand tried to make them imagine what racism really is. In The
Zthobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois, he appeals to the reader by
nepeating the italicized “Suppose’ (183). For example, he
writes, “Suppose I have missed a Harvard scholarship?” “Suppose
tile Slater Board had then, as now, distinct ideas as to where

the education of Negroes should stop?” and ends with “Suppose

anclsuppose!”(183)

 

 

25He calls the days after returning from Europe to America “My Days of
DiSillusion” but says those days were not disappointing enough to discourage
me" (Autobiography 183) . Also, after coming back, he taught at Wilberforce
University.

47

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This juxtaposition is also related to his ideal, “large
conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic”
(Souls 11) . By avoiding limiting the older-selves dichotomy to
a mere mutual effect between blacks and whites, he emphasizes
the need to pursue larger ideals—“the greater ideals of the
American Republic" and establishing “a better and truer self”
(Souls 5). .Although Du Bois does not trust America, he trusts

6 In this passage, Du Bois

democracy, which.America advocates.2
shows a perspective in which he ignores
America.

The passage, “America has too much to teach the world and
Africa” also shows Du Bois’ stance of resisting America. His
use of “too nmch” shows Du Bois’ emphasis on America as a
problematic country. Although he uses the verb “teach," he does
110t mean to show respect for America as a teacher. Rather, he
declares that “Africa” and “the world” benefit or gain advantage
from America. This leads to his assertion that having a correct
{Herspective on America is advantageous for African Americans.
Du Bois also declares that not only “Africa” but “the world” is
tfmeobserver of “America,” and shows the sense of solidarity of
‘“Africa” and “the world” as the judges of “America” and its
racism.

The third possibility is that the “America” that “has too

48

 

 

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much to teach the world and Africa” directly relates to the
function of “the eyes of others”—prejudice against African
Americans and Africans, exploitation of them, as “the Devil” who
“strikes” blacks “that cannot strike again” and hates “the image
which their Maker stamped on a brother' 3 soul” (Du Bois: A Reader
105). What both “the eyes of others” as “the Devil” claim is
blacks’ inferiority that engender in blacks a self-hatred,
causing them to relinquish the basic rights that enable them to
fight back.

Manning Marable argues that “race is essentially a group
identity imposed on individuals by others” (Black Popular
Culture 292) . If this definition is applied to Du Bois’ model,
America’s “too much teaching” signifies the “stamp” or
imposition of a wrong image of blacks on blacks. Marable further
argues that “Blackness, or African—American identity, is much

more than race, . . . [it] is not something our oppressors forced
upon us,” that obliterated “our sense of ethnic consciousness
and pride in our heritage of resistance against racism" (Black
POpular Culture 295) . If this is true, “the message” of “the
Negro blood” is the revelation of blacks’ pride in resisting
racism and their pursuit of active independence, escaping the
dominance of “America” and its “teaching”-imposition of a bad
image of blacks on blacks themselves. It signifies rejection

0f “the eyes of others” and the necessity of striking back

49

 

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against America. Marable also defines blackness as “our culture,
history, music, art, and literature” (295) . His definition fits
with Du Bois' emphasis on the cultural heritage of Africa. So
the “message” of “the Negro blood” signifies blacks'
demonstration of pride in their cultural heritages.

All.in.all, this unbalanced.juxtaposition revealslhiBois’
positioning of “the Negro” as an advantageous one in “America.”
The function of “the Negro blood” is the crucial factor and
symbol of an active and independent perspective for African
Americans. Although he emphasizes the importance of the
“between”ness of the two,—Africans and Americans—, Du Bois
treats them as different in nature and differently directed, and
retains the unlimited possibility that these two might develop
(the possibility that a solution might be found in communication
with other countries).

Du Bois also avoids the easy alternative—either blacks or
Americans-—.27 All in all, he turns the seemingly disadvantageous
condition of having opposite ideals into possible or potential
advantage ixl which blacks can have nmltiple perspectives.
Turning a weak point into a strong one, Du Bois not only shows
the complexity of his logic, but also affirms blacks' strong

points and makes his people self-confident.

 

m Du Bois's complexity- of -race concept emerges from this idea.

50

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Du Bois argues in Chapter 1 of Souls that:

Each growing and aiding each, and all striving toward
that vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people,
the ideal of human brotherhood, gained through the
unifying ideal of Race; the ideal of fostering and
developing the traits and talents of time Negro, not in
opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather
in large conformity to the greater ideals of the
American Republic, in order that some day on American
soil two world-races, may give each to each those

characteristics both so sadly lack (Souls 12).

As for the solution of having double identity, Du Bois'
integrationist idea is shown in his rhetoric which emphasizes
the common advantage for both blacks and whites. For example,
in his “What is the Negro Problem?” (1899) , he wrote that, “ [i]t
is to the advantage of all, both black and white, that every Negro
should make the best of himself” (348). He also argued in “the
Niagara Movement” (1906) that “[t]he battle we wage is not for
ourselves alone, but for all true Americans” (31). In “The

Niagara Movement” (1906) , he also threatens white America that:

if now the world of culture bends itself towards giving
Negroes and other dark men the largest and broadest
opportunity for education and self-development, then
this contact and influence is bound to have a beneficial
effect upon the world and hasten human progress. But
if, by reason of carelessness, prejudice, greed and

injustice, the black world is to be exploited and

51

 

 

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ravished and degraded, the results must be deplorable,
if not fatal—not simply to them, but to the high
ideals of justice, freedom and culture which a thousand
years of Christian civilization have held

before Europe (The Oxford Du Bois Reader 626).

He does not aim for a mere mingling of two races. By keeping
the two races distinct categories in these passages, he aimed
to make whites treat blacks equally.

I argued that Du Bois’ illustration of African Americans'
psychology in the concept of double consciousness is a metaphor
of external social relationship, mainly'aa black and white
relationship. His solution for the African Americans' “two-
ness” problem, is “to merge his double self into a better and
truer self.” Elsewhere “a better and truer self” is related to
“the greater ideals of The American Republic” and the effort “to
merge double self into a better and truer self” is in “large
conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic”
(Souls 11).28 Rather than a melting pot of sameness, Du Bois
moves toward the conditions for a pluralistic democracy.

Bruce argues that “The meaning of African and American
selves was, or at least could be, an act of will, and Du Bois
so treated it” (307) . Keith E. Byerman argues that “It is unclear

whether Du Bois intends the term to carry the full connotation

 

u Here Du Bois talks about what kind of.rights African Americans need
such as suffrage.

52

of a pathological state or intends it metaphorically as a
cultural condition” (15) . While presenting both advantage and
disadvantage seems to be contradictory, it actually turns the
status quo into the means for a solution. In this sense, the
“double self” is not only an “American” and “Negro” dichotomy,
but also a dichotomy between blacks' “strife” to establish their
own view “true self consciousness”— and “the eyes of others”
which can be a challenge for blacks not to fall into “self-
conscious manhood.” Du Bois thinks that the “integration” of
two identities-“an American and a black,” or self and “the eyes
of others” is the solution for blacks. So, one of the definitions
of “a better and truer self” is establishment of a self freed
from the assessment of the whites.

Throughout his analysis of blacks’ psychological mechanism,
Du Bois regards blacks as victim of the “eyes of others,” and
the “American world,” and discloses the existence of power which
always tries to impose an inferiority complex on blacks or
deprive them of sound self-esteem. That is, he argues that the
public image of blacks is not their nature but whites’ creation.
One of the characteristics of Du Bois' logic in his introduction
of double consciousness is the use of the verbs “merge,”
“conform” or “weld.” Houston Baker, Jr., points out Du Bois'
role as “synthesizer” (96) . He argues that “The more interesting

part of the statement is the portion that deals with synthesis,

53

 

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the melting and welding of a wide range of ideas into a broader
and more effective whole; for it is his stand as a synthesizer
that marks Du Bois as a man of culture” (96) . That he ends with
the lines “And my soul and thy soul shall meet that day” when
“I lay this body down” in the epigraph of the final chapter “The
Sorrow Songs” represents the tendency of his discourse (Souls
204) . “The physical freedom” originally signifies African-
Americans' urgent need to be freed from slavery. But, even after
the Emancipation, freed blacks confront the possibility of being
lynched. As Du Bois' use of the word “the second slavery”
signifies, blacks were bounded by a new kind of system. Whites'
violence against blacks was legalized by the enactment of laws
represented by Black Code and Jim Crow laws at different times
by Southern States. “Political power” is another theme for
African-Americans. After the Emancipation, they had actual
political power, suffrage and civil rights, but they were
deprived of these immediately. So the name “Emancipation” and
acquisition of equality did not signify their actual freedom.

As Du Bois argued, “The power of the ballot we need in sheer
self-defense,—else what shall save us from a second slavery?”
(Souls 11), Du Bois regarded the ballot as one solution. But
this must lead to democratic possibilities. “Freedom, too, the
long—sought, we still seek,-the freedom of life and limb, the

freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire” (Souls

54

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11). Also, Du Bois argues that “Work, culture, liberty,—all
these we need, not singly but together, not successively but
together. . .” (Souls 11). His use of the word “together”
signifies simultaneous realization of blacks’ ideal and the
denial of gradualism. Simultaneity and “merging” signifying
gathering of plural different items are different. But they are
similar in terms of a synthesizing mechanism, and this denial
of gradualism is also a variation of Du Bois’ solution.

Why does Du Bois put more emphasis on “I” and “I”
relationships or one’ s View of self—image than Sartre's “I” and
“the other” relationship? As I argued before, one of the effects
of Du Bois' double consciousness, the political slogan, provides
an answer to this point. What Du Bois problematizes was the
self-degradation mechanism in African-Americans’ psychology in
America and the possibility that it would directly cause their

accommodation to the oppressed conditions. Du Bois argued that:

But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring
the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement,
and lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression
and breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate . . . we
cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of
education, since we must always cook and serve? (Souls
10).

He regards raising self-esteem as a key for uplifting the race.

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Du Bois assumes that other blacks (or non-blacks) do not know
this degradation mechanism, so he thinks that acknowledgement
of this hidden mechanism would enable blacks to sweep the
familiarized black inferiority discourse from their minds.
Trusting (or recovering) their self worth would be the starting
point for them to fight against oppression and to acquire the
full rights they deserve.

If blacks are aware of how their self-esteem.was lowered,
they can be careful about this. But Du Bois thinks that blacks
do not know this mechanism which happens in their own minds.
Without judging whether black inferiority discourse is fact or
not, they are unconsciously violated by this discourse which
“the eyes of others” represents. Du Bois tried to problematize
this mechanism in the double consciousness concept.

Du Bois argues that blacks want to be both “a Negro and an
American” “without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows”
and “without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in
his face” (Souls 5). These passages take up the relationship
between the fluid identity model of blacks between Americanness
and blackness and blacks’ economic problem. Also, in the theory
of double consciousness, these two racial identities were
defined as equal ones. In his description of “the end of
strivings,” he evokes a slogan, “to escape both death and

isolation” (Souls 5). [hlBois’ observation.of the relationship

56

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between whites and blacks in the South around 1985 in Dusk of
Dawn (1940) fits this slogan. Du Bois remembered that when
Booker T. Washington made the speech in Atlanta in 1895, many
black papers criticized Washington’ s “proposition of compromise
with the white South” (55). Du Bois wrote to the New York Age
and suggested that “here might be the basis of a real settlement
between whites and blacks in the South, if the South opened to
Negroes the doors of economic opportunity and the Negroes
co-operated with the white South in political sympathy”(55).
But disfranchisement of blacks and passing of “Jim Crow” laws
hindered this “offer” Du Bois argued (55).

In his description of “the end of strivings,” Du Bois raised
slogans such as “to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture”
(Souls 5), “to husband and use his best powers and his latent
genius,” and to accomplish “the ideal of fostering and
developing the traits and talents of the Negro . . .” (Souls 11) .
This is Du Bois’ presenting the counter discourse to the
discourse which forced African-Americans to give up exercising
their talents and ability, and to accept accommodation to an
alleged inferiority myth or whites' wish to suppress blacks
after the Emancipation. Du Bois’ plan and advocation of the
importance of higher education, the Talented Tenth, was one
representative example of his resistance against this dominant

discourse.

57

 

 
   

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Du Bois argues that: “The bright ideals of the
past, —physical freedom, political power, the training of brains
and the training of hands . .. ” and.“To be really' true, all
these ideals must be melted and welded into one” (Souls 11) . One
of the characteristicscxf[h1Bois’ logiczin his introduction of
double consciousness concept istflun:he uses the verbs “merge,”
“conform” or “weld.” As I argued so far, these similar keywords
are used as a solution for the “Negro problem.” As Du Bois
advocates the need to gather ideals of two races, here he insists
the need for “weld” these three ideals into “one.”

As I have argued, however, Du Bois emphasizes that “truth
lies between extremes,” not so much synthesis as pluralism.
Here synthesis is replaced by “betweenness,” as space where
various interpretations might happen, an; Deleuze observes

(Dialogue 45). [hlBois’ definititnlof'betweenness involves all

possibilities of communication or misunderstanding of two races.

Second, this betweenness allows shifting or fluid identity.
Black Americans have the potential for multiple perspectives,
the back and forth between dichotomies of twoness, first and

second sight, two worlds and so on.

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Chapter 2 Double Consciousness es Solution:

An.African American People's Philosophy

Herbert Aptheker stresses in 2001 that “Dr. Du Bois’ life
was dedicated to the liberation of the severely oppressed—
especially those of darker hue" (vii). As.Aptheker argues, Du
Bois' proposition directly relates to the liberation of the
“oppressed.” Du Bois folded several resolutions into the
concept of double consciousness. In this chapter, I discuss the
prescription for liberation in the concept of double
consciousness.

Du Bois' observation at the turn of the century shows his
acute sense of crisis. His need to formulate the concept of

double consciousness emerged from this sense of crisis:

Whisperings and portents came home upon the four winds:
Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts;
we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of
education, since we must always cook and serve? And the
Nation echoed and enforced this self-criticism, saying:
Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of
higher culture for half-men? Away with the black man's
ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a

race! (Souls 10)

In defining a set of conditions, Du Bois implies an active agent

'who is aware of the negative effect of “the eyes of others,”

59

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learns to manage this effect, and rejects the imposed
inferiority myth by his or her own will. He believes that this
way'of thinking—trust in self—worth—would change the reality.29
Freedom from degradation could be achieved through education
that deconstructs the mechanism of degradation, and shows it as
an important cause of black plight. That he sought for the answer
(or reason) in social psychology might be unexpected for an

0 Compared to the reality of oppressive

African American.3
economic and political conditions, a psychological emphasis
might be seen as abstract or trivial in relation to the plight
of African Americans. But the severity of conditions and the
necessity of urgent solutions required new leadership with new
awareness of how discrimintion in the North and segregation in
the South produced a dexterously hidden mechanism of self-
destruction. In “Credo" (1904), Du Bois affirms the existence
of “the Devil” who hates “the image which their Maker stamped
on a brother’s soul" (Du Bois: A Reader 105). This signifies
the whites’ unfair and artificial imposition of the wrong image
of blacks. “Thus, in order to.acquire rights, African-Americans

would first of all need to develop self-respect.

In this sense, his illustration of the degradation

 

2’ He explains about this purpose in the Forethought that “thus have
come to the central problem of training men for life, his purpose of writing
this book is to educate blacks as their leader (Souls l).

” Dickson D. Bruce Jr., argues that “Du Bois’s use of the idea of
double consciousness to characterize issues of race was provocative and

60

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mechanism embeds Du Bois’ message that blacks must change from
passive to active existence. To establish “true—self
consciousness” requires an escape from the passivity of being
seen, assessed, or controlled by whites' gaze, to establish an
active or independent subjectivity freed from whites' gaze.
If blacks fail to break this vicious circle, whites’

oppression will continue.

The Negro cannot stand the present reactionary tendencies
and unreasoning drawing of the color-line indefinitely
without discouragement and retrogression. And the
condition of the Negro is ever the excuse for further

discrimination (Souls 153).

As an educator, Du Bois tried to make black folks aware of whites'
discourse. He emphasizes the need of education, especially
higher education for blacks. Establishment of “self-conscious
manhood,” or pride, also suggests that blacks achieve an active
independent community within American society. In “Credo”

(1904) Du Bois links black pride and self:

I believe in Pride of race and lineage and self: in pride
of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in
pride of lineage so great as to despise no man’s father;
in pride of race so chivalrous as neither to offer bastardy
to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing that

 

unanticipated” (299). But he does not specify psychology.

61

 

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men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not
brothers in law (105)

The second-sight function is an internalization of this thought.

Thus, in his passage, “Pride of race and lineage and self” that

would “scorn injustice to other selves” means “true-self
consciousness” that rejects or is free from the contempt,

ignorance and devastating" power“ of ‘“the eyes of others
(whites).” In other words, self-esteem relates to denial of
the “injustice to other selves”—whites' violation, exploitation,
and contempt for blacks. Blacks achieve a superior moral and
psychological position in scorning injustice.

But, in a strict sense, Du Bois does not limit what
“injustice" means. “Credo” shows the possibility in which
“injustice” implies not only “white gaze” and the issue of the
“deprivation of blacks' pride” but also various kinds of
violation of blacks. If the white gaze signifies a violation
of blacks, tflua definition of “true-consciousness" will be
broadened into self-realization. Du Bois writes of the need for
self-realization in Souls. When human oppression is added to
the trials and hardships of nature, the oppressed have three

possible reactions:

A feeling of revolt and revenge; an attempt to adjust all
thought and action to the will of the greater group; or,

finally, a determined effort at self—realization and self-

62

 

 

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development despite environing opinion. 'The influence of
all of these attitudes at various times can be traced in
the history of the American Negro, and in the evolution

of his successive leaders (Souls 40).
He also mentions in “What is the Negro Problem?” (1899):

For the accomplishment of this the Negro has a right to
demand freedom for self-development, and no more aid from
without than is really helpful for furthering that
development (The Oxford Du Bois Reader 349).

As these passages indicate, Du Bois’ “true self-consciousness”
enables an active attitude designed to achieve the “self-
realization” that overcomes social pressure or oppression.
Even though blacks may change, they remain victims of
American societgn In Souls, he argues that “The other class of
Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington” knows that
“relentless color-prejudice is more often a cause than a result
of the Negro's degradation” (Souls 45-6).31 In order to bring
about social justice both whites and blacks must change. The

following passages in Souls indentifies the problem:

It is not enough for the Negroes to declare that color-
prejudice is the sole cause of their social condition, nor
for the white South to reply that their social condition
is the main cause of prejudice. They both act as reciprocal

cause and effect, and a change in neither alone will bring

 

” Du Bois regarded Booker T. Washington's policy as an affirmation
of the whites’ imposition of inferiority myth of blacks.

63

 

 

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the desired effect. Both must change, or neither can

improve to any great extent (Souls 152-153).

Du Bois wanted blacks to be confident of themselves as they were.
Saying that African Americans “come even now not altogether
empty-handed” is a kind of modest toast to African—Americans
(Souls 5). In later writings Du Bois discusses black
contributions to American culture, particularly in creative
arts such as music. At the same time he argues that blacks need
to improve themselves. Blacks need to eliminate “immorality,
crime and laziness” that remained as a reaction to slavery (The
Oxford Du Bois Reader 348-349). This view of the weakness of
the younger generation can be seen as a stimulous to know the
mechanism for the degradation of self—images. Blacks need to
raise their self-esteem to reject the inferiority myth and work
hard to uplift their status in the society. He says, “[i]t is
the duty of the Negro to raise himself by every effort to the
standards of :modern civilization and. not to lower those
standards in any degree,” emphasizing that “the bulk of the work
of raising the Negro must be done by the Negro himself . . . (The
Oxford Du Bois Reader 348-349).

Most of the work in overcoming “the eyes of others” is
through education. Du Bois concludes Chapter 6 of Souls with

the following passages:

64

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I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the
color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where
smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From
out the caves of evening that swing between the
strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon
Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul.I‘will, and they come
all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed
with Truth, I dwell above the Veil (Souls 90).

Education yields truth. Truth and knowledge enable blacks to

transcend the veil distinction. The alternative is grim:

If, on the other hand, seized by the brutal afterthought,
we debauch the race thus caught in our talons, selfishly
sucking their blood and brains in the future as in the
past, what shall save us from national decadence? Only
that saner selfishness, which Education teaches men, can
find the rights of all in the whirl of work (Souls 76).

Charles V. Willie points out that “Du Bois’ concept linked
leadership with education in a hierarchy in which there were
teachers, and teachers of teachers” (2).

Du Bois regards “ignorance” as one of the significant
components of the problem that African-Americans confront, but
iJ1“the Training of'Negroes” (1903), he thinks that “[t]his can
be gotten rid of only by training. . . .” (The Oxford Du Bois
Reader 355). This “training” is the only solution for solving

“the Negro problem” or removing blacks’ plight.

65

 

 

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In “The Niagara Movement,” Du Bois defines education as
“the development of power and ideal. We want our children
trained as intelligent human beings should be, and we will fight
for all time against any proposal to educate black boys and girls
simply as servants and underlings, or simply for the use of other
people. They have a right to know, to think, to aspire” (33).
This agenda is clearly opposite Booker T. Washington’s
accommodationist policy. Demonstrating ea mechanism of
degradation and arguing the need to raise self-respect served
to advocate that blacks have all the opportunities available to
whites. Du Bois did not want blacks to give up this guest, or
to accommodate to any oppressive white policy.

Many researchers point out that Du Bois wrote The Souls of
Black Folks in order to counter Booker T. Washington’s
accommodationist policy inlfiafiom Slavery. He thought that if
blacks are confident, they automatically avoid “accommodation."
Thus, he needed to show how blacks' original talents or worth
was skillfully excluded from whites' discourse. Du Bois tried
to make it possible for blacks to pursue higher education,
careers, contribute to arts and letters, and obtain political
rights.

In formulating the concept of double consciousness, Du Bois

assumed several things. IMsI noted above, one of the functions

66

 

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of writing Souls was to “educate” both white and black readers.32
For him, the term “education” contains various definitions.

The core definition is to contemplate what “the strange meaning
of being black" is at the beginning of the 20th century. He also
regards teaching the importance of discovery of the self as a
black or self-development as education. The following passage
in “The Basic Fallacy” he encapsulates his philosophy on

education:

While we teach men to earn a living, that teaching is
incidental and subordinate to the larger training of
intelligence in human beings and to the largest development

of self-realization in men (ABC of Color 81).

Here Du Bois regards “development of self-realization” as more
important learning than mastering how to “earn a living.” This
idea explains well the educational functhmi of the double
consciousness concept—demonstratitwl of time degradation
mechanism. and exposure of the valleged black inferiority
discourse.

But we have to be careful with respect to this opinion.

 

n As for the Du Bois' implied reader, various opinions existed. Du
Bois declares in the Forethought that “Then, In two other chapters I have
sketched in swift outline the two worlds within and without the Veil, and
thus have come to the central problem of training men for life,” and “Leaving,
then, the world of the white man, I have stepped within the Veil, raising
it that you may view faintly its deeper recesses, -the meaning of its religion,
the passion of its human sorrow, and the struggle of its greater souls” (l) .
So from these passages, Du Bois' implied readers would be non—African
American readers. Shamoon Zamir argues that Du Bois published in Atlantic

67

 

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Du Bois never underestimated the importance of how to make a
living. 2h) fact, the goal of his twinging tn: the double
consciousness argument in Chapter 1 of Souls was to produce a
political discourse, to escape death and isolation, to be a
colleague of whites and to get opportunity. In these senses
double consciousness served practical needs. What Du Bois
emphasizes is that this seemingly abstract notion of self-
discovery is required to reach practical goals. A function of
the double consciousness concept is to provide a solution for
blacks to uplift their status or transcend their oppressed
situation” .At the same time Du Bois has aimed to educate white
readers about the “race" problem. Du Bois appeals to white
readers that they need to take the race problem seriously because
they need to understand their role in the problem. His
illustration of blacks’ psychology and other information in the
concept is prescribed for teaching all readers.

Du Bois argues that race is not biological, but a social
construction.33 Based on this philosophy, he shows the process
of blacks’ self-discovery using poetry. Although I defined
double consciousness as the “coexistence of an American and a
black in one person” before, another combination of the “twoness

of the self” is possible. Du Bois uses Arthur Symons' poetry—

 

Mbnthly whose readers are middle class whites (8).
” As for this issue, Anthony Appiah argues in detail in his “The
Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion of Race.”

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“. . .As I lie and listen, and cannot understand/The voice of
my heart in my side or the voice of the sea, /0 water, crying for
rest, is it I, is it I?”-as the epigraph of chapter 1 of the Souls
of Black Folks, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” (3) . The passage
is closely related to Du Bois’ exploration of the self/other
issue in this chapter. Based on the condition that race is a
social construction, Du Bois’ model of blacks’ original self is
one of a neutral self that does not have any racial identity.
Throughout this chapter, Du Bois outlined the history of the
African Americans’ long sufferings. According to this fact, the
voice “crying with a mournful cry,” and “unresting water” are
metaphors of African Americans. But according to the first line,
“0 water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand,” the “water”
is “the other,” and at the same time “I.” If the “I” is Du Bois
or other African Americans, in this passage, Du Bois perceives
the existence of the other self, “water,” and observes it. As
far as the subject of the Symons' poem, “I” says, “0 water, crying
for rest, is it I, is it I?” the “ I” does not have a sure
recognition of who he/she is. This suggests that “I” recognized
that he/she is “water,” African American, and at the same time
he/she has hard times believing the fact that she/he is an
African American. Here Du Bois shows the difficulty of accepting
oneself as other. In other words, time is required for blacks

to recognize that they are blacks and will suffer the difference

69

 

 

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between them and others. Du Bois’ use of this poetry in Chapter
‘lfinlpports his view that “race” is not a primary factor to
determine one's identity.

From these observations, one of the combinations of two
perspectives in double consciousness is not only black self and
white self, but also the perspective of “I” and the other “I”
that is determined as a black by social construction. If we
interpret the “eyes of others" in a broad sense, we do not need
to limit the subject of the perspective to whites. The seer's
position can be whites' gaze or a neutral self who originally
had no racial identity. Also, the “seen” position can be a black
self or the meaning of being black in American society. Du Bois'
uses of Symons' poem implies the possibilities that the Du Bois'
“twoness of the self” issue transcends the “black and white”
issue.

Du Bois persistently argues that the black inferiority
myth is the worst obstacle for blacks' uplift. In his essay,

‘“What is the Negro Problem?” (1899) he argues:

.and the greatest help for him will be not to hinder
and curtail and discourage his efforts. Against
prejudice, injustice and wrong the Negro ought to protest
energetically and continuously; but.he:must never forget
that he protests because those things hinder his own
efforts, and that those efforts are the key to his future

(349).

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Here he shows the need to eliminate prejudice and argues that
this is the starting point for acquiring various rights. As he
states in Credo (1904) , “I believe that all men, black and brown
and white, are brothers, varying through time and opportunity,
in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential
particular, and alike in soul and the possibility of infinite
development” (Du Bois: A Reader 105). This represents a firm
anti-essentialist stance.

Du Bois required “full” civil rights as an “American
citizen.” As far as African Americans do not trust the value
of their own existence or do not try to avoid the causes which
lower their self-image, they would keep accepting the oppressive
situation as an inevitable or natural thing. Du Bois started
the Niagara Movement in 1906, three years after he published the
Souls of Black Folks. His writing on the Niagara Movement
contains the direct revelation of his ideals and demands. What
he demanded in the Niagara Movement, and his article “Credo” are
closely related. Since these two were written near the time the
Soul was written, these are strong support for interpreting the

concept of double consciousness:
In the past year the work of the Negro hater has flourished
in the land. Step by step the defenders of the rights of

American citizens have retreated. The work of stealing the
black man’s ballot has progressed and the fifty and more

71

 

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representatives of stolen votes still sit in the nation's
capital . Discrimination in travel and public accommodation
has so spread that some of our weaker brethren are actually
afraid to thunder against color discrimination as such and
are simply whispering for ordinary decencies. . .Against
this the Niagara Movement eternally protests (The Oxford
Du Bois Reader 34).

In “the Niagara Movement” (1906) , he emphasized the need to get

“full” citizenship:

We will not be satisfied to take one jot or tittle less than
our full manhood rights. We claim for ourselves every
single right that belongs to a free born American,
political, civil and social; and until we get these rights
we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of
America. It is a fight for ideals, lest this, our common
fatherland, false to its founding, become in truth the land
of the Thief and the home of the Slave-A by-word and a
hissing among the nations for its sounding pretensions and

pitiful accomplishment (The Oxford Du Bois Reader 31) .

In “Credo,” Du Bois emphasizes the excellence of blacks
that “Especially do I believe in the Negro Race: in the beauty
of its genius, the sweetness of its soul, and its strength in
that meekness which shall yet inherit this turbulent earth” (1) .
Furthermore, in “Song of Smoke” (1907), Du Bois affirms the
strength of blackness and his willingness to be a black. Here
he uses the blacks' ancient history prior to whites as the reason

for the excellence of blackness:

72

I will be black as blackness can—

The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man!
For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.
(The Oxford Du Bois Reader 55)

Similarly, Du Bois repeats the same argument in Souls:

Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims
landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts

and mingled them with yours” (214).

Here Du Bois emphasized the active stance of blacks. In his
rhetoric, integration is caused from the black side. Du Bois
describes this mingling as if blacks' gift for whites. Also,
he seems to emphasize black superiority.

As for the blacks’ active mingling with whites, he further

mentions:

Nor has our gift of the spirit been merely passive.
Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and
woof of this nation,-we fought their battles, shared
their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and
generation after generation have pleaded with a
headstrong, careless people to despise not justice,
Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse.
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given
to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts
worth the giving? Is not this work and striving? Would

America have been America without her Negro people?

(Souls 215)

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Here he emphasized the “spirituality” as a strong point of
blacks, and rejects an image of blacks as outside history or
having a passive existence. He treats blacks’ active mingling
themselves with whites as a major contribution to America. Also,

he mentions in “the Song of the Smoke” (1907):

Souls unto me are as stars in a night,
I whiten my black men—I blacken my white!
(The Oxford Du Bois Reader 55)

Showing the excellence of black souls, Du Bois repeatedly
emphasizes blacks’ active effort to merge their identity into
white America. Here blacks are defined as an active existence
who can even turn blackness into whiteness and whiteness to
blackness. Du Bois emphasized how active blacks made an effort
in order to produce the new identity Du Bois emphasized. This
is also an example of blacks’ excellence or superiority over
whites.

Eric Sandquist says, “ ‘The Song of the Smoke’ (1907) looks
forward to the Caribbean negritude movement of the 19405 and
19508, and to the Black Power movement of 19605 America in its
evocation of blackness as a source of unity and Beauty” (38).

As one of the goals Du Bois raised was “to be a colleague
of whites in the realm of culture,” Du Bois did not want to

accommodate to the discourse that blacks should be artisans.

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Blacks should experience higher education and pursues jobs in
professional careers such as medicine, scholarship and law.
Blacks can contribute to arts and literature and be artists. So
he argues for the importance of growing a black elite. As his
emphasis on excellence of black music in Souls and excellence
in art suggests,“ he believes in blacks’ excellence. In
opposititnltc>Washington’s emphasis on vocational training, Du
Bois advocates the need to raise educated blacks who exercise
their talent in literature, arts, and.culture. lklthis aspect,
Du Bois also did not want to limit the possibility of deveIOpment
of African Americans.

At the same time Du Bois' issue derives from the black and
white issue to the end. His argument on the doubleness of
subjectivity is not limited to black and white relations. This
means that Du Bois' exploration of self-identity'as an African
American has 53 certain kind of Lnuversality which various
“self-other” issues such as those of other minority people in
America (or other nations) and those who confront hardships
derived from other kinds of self-other issues have.

There are various discourses about self/other; But, as I

mentioned in the previous paragraphs, in the case of Du Bois,

 

3‘ In the final chapter of Souls, The Sorrow Songs, Du Bois emphasizes
blacks' contribution to American culture. Du Bois notes that “Before each
chapter, as now printed, stands a bar of the Sorrow Songs,-some echo of
haunting melody from the only American music which welled up from black souls
in the dark past” (2).

75

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the quest for the image of the self and the quest for self-
identity of other assumed people, who also have the question,
“0 Water, crying for rest, is it I, is it I?” are based on
suffering caused by various hardships. The hardships and too
heavy burden of the reality made it difficult for them to have
the actual feeling of being “I.” In other words, the repetition
of the questioning, “is it I?” signifies the cruelty or hardness
of the meaning of being black and the difficulty with which they
must accept the harsh reality this implies.

Not only the hardness of the reality, but also the timing
of the recognition of their situation in American society made
it difficult for “I,”—Du Bois, and other people—to have actual
feelings of who they are. When Du Bois was a child, he found
that he was different from others (whites) in his Massachusetts
neighborhood. And as he writes, “And yet, being a problem is
a strange experience,—peculiar even for one who has never been
anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe” (Souls
4) . The period when he is “a problem,” and the places where he
is “a problem” are limited. In other words, he is neither “a
problem” all over the world nor in his whole life. He reserves
a certain distance from the fact that he is black, the suppressed
and the discriminated. This position supports his View that race
is not a biological fact, but a social construction.

As his phrase “the strange meaning of being black” suggests,

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his suppressed condition was something unnatural and suddenly
added to his life at a certain point. As far as this is an
addition and postnatal to his life, he will not easily receive
the fact that he is determined to be oppressed in the society.
His observation of his actual condition as a black shows that
he s ees these issues from a certain distance. His characteristic
expressions such as “peculiar” sensation (Souls 5), “the strange
meaning of being black” (1) , and “a strange experience” as being
bla ck (Souls 4), demonstrates his distanced perspective, and the
View that racial identity is something unnaturally imposed on
him -

I argued that one variation of double selves is the
dichotomy between the seer of who he/she is and the seen as the
blac: k self as a socially constructed racial identity. The seer
is considerably neutral in perspective in terms of racial
iden tity, and of all kinds of self/other aspects at the beginning
Of their lives. But as people are grown up or change their
environments, they come to realize that they are situated in
disc: riminated situations or outsiders of the society as blacks.
Thus , the dichotomy between an other seer and the “seen”—self
as a black whose identity is constructed by society, non-African
Americans’ words or behaviour toward them-indicates that race

15 1’lot biological, but a social construction.

In many ways Du Bois emphasized the importance of his

77

dis covery of difference and the unnaturalness of the definition
of zrace. Among them, one of the characteristics of Du Bois'
exp ression of this matter is represented by his use of a “shadow”
met aphor. He describes his shock that “It is in the early days
of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one,
a]. IL in a day, as it were” (Souls 4) . “Shadow” is a metaphor of
thi s incident. The following is about the very first moment in

which Du Bois perceives the existence of difference:

I remember well when the shadow swept across me.

I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England,
where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and
Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse,
something put it into the boys' and girls' heads to buy
gorgeous visiting-cards—ten. cents a package-and
exchange. 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 (Souls 4) .

Thi s passage reveals that the impact of this moment for Du Bois
was tremendous. Here the difference is imposed from the white
Side as the line “shut out from their world” represents. This
Observation in his childhood demonstrates his View of this

dif ference as something unfair based on the white sides’ one-way

deCision. This View is shown in his double consciousness concept.

78

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In his concept, “the eyes of others” is depicted as the white
side's one-way influence on blacks. Under this gaze, blacks
find it difficult to escape being passive or the victims of a
gaze. Thus, his description of this moment is an indictment of
whites’ imposition of the veil—gaze as a nonsense thing.

As he repeatedly describes in Darkwater, and in his article

“The Frank Truth,” he argues:

It is wrong to introduce the child to race consciousness
prematurely. It is dangerous to let that consciousness
grow without intelligent guidance. With every step of
dawning intelligence explanation—frank, free guiding

explanation—must come. The day will arrive when mother
must explain gently but clearly why the little girls next
door do not want to play with “niggers”; what the real
cause is of the teachers' unsympathetic attitude, and how
people may ride on the backs of street cars and the smoker
end of trains, and still be people, honest high-minded
souls. Remember, too, that in such frank explanation you
are speaking in nine cases out of ten to a good deal

clearer understanding than you think, and that the child
mind has what your tired soul may have lost faith in-
the power and the glory (Darkwater 120; ABC of color 46) .

He tries to emphasize this moment in order to recover the
unnaturalness of color distinction, that race is just a social

cons t ruct ion .

Also, Du Bois used this metaphor for his son’s birth:

Within the Veil was he born, said I; and there within

79

 

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shall he live, a Negro and a Negro's son.
I saw the shadow of the Veil as it passed
over my baby. . .(Souls 170-171).

IKBESLides the metaphor of the veil, here Du Bois predicts the
(31:1.ldfs future moment when he would discover “difference” and
tllee hardships that the difference would bring.

Du Bois grew up in New England. Less than 50 black people
lived in his town, and because of his economic situation, he did
n01: experience massive racisnlin his childhood” His travel to
thee South further made him aware of the power of racism. For
him, distinction by color of skin did not exist as the criteria
to j Udge people or divide society. His belief in the merit system
318 0 made him aware of the stupidity of the distinction by color.

Fanon’s case resembled Du Bois’ encounter with racism for
the :first time when he lived in the South. In Black Skin, White
Masks, Fanon writes how he finds that he is black in the white
World, and what it meant to be black in a white-dominated world
(24 ) . Du Bois repeatedly wrote about his findings of himself as
alDJLéack in the white world in his autobiographies. Many black
the(Durists emphasized the unnatural nature of “being black” or
the (day when they found their blackness in white society.
Douglass took this up in the 19th century, Du Bois at the

beginning of the 20th century, and Fanon in the 19505. Their

CmNTton strategy is to feature the concept of race as a social

80

con struction.

All in all, Du Bois thinks that discovery of self-the
di. 8 covery of blackness that society defines or imposed on blacks
and the social structure that lowers one's self—esteem is a
significant education. Throughout his emphasis on this
di. 5 covery, Du Bois persistently argues that the public image of
blacks is something imposed on them, and that the alleged
inferiority myth is nonsense and an artificial creation.

As for the moment in which he finds the discovery, he still

ar g ues that:

I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep
through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived
above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering

shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates
at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even
beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this
fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for,

and all their dazzling Opportunities, were theirs, not mine
(Souls 6).

DesCribing his personal experience, Du Bois argues his belief
in 1Zhe merit system. His words that “all distinction not based
on deed is devilish and not divine” in “Credo” (1904) also
articulates his assumption (Du Bois: A Reader 105). If the

metaphor of the “blue sky” is hope or a pleasant world, his use

Of this metaphor is a declaration that the normal world is his

81

surroundings (as he shows that African Americans have “greater
souls”) (Souls 4) . That he uses the comparative degree suggests
that African Americans have become better people than whites.
As a human being, he has contempt for people who have prejudice.
So in a broad sense, the “blue sky” implies the world as a place
of hope and happiness, a world where the merit system is alive
or fairness is regarded as the priority.

Du Bois could see the “blue sky” for a while even after he
knew the veil. The time when “the sky was the bluest” is when
he won over whites by his own ability (Souls 4) . Then, is “blue”
a metaphor of hope? Is it a metaphor of the moment that power
or personal ability, effort, or power overcome the hegemony of

Wh-i‘t:e supremacy? As for this blue sky metaphor, he argues:

The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all:
walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly
narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod
darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against
the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak
of blue above (Souls 5).

In the first quotation, after the moment when the sky looks
“bluest,” he says, “all this fine contempt began to fade” (Souls
4)- This means that the color “blue” signifies the condition

in which Du Bois’ belief in the merit system is fulfilled. In

the second quotation, “the streak of blue above” exists as a

82

 

 

 

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51 i ght hope which the “sons of night” look up to in their “half
hopeless” situation. If their surroundings suggest a hopeful
situation, they do not need to look up at the sky. Since they
cannot find a hope in their real world, they see the sky which
is not “this world,” but the/an “other world.” Thus, throughout
hi 8 description of conditions after his discovery of difference,
and use of the blue sky metaphor, he advocates the need of a merit
sys tem. This argument is based on his idea that color distinction
Of human beings is nonsense, and that human beings should be
judged by ability and hard work. Around the year when he wrote
Souls, he reveals his belief in the absurdity of the color
dis tinction and the importance of a merit system that “Let not
mere colour or race be a feature of distinction drawn between
Whi te and black men, regardless of worth or ability” (The Oxford
DU Bois Reader 626) .

Like Douglass, Du Bois’ idea adds to the core spirit of the
concept of double consciousness that blacks are not passive but
can be active seers or assessors of whites. Douglass' comment—
“blacks were not only seen, but assess you, whites”—is similar
to Du Bois’ rhetoric here that blacks need to deny or overcome
Whites' influence over blacks. Fifty years later, in his sppech
“I have a dream,” Martin Luther King, Jr., would argue that “I
have a dream that my four little children will one day live in

a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin

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but by the content of their character” (A Testament of Hope 85) .
One of the main bases of Du Bois’ thought in discussing race
i555311es is that all human beings are equal and derive from one

gene pool. In his “Credo” (1904), he reveals his belief:

I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations that
on earth do dwell. I believe that all men, black and brown
white, are brothers, varying through time and opportunity,
in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential
particular, and alike in soul and the possibility of

infinite development (Du Bois: A Reader 17).”

In “The Conservation of Races” (1897), he emphasizes this

bel :‘Lef:

He [The American Negro] has, consequently, been led to
deprecate and minimize race distinctions, to believe
intensely that out of one blood God created all nations,
and to speak of human brotherhood as though it were the
possibility of an already dawning to-morrow (The Oxford
Du Bois Reader 20).

SO ‘tLhe rejection.of “race distinctions” itself is necessary to
his formulation of the concept of double consciousness. Du Bois
arEJLJes that “Work, culture, liberty,-all these we need, not
Sir"lglybut together, not successively'but together. . /’(Souls

11) . Here Du Bois shows an anti-accommodationist stance, and

\

35 In his first publications in 1900, he tried to reconcile his

religious belief with the ethics of the race problem.

84

rej ects gradualism. He thinks that “Human brotherhood” is

necessary for his View of democracy.

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Chepter 3 Double Consciousness Discourse before 1897

Then came the Revolution of 1876, the suppression of the
Negro votes, the changing and shifting of ideals, and the
seeking of new lights in the great night. Douglass, in
his old age, still bravely stood for the ideals of his
early manhood,-ultimate assimilation through self-

assertion, and on no other terms (Souls 42).36

This is Du Bois' view on Frederick Douglass in The Souls of Black
Fblks. Here Du Bois recognizes Douglass as an integrationist
who emphasizes blacks’ active agency and self-assertion in the
acquisition of full rights without any.37 As I argued in Chapter
1, these were significant components of Du Bois’ formulation of
double consciousness. Other than these points, Du Bois
characterizes the core nature of Douglass' leadership as
emphasis on “self-development,” and “ultimate freedom”(Souls
42).38 Du Bois’ passage above shows the possibility in which
the discourses of Du Bois and Douglass intersect in several ways.
Also, it shows that discourses relevant to double consciousness

had existed before the time when Du Bois first introduced the

 

“ The revolution of 1876 is known as the event which determined the
white supremacyu As for Douglass' influence on Du Bois, Henry Louis Gates.
Jr. , points out that “The figure of Douglass persisted in Du Bois' imagination,
dogging his steps as the model to be emulated, as a counter force to Booker
T. Washington's theories of laissez—faire economics and laissez-faire
political accommodation.” (The Souls of Black Folks: Authoritative Text
Contexts Criticism) xvii.

n Du Bois paid attention to Douglass' emphasis on “the assertion of
the manhood rights of the Negro by himself” (Souls 42).

3" As for the “self-development,” Du Bois not only signifies the nature
of Douglass' leadership, but other leaders such as Remond, Nell, Wells-Brown
(Souls 42).

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concept in 1897.39

In this Chapter, I will examine what discourses relevant
to Du Bois’ double consciousness existed before his time, how
those functioned over time, and how forerunners participated in
or reacted to those discourses. In doing so, I also take up
double consciousness discourse in cross-cultural and gender
conflicts.

In terms of African American/race discourse, I will
examine an African American abolitionist, David. Walker’s
(1785-1830) Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) ,
an African American leader and intellectual of the 19th century,
Frederic Douglass’(1818-1895) Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass (1845) and My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) .
I also explore some slave narratives such as Harriet Jacob’s
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Bethany Veney's
The Narrative of Bethany Veney: A Slave Woman (1889) , The History
of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave Related.by.Herself (1831),
William Wells Brown’ 5 Clotel or the President’s Daughter (1853) ,
and Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written by

himself (1814). Frederick Douglass is a famous black leader,

 

’9 As I argued in Chapter 1, originally, Du Bois formulated the concept
of double consciousness based on his interpretation and observation of
history.

87

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and is often called Du Bois’ model in many respects.40 In fact,
Du Bois shows his respect for Douglass in Souls and other works
(Souls 42; Black Folk: Now and Then 123; The Philadelphia Negro
230). Also, some researchers agree that the death of Douglass
might have become one of the motives for Du Bois to raise several
slogans for blacks’ uplift.41

William Wells Brown's Clotel, a story published in 1853
about a mulatto woman who was President Thomas Jefferson' 5 child
by his slave, Currer, is the first African American novel. Joan
E. Cashin points out that this is “the first in American
literature to concentrate on slave women” ix) . Olaudah
Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano Written by himself, a story about a West African
kidnapped and bought by European slave dealers, is recognized
as “the prototype of the nineteenth-century slave narrative”
because of its rich structure (The Classic Slave Narratives xiv).
Since it was published in 1789, Equiano’s Narrative has been a
popular slave narrative and more than ten editions have been
published since his death (The Classic Slave Narratives xiv).

Mary Prince of The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian

Slave (1831) was “the first woman to publish a slave narrative”

 

“ Henry Louis Gates introduces Du Bois' eulogy of Frederick Douglass
and regards this as an evidence of Du Bois’ will to inherit Douglass' position
as a black leader (The Classic Slave Narratives xii).

“ Henry Louis Gates represents this view (The Classic Slave
Narratives xiv).

88

 

415--

 

 

(I)

(The Classic Slave Narratives xv). Gates emphasizes the

importance of Prince's narrative:

Prince’s narrative is also central to the development of
the slave narrative because she repeatedly comments upon
the differences between popular white myths or
impressions about the feelings of slaves, and the actual
feelings of the slave themselves. . .(Classic Slave

Narratives xv).

In terms of the formation of cross-cultural subjectivity,
I will take up William Apess’ works. A Native American (Pequot)
in New England, Apess “initiated and helped to lead” the Mashpee
Revolt in 1833 (xiv-xv) . Apess’ writings were published between
1829 and 1836, and with these he became “a public figure” (xiv).
I will analyze his first published work, his autobiography, A
Son of the Forest (1829, revised in 1831) , and other texts. Barry
O’Conner points out that it is surprising that Apess'
consciousness of Euro-American racism in the first third of the
nineteenth century in New England could be found in later times
such as the 605 or the 905 (On Our Own Ground xiii). Also, he
argues that “From what sources or experiences might Apess’
consciousness have come, a consciousness which anticipates so
strikingly pan-Indianism and the political sensibility
signified in the 19805 and 19905 by the termf“people of color”?

(On Our Own Ground xv) . I argued in chapter 1 that Du Bois' double

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consciousness could be applied to cross-cultural identity and
found in different periods. Examination of Apess would
demonstrate this. If so, do other peoples face the same
discourses in different times, or share some ideas or ways to
react to those discourses? What problems did Douglass, Apess,
Walker, Harriet Jacobs, and Mary Prince identify? Did their
discourses function as illustrations of double consciousness?

First of all, I will explore Du Bois’ sense of second
sight—“the eyes of others”—di5course. A5 I noted in chapter 1,
one of Du Bois’ definitions of the concept of double
consciousness is the “second—sight” function. Du Bois discloses
the psychological mechanism in which “the eyes of others”-
whites' contempt, pity, and ignorance of blacks lowers blacks’
self—esteem, deprives them of “true-self—consciousness” and
makes them accept their plight as unavoidable conditions. The
white gaze implies whites’ power over blacks, exploitation of
blacks, injustice, hostility, contempt, pity, ignorance,
oppression of blacks, and a perspective as onlookers which
regard blacks as “others .” Many writers before Du Bois perceived
the whites’ gaze-“the eyes of others”—and grappled with this
discourse in various ways.

As for the gaze as power over slaves, Douglass describes
his experience under overseers' watching him. Douglass observed

that not only slave owners' prohibitions, orders to him, but also

90

their views toward him hindered his having self-esteem. Hi5
masters’ watching him made his consciousness passive and
deprived him of active subjectivity; He cannot help regarding
himself as one only to be seen or assessed by others’ eyes—in
this case, the slave owners' or overseers’ eyes. He describes

one of his masters called “Mr. Severe”:

Mr. Severe, the overseer, used to stand by the door of
the quarter, armed with a large hickory stick and heavy
cowskin, ready to whip any one who was so unfortunate as
not.to heary or, fronlany other cause, was prevented from
being ready to start for the field at the sound of the horn

(Narrative 25).

For Douglass, the gaze of “Mr. Severe” signifies the possibility
of receiving actual violence or attack. For Douglass, being
“seen” means to be an object of actual violence. The danger
always stayed near Douglass and this condition functions as one
of Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others.” He also argues this

in his relationship to his other master, Mr. Covey:

Life, in itself, had almost become burdensome to me.
All my outward relations were against me; I must stay
here and starve, (I was already hungry), or go home to
Covey’s, and have my flesh torn to pieces, and my spirit
humbled under the cruel lash of Covey. This was the painful

alternative presented to me (Narrative 72).

91

This passage shows that the effect of Mr. Covey’s attack on
Douglass’ spirit is also one of the implications of Du Bois’
definition of “the eyes of others.” The effect of it is damaging
not only to Douglass’ body, but also to his mind. Especially,
the mechanism in which the gaze makes blacks’ minds “humbled”
in this case illustrates Du Bois' warning that the white gaze
deprives blacks’ of self—respect.

Linda Brent, the protagonist in Harriet Jacobs’ narrative,
describes gaze as oppression that deprives slaves of pride or
true-self consciousness. Brent also emphasizes the suffering
of being watched: “Alone in my cell, where no eye but God' 5 could
see um» I wept bitter tears’ (Jacobs 454). Also, Jacobs
describes the day when she and her brother went to the new
master’ 5 house: “When we entered our new home we encountered cold
looks, cold words, and cold treatment” (Jacobs 130)."2 Her
comment that “When we reached home, I went to my room, glad to
shut out the world for a while" does not directly signify her
View of the gaze problem (Jacobs 479). But the world outside
is the place where she is compelled to be an object of others’
gaze. 80 her shutting out the world signifies one way of

resisting the gaze. Brent has “a vivid recollection” that her

 

“ The sister of Jacob’s mistress had married a physician in her

neighborhood, Dr. Flint. Jacob became “the property of their little
daughter” (Jacobs 129) . Jacob’s brother, William was also purchased by the
Flints.

92

 

(I)

mistress, Mrs. Flint, offered her “the linsey-woolsey dress”
every winter: “How I hated it! It was one of the badges of
slavery” (Jacobs 131). A5 a badge of slavery, the dress
identifies Linda as a slave and her status as one of the
oppressed or “seen” in double consciousness. Nancy Prince also
shows her strong consciousness of her mistress’ power in facial

expression:

She carries power and dignity in her countenance,

and is well adapted to her station (Prince 35).

The white gaze’ s supervision and expectation of obedience
are also portrayed in Jacobs’ narrative. Linda noted the

suffering of being watched by her master, Dr. Flint, a physician:

My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I
belonged to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that
he would compel me to submit to him (Jacobs 151).

This is one form of gaze. As Jacobs describes, “He had never
punished me himself, and he would not allow any body else to
punish me,” but the master’s gaze sexually violates and
oppresses Linda’s identity (Jacobs 155).

Linda’s case signifies “the eyes of others” in terms of
sexuality, and her master also exercised gaze as actual physical

exploitation of her. She recalls the days when her master Dr.

93

Flint started to “whisper foul words in my [Linda’s] ear” “a sad
epoch in the life of a slave girl” (Jacobs 150). Linda relates
that Dr. Flint “tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles
my grandmother had instilled” and that‘“[h]e toldrmal was his
property; that I must be subject to his will in all things”
(Jacobs 150; 151) . The master' 5 oppression of Linda, compelling
her to be passive and exploited, fits the relation between Du
Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others” and black self in double
consciousness.

Mr. Flint’s gaze produces another kind of gaze upon Linda.
Mrs. Flint who is aware of her husband' 5 sexual interest in Linda

starts watching her. Jacobs reveals Linda’s observation:

I was an object of her jealously, and, consequently, of
her hatred; and I knew I could not expect kindness or
confidence from her under the circumstances in which I was
placed” (Jacobs 157).

Linda considers that the seer and seen relationship between her
and Mrs. Flint does not necessarily signify Mrs. Flint’s power
over her. The following passages show that what forces Mrs.
Flint to spend “a sleepless night” is one of the products of a
particular system, slavery, which enables a white masters to

keep a female slave in one house:

She [Mrs. Flint] now took me to sleep in a room adjoining

94

 

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her own. There I was an object of her especial care,
though not of her especial comfort, for she spent many a

sleepless night to watch over me (Jacobs 157).

Mrs. Flint is also the person who is deprived of her pride by
her h 1.1 sband’s sexual gaze upon Linda. In this sense, both Linda
and Mr .5. Flint are victims of gaze-power. Linda thinks that her
mistress cannot function as “white gaze” under her husband’s

power and sympathizes with her:

She [Mrs. Flint] now tried the trick of accusing my master

of crime, in my presence, and gave my name as the author

of the accusation. . .. (Mr. Flint] replied, “I don’t
believe it; but if she did acknowledge it, you tortured
her into exposing me.” . . . It was to show me that I gained

nothing by seeking the protection of my mistress; that the
power was still all in his own hands. I pitied Mrs. Flint”

(Jacobs 158).

L i nda’ s observation of the power relationship among Mr. and Mrs.
Fl int and herself signifies the complexity of second sight and
i l l Llstrates various kinds of seer and seen relationship. Linda
SL1:‘EII‘Eered her mistress’ gaze toward her. But second-sight in
ggnder discourse makes both women oppressed in degrees,
QQD:bived of dignity and pride by male power.

Douglass claims that his masculinity was castrated by
QVS rseers’ watching him. While Du Bois advocates that blacks

eh
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manhood” as human beings, what Doulgass emphasized in his
autobiographies was his experiences of being deprived of his
self as “a man.” He thinks the fact that “the eyes of others”
(master’s or overseers’ eyes) depriving his masculinity was a
painful thing and ijscmua of the worst results of slavery.
Douglass resisted his master, “Mr. Covey.” He seized his master
hard by the throat (Prince 73). Douglass explains his

psychology:

This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my
career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers
of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own
manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and
inspired me again with a determination to be free. The
gratification afforded by the triumph was a full
compensation for whatever else might follow, even death

itself (Narrative 75).

By beating his overseer, he thinks that he recovered his identity
as a man. In the case of Jacobs’ narrative, Mrs. Flint is on
the side of white masters. But her husband' 5 sexual interaction
with a female slave deprives her of identity and pride as a white
woman. Thus, race and gender identities are constructed through
power relationships and each discourse forces each person to
play both “seer” and “seen” roles. Nancy Prince also shows
Sympathy with her mistress (Prince 235). ‘This also proves the

complexity of a seer and seen relationship.

96

But at the same time in these slave narratives, race is
emphasized as a fatal factor in determining power relationships.
The next passage removes Linda’s sympathy with her mistress.
When Mrs. Flint finds out about her husband’s relationship to
Linda, she seeks for' the fact by' digging' Linda’s

unconsciousness:

Sometimes I woke up, and found her bending over me. At other
times she whispered in my ear, as though it was her

husband who was speaking to me, and listened to hear what
I would answer. If she startled me, on such occasions, she
would glide stealthily away; and.askvuu>I was talking to.
At last, I began to be fearful for my life. It had been
often threatened, and you can imagine, better than I can
describe, what an unpleasant sensation it must produce to
wake up in the dead of night and find a jealous woman bending
over you. Terrible as this experience was, I had fears that

it would give place to one more terrible (Jacobs 157-158) .

This is also a kind of Du Bois’ sense of gaze. This gaze deprives
Linda of privacy and her space even when she is sleeping. Also,
Mrs. Flint tests Linda by asking her. One of the representative
questions Du Bois was asked was “How does it feel to be a
problem?” This exchange does not necessarily signify an
oppressor and oppressed relationship. But in Linda’s case,
asking questions means implying guilt. So “the eyes of others”
as assessor or seer discourse exists, and this relationship

itself is a humiliating one for Linda. As such, slaves’ use

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several tactics to fight against “the eyes of others” discourse.
After he escaped from slavery, Douglass wrote that slaves’
strategies to escape from slavery signifies their fight against
their slave masters' gaze and that the masters’ gaze signifies
their power itself. For example, he does not regard the strategy
of slaves’ “Upperground railroad’ as a good one because “their
open declaration” will “stimulate [the master] to greater
watchfulness, and enhance his power to capture his slave”
(Narrative 95) . Douglass’ wish, “let us not hold the light by
which he [the master] can trace the footprints of our flying
brother” and his description that “I would keep the merciless
slaveholder profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted
by the slave” shows the metaphorical relationship between sight
and mind; concealing actions from a masters' gaze of running
slaves deprives masters of their power (Narrative 95).
Douglass' accounts show that one of the double
consciousness discourses in his era is portrayed in the rancor
between the white slave masters’ attempts to grasp slaves’
intention and slaves formulating a strategy which masters would
not imagine. This corresponds to Du Bois’ view that “the eyes
of others” signifies whites’ oppressive power upon blacks and
blacks’ resistance against it. In the relationship between
slaves and slave masters, to overlook or supervise slaves itself

signifies Du Bois’ sense of gaze-power. The slave masters’ gaze

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functioned to prevent the possibilities that slaves would do
something the masters could predict.

In this sense, the deprivation of slaves’ knowledge and
privacy also functioned as gaze-power or domination over blacks.
Douglass observes how whites tried to ckmdnate slavery by
banning slaves’ education. Douglass noted that “The means of
knowing was withheld from me” (Narrative 18) . This suppression
of enlightening discourses helps enable masters to dominate
slaves. As Douglass observes, “It is the wish of most masters
within nu; knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant”
(Narrative 17) . He observed what masters concretely did in order
tx>ban slaves’ exposure to knowledge. Masters were careful to
prevent family bonds from disabling the slave market, not to
offer slaves their own personal information, to ban slaves’
questioning and learning how to read and write.‘3

Bethany Veney recollects a childhood memory in which her

 

” Douglass observed masters’ hindering slaves’ nurturing family
affection: “Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its
mother is taken from it, and hired on some farm a considerable distance off,
and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field
labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder
the development of the child' s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and
destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the
inevitable result.” Douglass did not know his own age. He describes that
“Like other slaves, I cannot tell how old I am” (Bondage 35) and how he thought
about this: “A want of information concerning my own was a source of
unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their
ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege”
(Narrative 17) . As for questioning, he mentioned that “I learned when I grew
up. that my master-and this is the case with masters generally-allowed no
questions to be put to him, by which a slave might learn his age” (Bondage
35) and that “I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning
it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and

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mistress told her that she (and other slaves) would be “burned
like fire” if she told lies. Veney later realizes that her
mistress’ lie aimed to deprive her of privacy (34) . Deprivation
of privacy secures the master’s “watchfulness,” power, and
domination over slaves. Masters needed to oversee everything.
To be seer enabled the masters to oppress or control slaves . This
is also a function of Du Bois’ sense of gaze.

Realization of the functions of gaze as the key of power
relations appeared in Jacobs’ narrative. Brent makes use of the
power of gaze-the mechanism in which seer or overlooker of others
captures power or domination over others—in order to protect
herself from her master, Mr. Flint’s, sexual exploitation
(Jacobs 7) . She remembers that “By managing to keep within sight
of people, as much as possible, during the day time, I had
hitherto succeeded in eluding my master. . .” (Jacobs 156).
Originally, Mr. Flint signifies power over Linda. But under the
public’s gaze toward him—his neighborhoods’ eye—Mr. Flint
becomes “seen.” So Linda attempted to make her neighborhood
watch as her “seer” of Mr. Flint, and turned her gazer into the
seen or assessed. Jacobs shows that Linda knows that this would
deprive her master of his power over her-hinder his sexual
harassment.

This strategy protected Linda from Mr. Flint’ s whipping her.

 

impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit” (Narrative 16) .

100

Linda observes that:

The doctor never allowed any one to whip me. The old sinner
was politic. The application of the lash might have led
to remarks that would have exposed him in the eyes of his
children and grandchildren. How often did I rejoice that
I live in a town where all the inhabitants knew each other!
(Jacobs 158)

In terms of making a gazer the gazed upon, Jacobs’ logic
resembles Douglass' . Du Bois advocated having an active
subjectivity in double consciousness. Making whites’ crimes
visible in the public eye also fits Du Bois’ sense of a “message
to the world.” The circulation of messages in Du Bois’
definition means blacks letting other people know what is going
on around them. The problem is that injustice, oppression, and
exploitation of blacks does not always happen in visible places
or situations, but often in places unseen by the public. So
Linda’s strategy to ban her master’ 5 oppression by using public
eyes signifies one kind of “message to the world”—blacks’
indictment of whites’ crimes upon them and calls for other
people' 5 help or attention to them. But, of course, if the public
is made up of oppressors, the public’s knowledge of abuse may
not help the oppressed.

Du Bois problematized the white gaze (pity, contempt and

ignorance) toward blacks as the cause of degradation of blacks’

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status, and their self-respect. Among various kinds of white
gaze, Du Bois regards whites’ disregard of blacks as one of the
worst, for negative effects on blacks.“ Walker also

problematized the disregard of blacks:

. . .have they not made provisions for the Greeks, and
Irish? Nations who have never done the least thing for
them, while we, who have enriched their country with our
blood and tears—have dug up gold and silver for them and
their children, from generation to generation, and are in
more miseries than any other people under heaven, are not
seen, but by comparatively, a handful of the American
people? (15-16)

Here Walker points out the condition in which blacks were ignored
by whites.45 Apess observed the same thing: “It involves the
rights, the interests, and the happiness of a large number of
that race which has been nearly exterminated by the neglect, the
oppression, and the cruelty of a superior number of foreign
invaders” (Indian Nullification 25).

Jacobs observes that her' mistress, Mrs. Flint, was

 

‘4 Richard Wright and Nella Larsen also take up “ignoring” problem

in their works.

‘5 Later Frantz Fanon also argues that blacks need to “appear” (Black
Skin 35). As the first step of affirmation of their rights as human beings
and citizens, escape from being ignored is an important factor. Du Bois argues
the importance of escape from being seen or assessed by whites . In this sense,
“to be seen” signifies the passive or degraded status as I have discussed.
But, in Fanon's case, and Walker’s hope “to be seen” means escape from being
ignored. So in terms of the need to escape from whites’ negative gaze toward
blacks, Du Bois, Walker, Fanon, and Douglass argue the same thing.

102

“totally deficient in energy” and “had not strength to
superintend her household affairs; but her nerves were so strong
that she could sit in her easy chair and see a woman whipped,
till the blood trickled from every stroke of the lash” (Jacobs
132-133). She also observes that “The mistress [Mrs. Flint],
who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings
towards her but those of jealousy and rage” (Jacobs 151) . This
observation also signifies the mistress’ indifference to other
people’s (blacks’) sufferings. Jacobs saw her mistress
suffering from her husband’s interest in Jacobs and observes
that “but she had no compassion for the poor victim of her
husband’ 5 perfidy. She pitied herself as a martyr” (Jacobs 157) .
Thus, Walker, Apess, and the protagonist of Jacobs’ narrative,
Linda, confront the same problem and find the need for a
solution.

The eyes of others as whites’ contemptuous eyes were lodged
in these narratives. Harriet Jacobs points out the influence

of contempt on her:

That word contempt burned me like coals of fire. I replied,
"God alone knows how I have suffered; and he, I trust, will
forgive me. If I am permitted to have my children, I intend
to be a good mother, and to live in such a manner that people

cannot treat me with contempt" (Jacobs 479).

The passage above, especially Jacobs’ use of the word “fire,”

103

shows the intensity of her pain when she receives Du Bois’ sense
of contemptuous white gaze toward her. She also shows her strong
consciousness of her master’ 5 eye, stating that “I saw that Mr.
Flint regarded me with a suspicious eye” (Jacobs 413) . She also
mentions that Mrs. Flint’s “watchful eye detected something
beneath the surface. She drew me towards her, and asked

me to sit down. She looked earnestly at me,. . .(Jacobs 413).
Dr. Flint’s “suspicious eye” and Mrs. Flint’s “watchful eye”
signify their views of Linda as having guilt, and their contempt
of her. All of these accounts prove the slaves’ strong
consciousness of their master’s eyes on them.

Apess also finds the power to impose degradation in him:
“Yes, the spirit of degradation has always been exercised toward
us poor and untaught people” (Eulogy of King Philip 308). After
preaching and attending the Conference, Apess feels that “the
spirit of prejudice is no longer an inmate:of my bosom” (Forest
51). Apess’ psychological model is similar to Du Bois’ model
of “the eyes of others” that places contempt on the black self
in their own.psychology. Apess is aware of the existence of the
oppressors’ perspective in his own psychology in a manner
similar to Du Bois’ double consciousness.

As I argued in Chapter 1, against these various kinds of
negative effect of “the eyes of others” on blacks, Du Bois

advocates the importance of the removal of the influence of

104

 

 

 

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others’ eyes. The following narratives show that Du Bois’ sense
of the dialogue between “the eyes of others” and the counter
discourse to it is found in that of the overseers and slaves.
In his letter to his old master, Thomas Auld, Douglass reveals

his idea after his escape from slavery that

The morality of the act I dispose of as follows: I am
myself; you are yourself; you [Thomas Auld]and I
[Douglass] are two distinct persons, equal persons.
What you are, I am . . . Nature does not make your existence
depend upon me, or mine to depend upon yours

(The Oxford Douglass Reader 103-104).

That masters “depend” upon Douglass signifies the whites’
exploitation. or violation in [hi Bois’ concept of double
consciousness. That Douglass claims that he does not need his
master’s existence fits Du Bois’ rejection of the negative
influence of “the eyes of others” and establishment of
independent subjectivity. A Native American, Apess argues:
“This memorial signed by seventy-nine males and ninety-two
females, of the Plantation, represents. . . [t]hat no enlightened
or respectable Indian, wants Overseers” (Nullification 231).

In the cases of Douglass and Apess, the characteristic
logic is that the existence of masters or overseers itself denies
equality and dignity of human beings, and that their will to

reject their masters or overseers proves their intellect and

105

4

spectability or leads to their freedom. Du Bois was frustrated
:h the condition in which blacks are compelled to be seen or
sessed. He knew that blacks do not deserve this unfair
:ucture, and that their active resistance against it is
:essary in acquiring freedom. In this sense, the cases of
iglass and Apess illustrate one of the double consciousness
scourses.

Du Bois’ advocation of the need to reject “the eyes of
1ers” relates to his promotion of the need for blacks to escape
>m the enforced passivity and to establish independent and
:ive subjectivity. He believes that blacks should be masters
themselves, and that they need to establish an eye to see or
sess themselves without being influenced by others’ eyes to
am. In this sense, Douglass has the same idea. Douglass found
>loyment after he escaped from slavery and arrived in New York.
5 job was “stowing a sloop with a load of oil” (Narrative 105) .
:hough it was “new, dirty, and hard work,” he explains his
>piness, saying that “I was now my own master. It was a happy
ment, the rapture of which can be understood only by those who
re been slaves” and that “ [t]here was no Master Hugh standing
idy, the moment I earned the money, to rob me of it. . .. I

5 at work for my self and newly—married wife” (Narrative

106

105) .46

When he was under slavery, he suffered deeply that he was
dominated by other people (masters or overseers) . Du Bois’ sense
of the white gaze also signifies the economic exploitation of
slaves in this case. Although his job is not a satisfactory one,
Douglass acquired subjectivity and is in control of himself. Now
it is not others but he who orders or sees himself. Thus, the
quotation above relates to Du Bois’ sense of rejection of others’
eyes, and the need to establish selfhood freed from others’
assessment or control. After he escaped from slavery, Douglass
was often “asked how I felt when I found myself in a free State”
(Narrative 99) . As Du Bois advocates the need of I to I
relationships, Douglass is trying to establish his independent
views which are not hindered by whites’ gaze or ideas imposed
on him.

Du Bois’ used the double consciousness concept to advocate
that African Americans should have “true-selfeconsciousness”
and should see or evaluate themselves not by whites’ “eyes,” but
by blacks’ own eyes. In this sense, Douglass’ emphasis on the
power of blacks’ “eyes” on whites as a symbol or necessary
component of blacks’ independent subjectivity'matches Du Bois’
theory on the necessity of‘“true self-consciousness.” Du Bois

argues that blacks are conscious of whites’ gaze toward them.

 

“ Master Hugh is Douglass’ past master.

107

 

 

 

As far as they do not exclude the negative influence of the white
gaze toward them (contempt, ignorance, and pity), they cannot
have self-esteem. Harriet Jacobs says, “ I argued that we [Jacobs
and her brother William] were growing older and stronger, and
that perhaps we might, before long, be allowed to hire our own
time, and then we could earn money to buy our freedom” (Jacobs
131). This passage signifies that her wish is also to escape
from enforced passivity, and to control her own life. This is
similar to Douglass’ sense of achievement in becoming his own
master.

We can regard Douglass’ experiences in his relation tolmis
master as an example of Du Bois’ definition of “second-sight.”
His master’s stealing his‘“true—self consciousness” frustrated
him deeply. The necessity of having Du Bois’ sense of “true-self
consciousness” for him and other blacks is repeatedly expressed
in Douglass’ autobiographies. Douglass wanted to escape not
only from the system of slavery, but also from being passively
seen or assessed by others. In this sense, his ultimate goal
was to have active subjectivity, autonomy, and independence.

In many parts of his three autobiographies, Douglass
emphasizes the fact that he and other slaves were not only to

be seen or assessed by their masters, but also he and other slaves

108

 

saw and assessed their owners' abilities.47 This is a
declaration that the slaves are not passive, but active in having
independent subjectivity and the ability to assess whites.
Douglass knew that reminding slavemasters of the simple fact
that slaves had “eyes” would scare them most. This reverses the
previous power relationship between slaves and masters.
Douglass also kneW'that:masters did.not think that their slaves

8

could be “seers” and observe them.4 Also, after he escaped from

slavery and became an activist of abolitionism, he sent a letter
to his former slave owner (Thomas Auld) revealing that he‘“saw”
or “assessed” him, and that he had independent and active
subjectivity and intellect as a human being. Douglass wrote

to Auld:

I know you to be a man of some intelligence, and can readily
determine the precise estimate which Ilentertain.of your
character. I may therefore indulge in language which
may seem to others indirect and ambiguous, and yet be
quite well understood by yourself (The Oxford Douglass
Reader 102).

For Douglass, this was the most effective revenge for his

‘7 For example, Douglass reveals that when his overseer, “Mr. Severe”
died, the slaves regarded his death as “the result of merciful Providence”
(Narrative 25) . Also, he shows a fact that the slaves called “Mr. Hopkins”—a
successor of “Mr. Severe”-“a good overseer” (Narrative 26) .

“ Also, in his description of his or other slaves’ observation of
their masters, he expressed slaves (blacks) as having higher intellects and
Personality than slavemasters (whites). In this aspect, Douglass' rhetoric
matChes Du Bois’ rhetoric emphasizing the superiority of blacks over whites.

109

 

 

master’s violation oflxhnimlthe past. Douglass triedtx>teach
his ex-master how painful the effect of “the eyes of others” was
on one human being.49 As Du Bois shows the effect of whites’
contemptuous views of blacks, Douglass tried to show the effect
of blacks’ contemptuous views of whites.

In Jacobs’ narrative Linda observes enui analyzes her
mistress: “but she was incapable of feeling for the condition
of shame and misery in which her unfortunate, helpless slave was
placed” (Jacobs 157). Linda judges herlnistress’s capacity and
observes that when jealous “Slaveholders’ wives feel as other
women would under similar circumstances” (Jacobs 157). Seers
of others are in danger of coming to be seen. Douglass and Jacobs
reveal this simple rule and point out the whites’ blind spot.

Douglass further'extendslfijspower‘torun:only'reverse the
seer/seen power relationship>of his master and himself, but to

exploit his new advantage. He writes to his past master that:

.I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which
to assail the system of slavery-as a means of concentrating
public attention on the system, and deepening the horror
of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men. I shall make
use of you as a means of exposing the character of the
American church and clergy—and as a means of bringing this
guilty nation, with yourself, to repentance (The Oxford

Douglass Reader 107).

 

” Douglass was freed from slavery at this point.

H0

In terms of an indictment of the injustice of slavery and
notification of it to the broader world, it signifies Du Bois’
sense of “the message for the world” discourse.

Douglass pursued having subjectivity not only as a human
being, but also as a man. He was aware that his slaveowners’
oversight deprived him of his sense of masculinity. Du Bois also
emphasizes the importance of having subjectivity'as a man. In
this sense, Du Bois’ definition of “second-sight,” and his
assertion that blacks’ should retrieve their pride relates to
blacks’ gender identity, too.

Among Du Bois’ claims for the need for blacks to stand up
and reject the negative effect of whites' views toward them, his
emphasis on the need to deny the black inferiority myth is one
of the most important issues. Du Bois argued that this is a
crucial factor in achieving full civil rights as American
citizens, basic human rights, higher education, and
opportunities. Olaudah Equiano mentions, “ Did Nature make them
inferior to their sons? And should they too have been made
slaves? Every rational mind answers, ‘No.’” (Equiano 41)
Douglass touches the same issue: “I prefer to be true to myself,
even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather
than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence” (Narrative 41-42) .

Both Du Bois and Douglass thought that removal of the black

111

 

 

inferiority myth is the most important thing. In terms of
whites’ rejection of their image of blacks as intellectual
people, the texts of Emuglass, Du Bois, and other African
Americans show the pervasiveness of the effect of “second sight”
of the double consciousness concept. Not only the “alleged
inferiority” in terms of ability, intellects, and talents in art,
but also other kinds of stereotypical images toward blacks lower
blacks’ status and their self-esteem.

Harriet Jacobs confesses how her true-self consciousness
was deprived: “I was desirous to spare my lover the insults that
had cut so deeply into my own soul” (Jacobs 370) . Olauda Equiano

also mentions the effect of slavery on blacks’ souls:

Are they treated as men? Does not slavery itself depress
the mind, and extinguish all its fire, and every noble
sentiment? But above all, what advantages do not a refined
people possess over those who are rude and uncultivated!

(Equiano 41).

Nancy Prince paid attention to the power which deprives one of
true-self consciousness: “Those who lived with their white
fathers were allowed great power over their slave mothers and
her slave children” (58) . Walker asserts the need to be master

of oneself through education:

Then we will want all the learning and talents among

ourselves, and perhaps more, to govern ourselves.-—“Every

H2

 

 

dog must have its day,” the American’s is coming to an
end (17).

He also doubted the authority of whites as blacks’ masters:

Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not
their Master as well as ours?—What right then, have we to

obey and call any other Master, but Himself?” (18).

Apess asserts that his people “want the Overseers discharged,
that they may have a chance to take care of themselves”
(Nullification 232). His idea is close to Du Bois’ sense of
“true self-consciousness,” where the “independence of thought
and action, that formed the main pillar of [whites’] character,
has been completely prostrated, and the whole moral fabric lies
in ruins” (Forest 61). Here Apess emphasizes the independent
nature of Native Americans’ identityu In the case of Douglass,
he cannot live as an “idealistic man” and the heroine in Larsen’ 5
work cannot live as an “idealistic woman” who has intellect, a
good heart, and moral sense. Thus, in the case of Douglass’
autobiographies and other African American literary texts, Du
Bois’ “double consciousness” in terms of humanity' works
differently.

I argued in Chapter 1 that Du Bois explains double
consciousness in order to raise “the end of strivings.” One of
goals is “to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture” (Souls

5) . Douglass faces the difficulty of doing this. He finds that

“3

 

whites “refused to work with me, and of course I could get no
employment” and concludes that this result comes from “the
strength of prejudice against color” (Narrative 105). Du Bois
raises the “end” as a counter discourse to this tendency
encapsulated by his word “the eyes of others” in his time.

The second goal of the “end of strivings” is “to escape both death
and isolation” that existsmiin Douglass’ ideas. [hlBois argued
one of the blacks’ dilemmas of having a double identity—being
within the black community—would deprive blacks of
opportunities, while assimilation to white society' would
isolate blacks. Douglass’ accounts demonstrates that the
dilemma existed earlier and the goal was one of the core slogans
for blacks in his time. As for the inability to get opportunities

among the black community, he mentioned,

for a time, every door seemed closed against me. .A sense
of my loneliness and helplessness crept over me, and
covered me with something bordering on despair. In the
midst of thousands of my fellowmen, and yet a perfect

stranger! (Bondage 338-339)

As Du Bois describes “having the doors of Opportunity closed
roughly in his face” is what blacks should avoid, Douglass
experiences being shut out from the “ Opportunity” after he found
freedom in the North. As for the isolation in white society,

he describes his feeling after escaping: “I was soon taught that

114

I was still in an enemy’s land. A sense of loneliness and
insecurity oppressed me sadly” (Bondage 337). He mentions his
dilemma more directly in saying “I was without home, without
friends, without work, without money, and without any definite
knowledge of which way to go, or where to look for succor,” and
“I was not only free from slavery, but I was free from home as
well” (Bondage 339; 340). He repeatedly emphasized his
loneliness of being separated from his friends, which he found
“painful beyond expression,” a “painful sensation” (Narrative
99; Bondage 333). Thus, Douglass’ experience correspondstx>Du
Bois’ illustration of the dilemma in his account of double
consciousness and outsiderness in American society.

David W. Blight points out that “Douglass demonstrated his
American nationalism, while at the same time exhibiting a strong
commitment to an antebellum form of black cultural nationalism.
This dialectical relationship between two kinds of nationalism
became a major preoccupation of virtually all antebellum black
leaders” (304) . He also points out that Douglass confronted many
a “veil” in mid-nineteenth century America, through the playing
of conflicting roles. Philip Foner agreed that Douglass was
seeking to be “an integrationist” (vi). What Blight and Foner
commonly feature is Douglass’s situation of inhabiting two
identities or worlds.

Du Bois provided the answer to the dilemma which Douglass

H5

experienced. His solution was “to be both black and American
citizens.” He advocated avoiding the alternative—being either
blacks or Americans. Du Bois argued in the Souls that blacks
have two selves—one as a black and one as a white American. When
establishing a new identity'by merging two identities, Du Bois
wants blacks to retain their “old selves”—black perspective and
white perspective as distinct perspectives. Du Bois advocates
the merit of having two kinds of perspective for blacks because
he believes that the black perspective has a “message to the
world” and the white perspective teaches blacks various things.

The discourse that “having two selves is an advantage for
blacks” is the sense of value of black leaders and existed in
Douglass’ time as a discourse. Douglass has two selves-as a
slave and a free man- or past self and present self. At the same
time he lived in two worlds or two realities. He describes that
“The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom,
were perpetually before me. It was life and death with me”
(Narrative 99). After escaping from slavery in the South,
Douglass tried to remember what he had been thinking under
slavery in order to grasp the pattern of whites’ prejudice or
Oppression of blacks. For example, in his letter to his old
master, Thomas Auld, he observes the transition from the past

self to the present self:

H6

Much of my early dislike of white persons was removed, and
their manners, habits, and customs, so entirely unlike
what I had been used to in the kitchen-quarters on the
plantations of the south, fairly charmed me, and gave
me a strong disrelish for the coarse and degrading customs
of my former condition. I therefore made an effort so to
improve my mind and deportment, as to be somewhat fitted
to the station to which I seemed almost providentially
called. The transition from degradation to
respectability was indeed great, and to get from one to
the other without carrying some marks of one’s former
condition, is truly a difficult matter (The Oxford

Douglass Reader 105).

Also, Douglass is aware of the importance of the relationship
between these selves in writing that “The relation subsisting
between my early experience and that which I am now about to
narrate, is perhaps, my best apology for adding another chapter
to this book” (Bondage 335).

In Du Bois’ double consciousness model, two selves are
separated in identity and do not melt into one. So blacks move
back and forth between two selves or perspectives as black and
as culturally white Americans. Blacks cannot have black selves
and white selves at the same time. In this sense, Douglass’ case
matches Du Bois’ model. Douglass’ past self as a slave and
present self as a free man cannot co-exist at the same time.
After escaping, the past self under slavery became “other” for

the present Douglass. But, as Du Bois argues the importance

H7

of retention of his “old self,” black self, Douglass tried to
retain his old self as a slave. Although in Du Bois’ model, two
selves were internalized in blacks’ minds, in Douglass’ case,
two selves were physically separated between the South and the
North. So he cannot move back and forth between two selves
physically. Instead, it took energy for Douglass to remember
or reconstruct his own psychology under slavery. By repeatedly
moving between his present and old self, Douglass tried to hear
what.his past self demanded,amuitx>deepen his understanding of
prejudice, slavery, and.America. Douglass’ shifting or liquid
identity illustrates a form of double consciousness . In the next
passage, Douglass shows the importance of having two

perspectives-one as a slave and one as a freeman:

It is difficult for a freeman to enter into the feelings
of such fugitives. He can not see things in the same light
with the slave, because he does not, and cannot, look from
the same point from which the slave does. . .. A.freeman
cannot understand why the slave-master’s shadow is
bigger, to the slave, than the might and majesty of a free
state. . .(Bondage 339).

Here Douglass emphasizes his advantageous nature of the
components of having two subjectivities by comparing himself to
freemen. That he can “understand” both perspectives signifies

Du Bois’ emphasis on the importance of having multiple

H8

perspectives as blacks’ advantage. Although the content of the
“two selves” are different and Douglass might not be conscious
of the importance, both Du Bois and Douglass represent the
discourse (sense of values) that having two selves are an
advantage for blacks.50
In Du Bois’ double consciousness model, two selves are

separate identities and do not melt into one. So blacks move
back and forth between two selves or perspectives as black and
white (or American). Blacks have identity as blacks and whites,
but the identities do not exist at the same moment. In this sense,
Douglass’ case matches Du Bois’ model. Douglass’ past self as
a slave and present self as a free man cannot coexist at the same
time. After escaping, the past self under slavery became “other”
for the present Douglass. Although in Du Bois’ model, the two
selves were internalized in blacks’ minds, in Douglass’ case,
the two selves were physically separated between the South and
the North, so he cannot move back and forth between two selves
physically (125). In Morrison’s Beloved, Beloved represents
Sethe’ 5 past self in the sense that she haunts the present Sethe,
and holds her infanticide up to the cruelty of slavery. In a

sense, this relationship between Beloved and Sethe after

 

5° Douglass’ past tells his present self about “slavery” and prejudice
Patterns. In Beloved, Beloved represents Sethe’ 5 past self in a sense, haunts
Present Sethe, and retells her the cruelty of slavery. In a sense, this
relationship between Beloved and Sethe after escaping represents Du Bois’
Sense of shifting subjectivity.

H9

 

 

escaping represents Du Bois’ sense of shifting subjectivity.

The third of the “end of strivings” in Du Bois’ primary
definition of double consciousness is “to husband and use his
best powers and.his latent genius” (Souls 5). [usa.solution to
fight against the eyes of others, Douglass advocates the

following things as necessary conditions:

I further stated, that, in my judgment, a tolerably well
conducted press, in the hands of persons of despised race,
by calling our the mental energies of the race itself; by
making them acquainted with their own latent powers; by
enkindling among them the hope that for them there is a
future; by developing their moral power; by combining and
reflecting their talents-would prove a most powerful
means of removing prejudice, and of awakening an interest
in them (Bondage 389).

The use of power and talent are regarded as representative
weapons by both Du Bois and Douglass. Among several kinds of
oppressive power, they regarded the black inferiority myth as
one of the massive hindrances for blacks’ uplift. I noted in
chapter 1 that Du Bois presented counter-discourses to this
discourse and included messages resisting this discourse in this
double consciousness concept. Ekawitnesses several of whites’
reactions to blacks. He observed the whites’ assumption that
blacks are inferior to whites. Also, he experiences his friends’

rejection of him in his childhood. On the other hand, in

120

Douglass’ observation, these discourses were mainly represented
in the consciously suppressive relationships between slaves and
their slave masters.

The counter discourse to these conditions is promotion of
the knowledge that the black inferiority myth is whites’
creation and imposition on blacks. In this sense, Du Bois and
other black leaders have similar ideas. For example, Douglass
was strongly impressed with his master’ 5 hesitance to teach him
how to read and write. This is the moment when he finds how the
subjugated discourse, “black inferiority myth” was formulated
(here the master tried to create blacks who cannot read), and
discovers whites did this in order to exercise power to oppresses

blacks:

I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing
difficulty—to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the
black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it
highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from
slavery to freedom” It was just what I wanted, and I got
it at a time when I the least expected it (Narrative 44).

Here Douglass ironically praised the whites’ invention of how
to make myth—“the white man’s power to enslave the black man”
'—as “a great achievement.” At the moment when he finds “the
pathway from slavery to freedom” as most slave narratives take

up “literacy” as the symbol of “freedom,” he became sure that

121

the myth is whites’ deliberate creation. In fact, when he learns
how to write and read, he felt that he had found the direct
strategy to escape (Narrative 41).

Other than the law which prohibits slaves from learning how
to read and write, slave masters used other strategies to keep
their slaves ignorant. For example, his slave master forbade

Douglass to ask questions:

I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master
concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part
of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a

restless spirit (Narrative 16).51

Douglass finds that this prohibition signifies the key to
slaves’ liberation. What whites prohibit is what they are most
afraid of. If blacks start reading, writing, and asking
questions, these actions would result in their desire to know
the truth. Once they knew what whites were doing to blacks—
the way to communicate with other slaves, or how they could
resist against whites and could escape from them-this would
damage the profitability and stability of slavery.

Whites’ tricks further gave Douglass a conviction that the
owners’ assertions that slaves lack intellect or that they are

incompetent were not factual, but whites’ self-serving creation.

 

5‘ Apess observed the same tendency in his works.

122

Du Bois advocated the rejection of the black inferiority myth
in formulating his double consciousness concept. In doing this,
his basic argument was that “race” is not a biological component,
but a social construction. A5 Du Bois recalls the day when his
white friends rejected him, Douglass emphasizes how shocking it
was for him to find his difference from other children.52
Douglass’ treatment of his childhood memory in these
autobiographies shows his intention to demonstrate the
unnaturalness or nonsense of the concept of race as a biological
fact.

The author of The Narrative of Bethany veney starts her
account with the line “Of my father I know nothing” (3) .
Douglass, Apess, and Veney all observed that they were distanced
from various means of “knowing.” Douglass directly heard his
masters’ own idea that knowledge would make slaves rebellious
or independent. He remembers that Mr. Auld forbade his wife to
teach Douglass the alphabet, and how to spell words. Mr. Auld
told his wife that “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take
an ell” and that “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself)
how to read, there would be no keeping him” (Narrative 44) .
Linda in Incidents recollects that “One day he caught me teaching

9 In Douglass’ three autobiographies, he takes up this moment
I epeatedly. But, in writing these, he gradually emphasizes the importance
Of his childhood memory. His naming of the contents show this change. And

in his third (last) autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), he
mnphasized this most.

123

myself to write. He frowned, as if he was not well pleased; but
I suppose he came to the conclusion that such an accomplishment
might help to advance his favorite scheme” (Incidents 154-155) .
Douglass remembers that “Whilst I was saddened by the thought
of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the
invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had
gained frontmy master” (Narrative 44-45). Douglass finds that
what masters hate is what slaves need.

When Douglass was a slave, abolitionism became prevalent
mostly in the North, but even in the South it was getting
popularized. Kwame Anthony .Appiah points out that “Damn
abolitionist” or “Damn the niggers” were prevalent slogans of
whites (Introduction xii). But, the more the abolitionist
movement became active, the more Southern whites attempted to
oppress slaves and other blacks (xii). They thought it effective
for them to repress the slaves’ desire to be freed, to raise their
status, or to get various rights. As far as slaves believe in
their own inferiority and lack of intellect, they would accept
their positions as slaves.

Douglass finds whites’ imposition of the myth on blacks in
his own.masters’ remarks, his orders to him, and conversations
With their family. As the law which forbade blacks to learn how

t~c> read and write was established in this period, Douglass

directly experienced this prohibition in his relation to his

124

master. Douglass values the imposition of an inferiority myth

on blacks as the major hindrance for blacks’ uplift:

I told them that perhaps the greater hinderance to the
adoption of abolition principles by the people of the
United States, was the low estimate, everywhere in that
country, placed upon the negro, as a man; that because of
his assumed natural inferiority, people reconciled
themselves to his enslavement and oppression, as things

inevitable, if not desirable (Bondage 388-389).

Douglass describes this part in the ending chapter of his third
biography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) . This is a kind of
conclusion to his observation of the prejudice patterns.
Douglass’ observation resembles Du Bois’ theory of the negative
function of second-sight. Both of them think that black
inferiority” is not fact but whites’ social construction, and
that blacks’ acceptance of this myth brings about blacks’
plight.

Harriet Jacobs reveals her analysis of blacks’ alleged

inferiority:

I admit that the black man is inferior. But what is it that
makes him so? It is the ignorance in which white men compel
him to live; it is the torturing whip that lashes manhood
out of him; it is the fierce bloodhounds of the South, and
the scarcely less cruel human bloodhounds of the north,
who enforce the Fugitive Slave Law? They do the work
(375).

125

Apess also had sensed that the inferiority image was
imposed on Native Americans, and emphasized the inevitability

of accepting this image:

We were represented as having no souls to save, or to lose,
but as partridges upon the mountains. All these degrading
titles were heaped upon us. Thus, you see, we had to bear
all this tide of degradation, while prejudice stung every

white man, from the oldest to the youngest, to the very

center of the heart (Five Christian Indians 119).

Apess was aware that this deliberate imposition of an inferior

image on Native Americans had a damaging effect:

Their spirits are debased by conscious inferiority, and
their native courage completely daunted by the superior
knowledge and power of their enlightened neighbors (Forest
61).

In this sense, Du Bois, Douglass, Jacobs and Apess observe the
same structure of whites’ strategy to oppress blacks.
Harriet Jacobs starts her autobiography with the following
lines: “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six
years of happy childhood, had passed away” (341). Apess
discovered his identityrby'his grandparents’ violent treatment

of him when he was three. In his mixed blood background—white

126

and Native American, the grandparents found white ancestry.
Apess later found it “as an effect of the theft by whites of
Native American lands, culture, and pride” (Forest 555) . Walker
found what being black meant in his journey to the South. Du
Bois also experienced the deepening meaning of being black in
his first journey to the South. Thus, Du Bois, Douglass, Walker
and Apess all experienced discovery of their identity, and
revealed how shocking it was for them. For them, discovery of
difference was portrayed as a turning point of their lives or
motive for changes of their view of the world.

After observing the power of whites and their imposed
differences, black leaders or activists launched. counter
discourses and proposed solutions. In terms of the argument
that race is a social construction, Douglass and Du Bois share
the common ground for defining race and forming slogans for
blacks’ uplift. Douglass emphasized the importance of rejection

of the black inferiority myth:

The grand thing to be done, therefore, was to change the
estimation in which the colored people of the United
States were held; to remove the prejudice which
depreciated and depressed them; to prove them worthy of
a higher consideration; to disprove their alleged
inferiority, and demonstrate their capacity for a more
exalted civilization than slavery and prejudice had

assigned to them (Bondage 389).

127

Since this passage is the ending of My Bondage, it is written
as the conclusion of Douglass’ observation of the key for
achieving equality. Thus, we can expect that this passage
encapsulates one of Douglass’ most important messages-to remove
the prejudice and raise self—esteem.

Harriet Jacobs also advocates the need to know self-worth:

Many of the slaves believe such stories, and think it is
not worthwhile to exchange slavery for such a hard kind
of freedom. It is difficult to persuade such that freedom
could make them useful men, and enable them to protect

their wives and children. . . . They would know that liberty
is more valuable than life. They would begin to understand
their own capabilities, and exert themselves to become men

and women. . .(375).

Walker expressed anti-inferiority myth in his criticism of

Jefferson:

They excelled too, in science, insomuch as to be usually
employed as tutors to their master’s children; Epictetus,
Terence and Phaedrus, were slaves, but they were

of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but
nature, which has produced the distinction.” See this, my
brethren! ! Do you believe that this assertion is swallowed
by'millions of the whites? Do you know that Mr. Jefferson
was one of as great characters as ever lived among the

whites? See his writings for the world, and public labours
for the United States of America. Do you believe that the

128

assertions of such a man, will pass away into oblivion

unobserved by this people and the world?” (17).

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., argues that “The black slave narrators
sought to indict both those who enslaved them and the
metaphysical system drawn upon to justify their enslavement.
They did so using the most enduring weapon at their disposal,
the printing press” (The Classic Slave Narratives ix). The
oppressor and ”Wine metaphysical system” 1J1 Gates’ account
function as Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others.” Gates further
argues that the slave narrators achieved dual purposes; making
their lives into “meaningful and compelling pattern[s]” and
making the narratives into “an emblem of every black person’s
potential for higher education and the desire to be free” (The
Classic Slave Narratives x). In this sense slaves’ writing
itself signifies their resistance against “the eyes of others”
and alleged inferiority myth.

Du Bois’ anti-accommodation policy in the double
consciousness concept reinvigorates the struggle against
the white discourse that “blacks should not be artists but
artisans.” Du Bois argues that the goal of blacks is “to be
colleagues of whites in the realm of culture.” In this sense,
being forced to 1x3 an. artisan represents accommodation,
acceptance of the black inability myth, and artists represent

anti-accommodation, acquisition of full human rights, high

129

status, high education, or civil rights as “Americans.” Du
Bois’ motive of introducing the concept of double consciousness
was to advocate blacks’ need to demand all rights they deserve.

Walker also confronts this need. He urges,

But let us review Mr. Jefferson’s remarks respecting us
some further: Comparing ourlniserable fathers, with the
learned philosophers of Greece, he says: “Yet not
withstanding these and other discouraging circumstances
among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest
artists” (17).

Throughout these passages, Walker reveals strong
dissatisfaction with the imposed discourse that blacks rarely
become “artists.”

Kwame Anthony Appiah argues that Douglass’ and other slave
narratives were written in order to fight against the discourse
that “Africans, people of the Negro race, were constitutionally

II 53

incapable of making contributions to arts and letters Appiah
explains that they needed to sign on their writings as “by
himself/herself” becauserthe authenticity'of their writing was
proof of their ability.

As I noted in Chapter 1, Du Bois discloses the lie of the

black inferiority myth. He thinks that if black inferiority is

 

” And Appiah shows example of the consensus of many European and
American intellectuals in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia
(Narrative xii).

130

a fact, there is no need to oppress blacks. Since the myth is
lie, whites had to exercise power. Appiah points out that
teaching slaves to write was banned by law in most parts of the
South in America, “especially after the abortive slave uprising
led by Gabriel Prossor in 1800” (Narrative xii). Appiah further
argues “This alleged inferiority in matters intellectual was one
of the main weapons in the armory of those who defended slavery,”
(Narrative xii), and some slave narratives were “part of the long
campaign for the abolition of the slave trade and or slavery”
(Narrative xi). It was written emphasizing the excellence of
rhetoric and proving blacks' high spirits in order to fight
against this black inferiority discourse.

As I noted in Chapter 1 and 2, for Du Bois, “self-esteem”
is a key for uplift. Forerunners of Du Bois also noticed the
effect of the self—degradation mechanism on their minds.
William Wells Brown observed the tendency of blacks to scorn

themselves in Clotel:

There is, in the Southern States, a great amount of
prejudice against colour amongst the Negroes themselves.
The nearer the Negro or mulatto approaches to the
white, the more he seems to feel his superiority over those
of a darker hue. This is, no doubt, the result of the
prejudice that exists on the part of the whites towards
both mulattoes and blacks (Brown 129).

131

Brown’ 5 view problematizes blacks’ having Du Bois’ sense of “the
eyes of others” toward their own race. Since Brown observes that
blacks in the South preferred lighter skin, their discrimination
against other African Americans is a product of white gaze toward
blacks—Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others.”

Harriet Jacobs advocates “self—respect” under slavery as

a means of resistance:

I wanted to keep myself pure; and, under the most adverse
circumstances, I tried hard to preserve my self-respect;
but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the

demon slavery (Jacobs 354).

That she writes “the most adverse” or “demon slavery” emphasizes

the difficulty of retaining self-respect and that self-respect
is her primary value even under harsh conditions. What she tries
to do is to overcome “the eyes of others” as actual oppression

by having self-respect. Jacobs further argues:

To my grandmother, I expressed a wish to have my children
sent to me at the north, where I could teach them to respect

themselves, and set them a virtuous example (Jacobs 449) .

This self-respect argument relates to the vicious circle Du
Bois’ warns of in illustrating double consciousness. As Du Bois
argued, Douglass advocates the importance of mental energy for

uplift: “calling out the mental energies of the race itself” is

132

necessary for “removing prejudice and awakening an interest in
them” (Bondage 389).

Du Bois was not interested in each code, law, or institution.
For him, these are just transparent containers. What he was
interested in was the thought, discourse, and assumption in
society, which the container represented, and.he believes that
these unseen discourses have certain powers to oppress blacks.
The biggest difference in the conditions experienced by Du Bois
and Douglass is that Douglass experiences slavery and Du Bois
was born after the Emancipation and observed blacks' conditions
in the so-called “second-slavery” (postbellum) period. Both of
them are strongly conscious of the existence of the unseen power
of whites' oppressive discourse on blacks.

After Douglass escaped from slavery, he analyzed what made
the “old master” violent in his treatment of Douglass’ cousin
and decided that “I think I now understand it. This treatment
is a part of the system, rather than a part of the man” (Bondage
83) . As far as slavery exists as a system, it exercises
particular power which mere individuals cannot have. Douglass
further paid attention to the power which circulates through the
system. He observes what changed the “heavenly smiles” of his
mistress: “That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery,
soon became red with rage. . .” (Narrative 43-44). Harriet

Jacobs also observed the negative influence of the slavery-

133

system on blacks in her accounts of’a “slave mother”: “She may
be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has
brutalized her from childhood” (Jacobs 351). The power of
slavery “makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons
violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and

makes the wives wretched” (Jacobs 383). Douglass, Jacobs,
Williaanells Brown (in Clotel), Olaudah take up similar views
on the particular power or influence of slavery on slaves and
mistress by using the word “system.” David Walker also perceives
the unseen power oppressing blacks, and advocates the need to

analyze what it is:

But against all accusations which may or can be preferred
against me, I appeal to Heaven for my motive in writing-who
knows that my object is, if possible, to awaken in the
breasts of my afflicted, degraded and slumbering
brethren, a spirit of inquiry and investigation
respecting our miseries and wretchedness in this
Republican Land of Liberty!!!!!!!” (5).

What these leaders and intellectuals found necessary for blacks
was discovery of the power of discourses circulating through
slavery and its aftermath. These discourses were embedded in
daily lives in subtle ways. They discovered that deconstruction
of this discourse which blacks in general had not done was their

primary duty as spokespersons.

134

Du Bois’ sense of the need for being critically active is
found in forerunners’ writings. Linda in Jacobs’ narrative
warns whites that “I can testify, from my own experience and
observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well to
the blacks” (Jacobs 383).

Du Bois’ discourse of “the message for the world” discourse
is found in the narratives before his time. Linda Brent’s use
of “Reader” signifies her intention to identify the injustice
and oppression that she experiences for the readers and the
broader world.54 Also, it signifies her wish to provoke the
readers’ understanding of her plight and assertions. Native
American, William Apess describes that “My people have had no
press to record their sufferings or to make known their
grievances. . .” and that “I merely relate this circumstance,
without any embellishment or exaggeration, to show the reader
how we were treated” (Forest 60;.5). David Walker emphasizes
that he writes from inside the system of slavery by writing that
“But it is time forrmatx>close my remarks on the suburbs, just
to enter more fully into the interior of this systeuxof cruelty
and oppression” (8) and that “I am one of the oppressed, degraded
and.wretched sons of Africa, rendered so by the avaricious and

unmerciful among the whites” (74-75). Douglass’s account is

 

“ But the use of “the reader” signifies one of the archetypes of the
literary tradition of slave narratives . So it does not signify Jacobs’ unique
way.

135

vivid enough about what is going on in the inside of slavery that
“ [t]he reader will easily imagine what must have been my
feelings” (Bondage 391). Du Bois says he has “stepped within
the Veil, raising it that you may view faintly its deeper
recesses” and tried tormfluathe readers “Suppose and suppose!”
what experiencing racism is like (Souls 1-2) . These forerunners
assume that people outside their community or system do not know
the reality of injustice and oppression that they experience.
In anticipating Du Bois’ “the message for the world” discourse
they emphasize that they wrote from the insider’s view and the
need to notify the world of their experiences.

Du Bois’ sense of double consciousness and Douglass’ and
others’ sense of the concept in terms of gender. Douglass’ and
other texts demonstrate that not only human dignity, but also
dignity as a man and a woman, is the significant component of
“true-consciousness” or “true self-manhood.” Basic human rights
and living one’s life as idealistic:man.or woman are related to
each other. Inability to get satisfactory gender identity is

one cause of human tragedy.

136

Chapter 4

Historical Contexts: Conditions for 3 Counter Discourse

The year Du Bois first introduced the concept, double
cc>rlsciousness, was 1897.55 Later in autobiographical Dusk of
.Daatvn (1940), he called the years from 1885 to 1894 “a day of
er<agress with a capital P” (26).56 Also, he recollected that
the Souls was “a cry at midnight thick within the veil, when none
rightly knew the coming day” in terms of resolving race problems
(LDtuflc1J.57 Du Bois’s View signifies the contrast between the
{Dlnight of blacks and the coming of age of America. Events at
tiles end of the nineteenth century produced discourses that Du
Bois’ s concept of double consciousness intersects. What
(iisscourses did the background in the late nineteenth century
give Du Bois in formulating his concept? Did Du Bois’ concept
Sha re any values and fragments of ideas in Du Bois’ concept found

in other contemporary thinkers’ works? The concept of double

 

 

55It appeared as an article entitled “The Strivings of the Negro
Pec>Ii>le” in Atlantic Monthly (August,1897), and later the article was
published as Chapter 1 of his book, The Souls of Black Folks (A.C. McClurg
3nd Company, April 1903) (D. W. Blight and R. Gooding-Williams,
Introduction” 1) .

“ For Du Bois, “progress” implies population increase, development
of Cities, transportation, invention, commerce, and expansion of colonies
(DUSk 26).

m D. W. Blight and R. Gooding-Williams argue that the Souls was Du
3018's “poignant but often biting dissent from the racist and nationalist
ldeOlogies animating post-Reconstruction political culture” (1) . Also, they
argued that Du Bois’s aim in writing the Souls was “to explore the strange
meaning of being black in a society that viewed blacks with contempt” (l) .

137

consciousness is an intersection of various discourses, and the
concept shows some relation to other discourses existing around
the period. Du Bois, however, shaped the concept into compact
form and adapted it to the crisis of democracy in a pluralistic
society. In this sense, the double-consciousness concept is a
powerful one that helps to explain a broad range of social
relations.

Du Bois presented counter discourses to several oppressive
discourses prevalent while conceptualizing double
consciousness. In this sense, the concept functions as a source
of discourses for uplifting black people, so it will be helpful
to know what discourses the concept reacted to and how double
consciousness constructs a counter-discourse to the existing
social hegemony. In the introduction of Souls of Black Folks
(1903) , Du Bois declared that he would write about “the strange
meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth
Century” (Souls 1) and presented a question: “What was then
called the Negro problem?” (Souls 2) He also presented the
famous line, “The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem
of the color-line” (Souls 1). What was the meaning of being
black around 1903 in America? What were the most important
events?‘ The nineteenth century marked a significant change in
social relations the intellectual climate of the U.S.

In this chapter, I examine the historical and intellectual

138

context and discourses around the year 1903 that paved the way
for Du Bois’ publishing The Souls of Black Folks. I look at
several discourses that existed during the era and discuss how
Du Bois’ s concept addressed issues of democracy in a pluralistic
archive of interests. During this time, as later, discourses
and events were interrelated with each other. The complexity
of relations between multiple discourses, shown in Du Bois’s
concept, help explain the complexity of his concept of double
consciousness. I find that the complexity of relations between
multiple discourses helps to explain the complexity of Du Bois’
thought.

The End of the Civil War became the significant point for
tremendous changes in all aspects of society. Above all, the
United States underwent. an enormous development of
industrialization. As a result of the Victory of the North,
industrial capital started to dominate the nation, and the U.S.
became the No.1 industrial nation by the end of the nineteenth
century. Industrialization called. for a .labor force and
immigrants from Europe and the migration of blacks from the South
to the North began to form new classes in the cities . Development
of transportation and communication made possible large-scale

manufacturing and agriculture, which led to the rise of

139

corporation moguls.58 The boom of Social Darwinism justified
a laissaiz-faire economy, so the competition among people and
businesses in capitalist society came to characterize the turn
of the century. The conservative concept Social Darwinism
helped to justify white supremacy and to help blacks at the
bottom of the economy.

Respect for wealth dominated the nation during this time
that Mark Twain called “The Gilded Age.” Plutocracy and
political corruption characterized the era, and.Du Bois wrote,
“Wealth was god” (Dusk 26). In the rise of big corporations,
a monopoly called “trust” began to be formed.59 The public
started to attack industrial leaders for the corruption of

politics and the exploiting of labor (Cashman 356). They also

 

58P. N. Carroll and D. W. Noble note that
The rapid westward expansion of the railroads ironically provided the
economic conditions for the expansion of the number of farms from about
2,000,000 in 1860 to almost 6,000,000 in 1900 and a comparable increase in
the land under cultivation from about 150,000,000 acres to almost
400,000,000” (269).

They also point out that “By 1900, the value of industrial products
surpassed those of agriculture for the first time. It was possible for
5,000,000 factory workers to produce goods worth $11,500,000,000 while
11,000,000 farm workers produced goods worth $8,500,000 (271).

59S. D. Cashman considers that “monopolies, popularly called ‘the
trusts’” was “the most important political issue” at the turn of the century
(354). He also refers to the estimate of C. B. Spaur that one percent of
the population owned more than half of the total national wealth. In 1898
the total value of all corporations individually worth $1 million or more
was $170 million. In 1900 the total value was $5 billion. When Andrew
Carnegie sold out to the Houserof Morgan in 1901 the bonds and stocks issued
by Morgan for the United States Steel Corporation were valued at $1 . 4 billion.
At this time the average annual wage was between $400 and $500 (annually)
(354—356).

As for Rockfeller’s monopoly, P. N. Carroll and D. W. Noble note that
“By 1880, the superior size and organization of his militant company made
it possible for him to control 90 percent of oil refining in the nation” (261) .

140

suppressed competition and surplus production.

On the other hand, in the South the Thirteenth Amendment
abolished slavery after the surrender of the South in the Civil
War, and Reconstruction of the South was the theme of the nation.
Black people were literally freed, and enfranchised, and offered
civil rights once, but they were deprived of their rights almost
immediately (Franklin 344) . As a result, they neither got real
freedom nor rights. Although the Freedmen’s Bureau saved some
aspects of the lives of blacks, such as education, whites
resisted even the establishment of the Bureau.

The fact that blacks could not get land made them suffer

and even made some of their economic conditions worse than the

time of slavery because they did not have the means to survive.60

No attempt was made by the government to enable their economic
independence. The antipathy of Southern whites to the rise of
black people brought a new kind of oppression—represented by Jim
Crow Laws, Black Codes, and the Ku Klux Klan. Originally, the
North advocated the equality of blacks and whites, aiming to
suppress the power of the white Southerners. Once it became
unnecessary to suppress white Southern rebellion, however, they

lost interest in the serious Reconstruction of the South.

 

60Thomas T. Lewis argued that after the abolishment of slavery in 1865,
“almost all freed blacks were without property or education” (The Civil
Rights Movement 129) .

141

Several reforms in the Reconstruction era broke down. As a
result, new discourses and practices of discrimination emerged.

In terms of the relationship between blacks and whites,
Reconstruction at the turn of the century collapsed and whites
feared the influx of potential black workers who would compete
in labor markets. For example, migrated blacks were oppressed
by white workers in urban areas, and were forced to become a
low-paid labor force. This created blacks as an underclass, and
impeded their rise to middle and upper classes. In terms of
education, industrialization increasingly required.aa labor
force schooling and.practical training; .Already excluded from
Traditions guilds, this tendency limited the access of blacks
to specified skills and deprived them of the possibility of
acquiring expensive higher education and becoming specialized
intellectuals and professionals. The United States failed to
integrate blacks and whites even after the Emancipation, and it
took another 50 years for blacks to get Civil Rights in the 19605.

An African-American historian, John Hope Franklin and
Alfred A. Moss, Jr. argued that “Although the South, for example,
did not experience great industrial development during the war,
the North did. . .” (246) . When African-Americans stayed in the
South, they were subject to the conventions of an abusive and
resentful system of agricultural exploitation. While

development and modernization marked the late nineteenth-

142

century, conservatism represented in the rise of KKK and Jim Crow
Laws characterized the time, so that social contradictions and
complexity mark the background of the emergence of The Souls of
the Black Fblk.

As we have seen, Du Bois’ psychology of African-Americans
in his accounts of double consciousness responds to the external
reality in America. Du Bois points out the effects of “the eyes
of others” on black psychology. The “eyes” signified the gaze
of whites toward blacks—contempt, pity, and avoidance that
determined the status of blacks would be inferior or submissive.
Du Bois implied that blacks should reject this gaze and the
negative effect it had on them.

As discussed in Chapter 2, under slavery Frederick
Douglass’ experience of the gaze of his slavemasters or
overseers toward him deprived him of his “true-self
consciousness” or self-respect as a human being and as a man.
When he escaped from slavery, he realized that he could escape
from being “seen” by whites, and become “seer” of himself or
whites and “master” of himself. As for the function of “the eyes
of others,” which fixes blacks in a submissive subjectivity, Du
Bois took up the Civil War as the means. He regarded the Civil
War as a‘“determined effort to reduce black labor as nearly as
possible to a condition of unlimited exploitation and build a

new class of capitalists on this foundation” (Black

143

Reconstruction 670). As a result, “the Negro worker” was “to
be reduced to the level of bare subsistence by taxation, peonage,
caste, and every method of discrimination” (670) . Although the
Civil War was ended and slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth
Amendment, new kinds of “seer” (whites) and “seen” (blacks)
relationships emerged that were different from master and slave

relationship represented by Douglass.

DuBois argued that:

BETWEEN ME and the other world there is ever an unasked
question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy;
by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it.
All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in
a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or
compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly,

How does it feel to be a problem? (Souls 3)

The post emancipation era created the atmosphere in which people
“flutter round an unasked question.” Many historians agreed
that for whites, how to control blacks was the theme of the South,

1 The view

as well as the government, after the Emancipation.6
of blacks as “a problem” was one of Du Bois' senses of “the eyes
of others.” Thus, the relationship between the “seer,” who

regarded blacks as “problem,” and the “to be seen” who were

called a “problem” arose as a new type of dichotomy based on the

 

61Peter Noel Caroll and David W. Noble in Free and the Unfree and John
Hope Franklin in From Slavery to Freedom reveal this view.

144

“gaze” problem in double consciousness. The gaze, which sees
blacks as a “problem,” was also the power that imposed inferior
and submissive status on blacks. For example, the Compromise
of 1877 determined white supremacy and the status of African
Americans until the civil rights era in the 19605. A newly
elected President, Rutherford B. Hayes, finished efforts to
establish equality during the Reconstruction era (c1863-1877)
in the South. However in the South, Andrew Johnson’ 5 reactionary
policy (or backlash) dramatized ex-slaveowners’ demands for the
restoration of slavery and Southern whites’ resistance to
blacks’ acquisition of rights as American citizens. In fact,
as soon as suffrage and civil rights were extended to blacks
through the Fifteenth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment
after the Emancipation, these rights were taken away immediately.
These Civil Rights Acts were passed by Congress in 1875, but the
Supreme Court invalidated them in 1883. It forbade African-
Americans to go to white hotels, barber shops, restaurants, and
theaters (Franklin and Moss Jr. 290).

These sentiments of whites in the South was one of the
components of Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others”-whites’s
gaze toward blacks at that time. One of the people who read the
message of the eyes of others, was Booker T. Washington, who

argued, in effort, that blacks should accept the implications

145

of the white gaze, trusting in its ultimate good faith.62 Du
Bois observed that the sentiments of whites toward blacks were
diverse (Souls 48).63 ITUt; meant that several kinds of
oppressive discourses functioned as “the eyes of others,” and
Washington’s.advocationcflf“industria1.education, conciliation
of the South,- and submission and silence as to civil and
political rights” was the embodiment of his reaction to the
demands of whites (Souls 36) .64 Among those, Du Bois noted that
“Mr. Washington’s first task” was “To gain the sympathy and
cooperation of the various elements comprising the white South”
(Souls 37). [hlBois names‘Washingtcwx“a compromiser” among the
South, the North, and blacks, and argued that as a result of
Washington’s asking black.people to give up “political power,”
“insistence on civil rights,” and their “higher education,”
blacks were disfranchised (Souls 43). Compromise led to “the
legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority” for

blacks and.“the steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for

 

a Henry Louis Gates, Jr., pointed out that by the time of the death
of Frederick Douglass in 1895, “DuBois turned his prodigious energies to
challenging Washington's influence over the ideological direction of the
struggle for Negro rights” and.that his publishing The Souls of Black Folks
enabled DuBois to fulfill his wish to continue Douglass’ “tale of prophecy
and waiting work”(The Souls of Black Folk: Authoritative Text contents
criticism), x.

” Du Bois argued that “the ignorant Southerner hates the Negro, the
working men fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a
laborer, some of the educated see alnenace in his upward development, while
others-usually the sons of the masters—wish to help him to rise” (Souls 48) .

64Du Bois did not regard these policies as Washington’ 5 original idea.
He regarded Washington as the person who first “linked” preexisting ideas
(Souls 37).

146

the higher training” for blacks (Souls 44). Du Bois regards
national discourses of race-prejudice against blacks as the

\\

“reaction from the sentiment of war time” that advocates a
policy of submission” to “the eyes of others” and produces double
consciousness. Washington was a transmitter of the gaze of
whites because he was representative of “the old attitude of
adjustment and submission” and his “programme practically
accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races” (Souls 43) .65
To‘Washington’s accommodationist policies, Du Bois argued that
“manly self-respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that
a people who voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease
striving for it, are not worth civilizing” and that it is
necessary “to state plainly and unequivocally the legitimate
demands” (Souls 43; 47). Also, for him the way for blacks was
to'“gain their reasonable rights” and to‘“gain respect,” not by
“belittling and ridiculing themselves,” but by “insist[ing]
continually” that “voting is necessary'to:modern.manhood, that
color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need
education as well as white boys” (Souls 47). This discourse

identifies double consciousness as a pragmatic concept that

explain how to resist against oppressive discourses in order to

 

“ Du Bois regarded “the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington” as
“the most striking thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876”
(Souls 36). H. L. Gates pointed out that after the death of Douglass, his
anti accommodationist stance was replaced by B. T. Washington’s
accomodationist stance. DuBois felt urgency to counter the power of this

147

gain necessary rights.

In Washington’s speech, which later came to be called the
“Atlanta Compromise” at Atlanta’s Cotton States and
International Exposition in September 1895, he proposed the
separation of whites and blacks, observing the sentiment of the
whites who abhorred the rise of blacks: “In all things that are
purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as
the hand in all things essential to mutual progress” (Washington
Papers 75). As I noted in chapter 1, Du Bois argued that “the
ideal of human brotherhood” should be realized “not in
opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather largely
in conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic,
in order that some day on American soil two world-races may give
each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack” (Souls
11). Both of their descriptions seemed to signify harmonious
cooperation between the populations, but differences are clear.
Although Washington named the two races “one as the hand,” he
clearly signified segregation as the solution to problems by
suggesting the fingers’ separation. Du Bois presented a
complementary relationship of the two races. Although the
solutions of Washington and Du Bois were different, we should
find that both of them were revolving around or perceived the

discourse controlled by Southern whites after the Emancipation.

 

tendency.(Authoritative Text, xvii).

148

Washington mentions employment “ in agriculture, mechanics,
in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions” and
states that “[n]o race can.prosper till it learns that there is
as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem”
(washington Papers 75).

Du Bois observed that Washington.“intuitively’grasped.the
spirit of the age which was dominating the North” (Souls 38).
In “a day of astonishing commercial development,” Washington
emphasizes the importance of “the substantial,” but at the same
time overlooks the importance of higher education (Souls 36).
Du Bois revealed his disagreement with the Washington’s

proposal:

And so thoroughly did he learn the speech and thought of
triumphant commercialism, and the ideals of material
prosperity that the picture of a lone black boy poring over
French grammar amid the weeds and dirt of a neglected home
seemed to him the acme of absurdities. One wonders what
Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi would say to this (Souls
38).

Washington cautioned tflun: being “[i]gnorant and
inexperienced,” blacks sought for too much: they wanted “a seat
in Congress or the state legislature” or preferred “the
political convention or stump speaking” over “real estate or
industrial skill” or “starting a dairy farm or truck garden”

(The Washington Papers 73) . Washington accused blacks’ demands

149

for political rights after the Emancipation as the mistake of
beginning “at the top instead of at the bottom.”

For Washington political rights were too demanding a
request, and blacks are described as people who do not know their
place. Washington tried to sooth whites who were threatened or
offended by the rise of vocal blacks and with his compromise
speech his remarks embody the discourse of whites who do not
agree t1) blacks’ participation 1J1 politics. Against these
proposals and accommodations, Du Bois argued the necessity of
blacks getting political independence and the importance of
acquiring voting rights. He points out that the “ideal of
liberty demanded for its attainment powerful means, and these
the Fifteenth Amendment gave him. . .Had not votes enfranchised
the freed men?” (Souls 8). Pkaargued, “The power of the ballot
we need in sheer self-defense,—else what shall save us from a
second slavery?” (Souls 11) For Du Bois the “signs of compromise”
that were “to be exchanged for larger chances of economic
development” sacrificed ‘“civil and. political rights” and
offended blacks (Souls 43). Criticisms of accomodation was
“hushed” by “the rich and dominating North” that was “investing
largely in Southern enterprises and welcomed any method of
peaceful cooperation” and “national opinion” (Souls 43).

In attacking Booker T. Washington’s proposals, Du Bois

resisted the power of whites to degrade blacks after the

150

Emancipation. For Du Bois, Washington’s adoption of the white
gaze is “accommodation” that absorbs the gaze’s contempt for
blacks, an acceptance of an alleged inferiority. In fact, later,
in formulating the Niagara Movement (1905), the establishment
of the NAACP (1910) and publishing the journal, Crisis, Du Bois
consistently argues anti-accommodationist policies demanding
full rights as American citizens and basic human rights without
any compromise.

Du Bois also presented a counter discourse to Washington’ 5
view that more than anything the African American must “strive
mightily to help himself” (Souls 49) . Du Bois agrees with this
assertion, but at the same time argues that this doctrine makes
Northern and Southern whites “critical” or “pessimistic
spectators” of blacks and the problems imposed on them. This
signifies whites’ indifference of blacks' plight as a matter of
“others,” and allows them to unfairly escape from their own duty.
Du Bois considers that originally, not blacks, but “the nation”
has to bear the “burden” of the problems surrounding blacks after
the Emancipation. Washington’ 5 doctrine promotes a white agenda
of shifting the burden to blacks’ shoulders (Souls 49) . Du Bois’
counter discourse is that “it is equally true that unless his
striving be not simply seconded, but rather aroused and
encouraged, by the initiative of the richer and wiser environing

group, he cannot hope for great success” (Souls 49). He

151

characterizes whites’ gaze as indifference and proposes the need
of a complimentary relationship between blacks and whites. This
is also the implication of double consciousness that neither the
black or white alternative is a complete solution for blacks’
equality.

Various kinds of exploitation existed after the
Emancipation. Against the blacks' demand for 40 acres and a mule,
land was not distributed to freed blacks. This weakened the
economic conditions of blacks from the first generation” Some
of them inevitably had to return to their ex-slave masters, and
some of them became unpayed workers of the land. The
Government’s Freedmen’s Bureau from 1865 provided food and
education to some, but the whites’ antipathy to Bureau was
intense (Cashman 206). Whites, especially in the South, felt
they needed to suppress the emancipated blacks by any means after
the abolishment of slavery. Whites’ antipathy toward blacks’
demand for democracy and full citizenship as Americans produced
a new kind of systematic discrimination known as Jim Crow Laws

and Black Codes.66 The Jim Crow Laws that were passed by the

 

‘6 Thomas Winter argued that the precise origins of the term “Jim Crow”
are unknown. It may have first appeared in 1832, in a minstrel play by T.D.
“Big Daddy" Rice. The play contained a song about a slave titled ‘Jim Crow. ’
The expression was used commonly beginning in the 1890’s. In 1904, the
Dictionary of American English listed the term “Jim Crow Law” for the first
time (The Civil Rights Movement 341) .

In Harriet Beacher Stowe’ 5 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) , the slave

of a slave master, Mr. Shelby, was called “Jim” or “Jim Crow.” The boy is
portrayed as a slave who sang and danced following his master’s order.

152

legislatures of the Southern states codified a racial hierarchy
system in the American South in late nineteenth century.67 Du
Bois thought that Jim Crow Laws “made the Negro citizens a
subordinate caste” (Dusk 55) . Segregation laws persisted until
the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas in 1954.

The emergence of large black communities in urban areas and
a significant black labor force in factories presented a new
challenge to white Southerners. They could not control these
new communities in the same informal ways they had been able to
control rural blacks, who were more directly dependent on white
landowners and merchants than their urban counterparts. In the
city, blacks and whites were in more direct competition than they
had been in the countryside. There was more opportunity for
social mixing. The city, therefore, required different and more
rigidly institutionalized systems of control. The Jim Crow laws
were a response to a new reality that required white supremacy
to move to where it would have a rigid legal and institutional
basis to retain control over the black population.

Jim Crow Laws forbade the interaction of blacks with whites,

as for example in the intermarriage of whites and blacks. In

 

“Tennessee adopted the “Jim Crow” laws first in 1875. After that,
the rest of the Southern states abruptly followed Tennessee (Franklin and
Moss Jr. 290).

153

diverse aspects, it regulated the segregation of whites and
blacks, such as on passenger seats of trains. The following
passage is an example of the Constitutional segregation of

schools in Georgia in 1877:

The provision of an adequate education for the citizens
shall be a primary obligation of the State of Georgia, the
expense of which shall be provided for by taxation.
Separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored
races (Article VIII. Mark, 1 (6576)) (Murray 89).

The black Code was a notoriously harsh code that was regarded
by some as even harsher than the slave code. It enabled whites
to force blacks to do intense work and otherwise allowed
their exploitation.

In addition to controlling blacks through the enactment of
laws and the economic exploitation of blacks, whites’ verbal and
physical assaults on blacks continued after the Emancipation.
As Du Bois defined the function of “the eyes of others” or ”the
Devil” as one who “strikes” blacks “that cannot strike again”
in “Credo” (The Oxford Du Bois Reader 105), whites’ verbal and
physical attacks characterized the era. Blacks who opposed
whites’ control were intimidated, brutalized, and often lynched,

and the number of blacks who were killed by lynching rose.68 The

 

5" As for the number of lynchings, John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moss
Jr. noted that: In the last sixteen years of the nineteenth century there
had been more than 2,500 lynchings, the great majority of which were of
African Americans, with Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana leading
the nation. . . . In the very first year of the new century more than 100

154

anti-black association, the Ku Klux Klan, harassed blacks by
threats, hanging and beating (Franklin and Moss Jr. 345).

The victory of the North in 1865 signified the victory of
the North’s industrial capitalism over the Southern economic
system based on slave agriculture, principally the cotton
plantation. The North’s power of industrial capitalism soon
dominated the nation, both the North and the South, and existed
as a nationwide hegemony; In this sense, although the whites’
influence on Southern blacks was indirect, the South was under
the political and economic control of the Bkuth—under the
Northern whites’ gaze on them.

Whites’ ignorance of blacks led to other oppressive powers
over blacks. The enactment of civil rights, suffrage, and the
abolition of slavery did not necessarily result in the
acceptance by the Northern whites of a democratic view that

affirmed the equality of blacks and whites. As historians agreed,

 

African Ameircans were lynched, and before the outbreak of World War I the
number for the century had soared to more than 1,100” (345).

Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. , pointed out that “Between 1882 and 1899 over 2, 500
black men and women were lynched, almost half of thentbetween 1889 and 1899.
Of the victims 2 percent were women” (146). Du Bois, himself, described
lynching as one example of “excitement of quick-moving events” with which
he was “torn” in these years. He mentioned that lynching was “a continuing
horror in the United States at the time of my entrance upon a teaching career”
and that:

It reached a climax in 1892, when 235 persons were publicly murdered,
and in the sixteen years of my teaching nearly two thousand persons were
publicly killed by mobs, and not a single one of the murderers punished.
That partition, domination and exploitation of Africa gradually
centered my thought as part of my problem of race (Dusk 55).

See also At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynshing of Black America by

155

many northern whites continued to<iiscriminate against blacks,
and the reason they advocated equality was to suppress the power
of the southern whites. When Reconstruction ended, it was no
longer necessary for them to advocate equality. When southern
states succeeded in depriving blacks of suffrage after 1890 and
the Black Code was enacted, northern whites did not support
blacks. In short, by ignoring what was going on in the South,
northern whites invited the emergence of a so-called “solid
south” that fixed massive discrimination on blacks, and resulted
in choking blacks for many decades afterword.

In the access of southern blacks and northern whites, new
seer and.seen relationships emergedJ'Massive industrialization
encouraged black migration from the South to Northern cities.
In the North blacks experienced the prejudice of whites who felt
threatened by them. As black workers moved into white
communities, white workers moved out and the communities became

segregated and black ghettos emerged in the cities.

Also, the contempt whites had.for blacks were radicalized
at this time. Industrialization called for immigration from
Eastern Europe and migration from the South. These newcomers
were regarded as “aliens” in the northeastern cities. White

America feared that the massive population of these aliens would

 

Philip Dray,

156

undermine American values, and tried to exclude them.69 For
example, “the creed” of the Ku Klux Klan required members to
agree that “I believe in the limitation of foreign immigration”
(Davis and Sims-Wood 629). The State of Idaho enacted in its
constitution in 1890 the claim that: “No person, not a citizen
of the United States, or who has not declared his intention to
become such, shall be employed upon, or in connection with any
state or municipal works” (Murray 118).70 As white middle
classes followed the wealthy to the suburbs, the remaining poor
whites, blacks, and immigrants were left to struggle for
survival. The rise of black workers as an underpaid labor force
fixed them as lower class, and in terms of race and class, blacks
experienced the discrimination of whites.

Ideological fashion also promoted the degradation of the
status of blacks and justified the contempt of whites on them.
Herbert Spencer’s Social Darwinism, and his concept, “the
survival of the fittest” not only defined an economic elite and

“the unfit,” but also resulted in justifying those of Western

 

” Sean Dennis Cashman noted that:

American immigration was continuous throughout the nineteenth
century. ... In 1882, 788,992 immigrants arrived . .. 87 percent
were from northern and western Europe and only 13 percent from
southern and eastern Europe. . .. In 1907, however, when 1,285,349
immigrants arrived, 19.3 percent were from northern and western
Europe, and 80.7 percent from southern and eastern Europe. . .(74).

7oPauli Murray noted that “This provision affects primarily aliens

who are ineligible for citizenship, i.e., Japanese and certain Oriental
groups” (118).

157

European desent as a superior race to blacks and immigrants. The
Klan's creed represents this as: “I am a native-born American
citizen and I believe my rights in this country are superior to

those of foreigners” (Davis and Sims-Wood 629).

In its westward expansion and overseas invasions, such as
the Spanish-American.War and.annexation.of.Hawaii represented,
America was imperialistic as well as nationalistic. The old
stock American’s fear of or antipathy toward immigrants—
American nativism—was intensified.

Du Bois reveals his view on this problem in Souls:

Indeed, the characteristic of our age is the contact of
European civilization with the world's undeveloped
peoples. . . . We know that these considerations have never
adequately explained or excused the triumph of brute force

and cunning over weakness and innocence (Souls 133).

Here he criticizes United States’ imperialism as “the triumph
of brute force” and further argues the issue by linking'it‘with

“the survival of the fittest” derived from evolution theory:

It is, then, the strife of all honorable men of the
twentieth century to see that in the future competition
of races the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph

of the good, the beautiful, and the true; that we may be

158

able to preserve for future civilization all that is
really fine and noble and strong, and not continue to put
a premium on greed and impudence and cruelty. To bring
this hope to fruition, we are compelled daily to turn more
and more to a conscientious study of the phenomena of
race-contact—to a study frank and fair, and not falsified

and colored by our wishes or our fears (Souls 134).

He criticized time tendency dominated tn! Social Darwinism,
capitalism, or imperialism in which “greed, impudence,” and
“cruelty” surpassed “the good,” “the beautiful,” “the true,”
“fine,” “noble,” and “strong” as the definition of “the
fittest.” But we should be careful about his implication for the
choice of these adjectives. Although he used the word, “strong”
as a criteria of the fittest that should survive, it does not
mean power which defeats another race or country. Being “really
strong” is defined as the polar of “greed,” ”impudence,” and
“cruelty” in Du Bois’ 5 case, and a counter-discourse to “greed”
and “cruelty.”

In Du Bois’s case, one of the means to acquire a “good,
beautiful, true, fine, noble, and strong” nature and to escape
from the disadvantage derived from whites’ s “contemptuous” gaze
on blacks was education. His assumed the “end of striving” of
blacks at this time, “to be co-worker in the realm of culture,”
and “to exercise talent and genius” supports his view. (kithe

other hand, lack of education invited the contempt of whites.

159

Not only Du Bois, but some historians as well, agreed that the
lack of education was the cause of the disadvantage of blacks
at this time. For example, Button Prorenzo argued that the
educational environment of blacks did not enable them to be free
and equal to whites. Education that whites received was much
better than that of blacks.

As argued in chapter 1, “the eyes of others” excludes
African-Americans in their country as outsiders. Segregation
is a function of this tendency. .Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that
affirmed legal segregation, represented this discourse. But,
in a more subtle way, Du Bois observed the existence of “the eyes
of others” as segregationist discourse. He acutely indicts the
hegemony of whites embedded in the name of the Freedmen’ 5 Bureau

that:

. the very name of the Bureau stood for a thing in the
South, which for two centuries and better men had refused
even to argue,—that life amid free Negroes was simply

unthinkable, the maddest of experiments (Souls 25).

Also, he observes the discourse that defines whites as seer or
controller and African-Americans as to be seen or to be taken
care of.

In the hegemony of whites’ “eyes of others,” Du Bois

presented a counter discourse by writing Souls and introducing

160

the concept of double consciousness.71 Du Bois the effect of

prejudice was almost overwhelming:

But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring
the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and
lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression and

breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate (Souls 10).

Du Bois observed in 1906 that “In the past year the work of the
Negro hater has flourished in the land” (The Oxford Du Bois
Reader 367) . Against the retreat of “the defenders of the rights
of American citizens,” progress toward “stealing the black man’ 5
ballot,” and “discrimination in travel and public
accommodation,” Du Bois proposed a counter discourse described
in the leaflet of The Niagara Movement that: “We will not be
satisfied to take one jot or tittle less than our full manhood

rights”(The Oxford Du Bois Reader 367).

 

“ Many scholars pointed out the role of the “Souls” as work which
encouraged African-Americans in the post-Emancipation era. For example, D.
W. Blight and R. Gooding-Williams argued that “During an era ruled by a
seemingly permanent white consensus on segregation and disfranchisement, Du
Bois’s book offered black readers a unique burst of hope” (3) . They refered
to biographer D. L. Lewis’s interpretation that Souls was resistance against
the turn-of-the-century racist belief on black inferiority (3).

161

Chapter 5 Intellectual Discourses of Double Consciousness

As many scholars point out, the late 19th century,
especially the 18905, marked a significant change and
development of American intellectual discourses.72 Du Bois’
concept of double consciousness was formulated in this context.
In Chapter 1 and 2, I discussed the concept as an intersection
of several different discourses, in Chapter 3 as fragments of
discourses found in texts of the oppressed, and in Chapter 4 the
concept was related to cultural discourses of the turn of the
twentieth-century. In this chapter, I will explore related
intellectual discourses current around that time. The emergence
of new social sciences was one of the dominant forces in academia

3

in and out of America.7 New disciplines such as anthropology,

sociology, and psychology emerged in the late nineteenth-

4

century.7 As H. Warren Button and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. point

out, there was keen interest in how to apply the concepts of

 

n For example, H. Warren Button and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr., cite

Lawrence Cremin's Opinion that “the 18905 were a brilliant period for
American scholarship”, and argue that “Largely under the influence of
Darwinian theory, nearly every field of knowledge made important
advances”(192).

” As Du Bois himself looked back on the late nineteenth century:
“Above all science was becoming religion: psychology was reducing
metaphysics to experiment and a sociology of human action was planned” (Dusk
26). Also, as Du Bois himself confessed, “[t]he main result of my schooling
had been to emphasize science and the scientific attitude,” and “[t]he
triumphs Of the scientific world thrilled me.” Science occupies him as an
important discipline (Autobiography 205; Dusk 50).

" As for the sociology Du Bois defined himself as “a teacher and a
student of social science” during the years from “the Fall of 1894 to the
Spring of 1910, for 16 years” (The Autobiography 205).

162

Pkarbert Spencer and Charles Darwin to social theory or reform
(193).

Herbert Spencer, a journalist in England, the ‘main
{Droponent of Social Darwinism, first advocated this ideology
:represented.by the concept, “the survival of the fittest,” and
affirmed laissez-faire economics in Social Statics in 1850.75
Spencer’s Social Statics vuus a. mixture of laissez-faire
economics and biology. Sean Dennis Cashman interprets Spencer’ 5
argument that “the pressure of subsistence on the human race had
had a beneficent effect . It had led to social progress by putting
a premium on intelligence, self-control, and skill” (42).76
This implies social inequality. Regarding social inequality,
social Darwinism attributed the gap between the wealthy and the
poor primarily to the greater “ fitness” of the wealthy to survive
and thrive (Boardman 112). Also, social Darwinism did not
recognize any kind of need of social reform (Cashman 42) .
Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859,
presenting his evolution theory which advanced Spencer’s case
(Cashman 42). Darwin deployed Spencer’s slogan, “the survival
of the fittest” to explain the mechanism which advanced

evolution.

 

75 In 1903, it was published in New York, and 368,755 volumes of his

works were sold in the U.S. (Cashman 42) .
7‘ Cashman takes up Spencer’s opposition to state help to poor people
as an example of his practice of his own ideology. Cashman explains that
the poor were for Spencer “unfit and candidates for elimination” (42).

163

William Graham Sumner, chair of political science and
social science at Yale from 1872 adopted Spencer’s idea. Sumner
emphasized the social struggle’s beneficence, advocating the
notion “the survival of the fittest” for civilized society
(Cashman 42). Historians Peter N. Carroll and David W. Noble
argued that “ In his lectures on sociology at Yale, William Graham
Sumner gave the notion of cultural and social hierarchy perhaps
the solidest theoretical foundation in the period (find

quotation end):

Classifying “societal value” on a curved scale, Sumner
portrayed the social world as a range of values descending
from “genius” through “talent” to “mediocrity” (identified
with “the masses,” or middle groups), to “unskilled and
illiterate proletariat,” to the bottom line of the
“defective, dependent, and delinquent.” It was clear where

the power to rule should lie (157-158).

Sumner’s classification encapsulates the bias of Darwinism in
the social sphere. The Souls of Black Folks was published in
the midst of the discourse of social Darwinism, and Du Bois
himself revealed his consciousness of this discourse. Du Bois
assesses the notion, survival of the fittest in the Souls of

Black Fblk:

It is, then, the strife of all honorable men Of the twentieth

century to see that in the future competition of races the

164

survival Of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good,
the beautiful, and the true; that we may be able to preserve
for future civilization all that is really fine and noble
and strong, and not continue to put a premium on greed and
impudence and crueltyn To bring this hope to fruition, we
are compelled daily to turn more and more to a conscientious
study of the phenomena Of race-contact, to a study frank
and fair, and not falsified and colored by our wishes or

our fears (Souls 134).

Here Du Bois condemned the “wishes and fears” that fueled the
ideology Of social Darwinism. He saw clearly that it justified
competition based on “greed” and emphasized the importance of
a criteria of the “fittest” based on “good” “beauty” “true,”
“fine” and “noble” nature as counter argument to the survival
of the greediest discourse.

Sumner also argued that when nature follows its natural
course in the process of evolution, true scientific progress
could happen (Button and Provenzo 93). For example, Sumner
regarded government reform as a hindrance of the natural
evolutionary process (Button and Provenzo 193). Peter N.
Carroll and David W. Noble argue that many northern protestants
began to accept the evolutionary idea in the 18805 and 18905 and
tfllat evolution signified progress for them, noting that “they
took their definition of progress from these social scientists”
(3225.

Du Bois' interest turned from philosophy to history and

16S

social science. He notes that “Between the years 1885 and 1894
I received my education at Fisk University, Harvard College and
the University of Berlin” (Dusk 25). He describes in Dusk of
Dawn that “The turning was due to William James” at Harvard who
advised that “ [i] t is hard to earn a living with philosophy” (39) .
“Harvard had in the social sciences no such leadership of thought
and breadth of learning as in philosophy, literature, and
physical science” (39).

Herbert Spencer completed his final volume of Synthetic
Philosophy in 1896. Du Bois thought that “The biological analogy,
the vast generalizations, were striking, but actual scientific
accomplishment lagged” (Dusk 51) . Rather than follow the
fashion of the social Darwinistic concept Du Bois saw that a more
accurate ground for thought lay in “ . . .facing the facts of my
own social situation and racial world, where I determined to put
science into sociology through a study of the conditions and
problems Of my own group” (Dusk 51) . Du Bois was going to study
“the facts, any and all facts, concerning the American Negro and
his plight” with “the utilitarian object of reform and uplift”
and “scientific accuracy” (Dusk 51) .

As he argues that “I began to conceive Of the world as a
continuing growth rather than a finished product” and “in my own
sociology, because of firm belief in a changing racial group,

I easily grasped the idea Of a changing developing society rather

166

than a fixed social structure” (Dusk 51). Contrary to Sumner
and others this idea of change does not rely on the implied
teleology of social darwinism, but on overcoming the resistance
Of vested interests (Dusk 51) . He advocated the need to retain
“the message for the world” of “Negro blood.” Du Bois thought
that scientific study was important in order to make the world

aware Of racism in the U.S.:

The Negro problem was in my mind a matter of systematic
investigation and intelligent understanding. The world
was thinking wrong about race, because it did not know.
The ultimate evil was stupidity. The cure for it was

knowledge based on scientific investigation”(Dusk 58).

In this sense, “the message to the world” discourse in double
consciousness has science as a strong support in this period.
Du Bois also argued that science would “give the world a mass
of truth worth the knowing” (Dusk 60).

In Du Bois’s idea, science would realize the removal of a
black inferiority myth. Repeatedly he emphasized that the bad
condition of blacks was not because they were unfit, but resulted
from social Oppression. Du Bois conducted the sociological study,
The .Rhiladelphia Negro ix) order' to investigate contrary

claims.77 Du Bois observed that Philadelphia had “a theory”

 

” Du Bois was the person who engaged in the first study Of blacks

in America based on science, The Philadelphia Negro.

167

that the municipality of Philadelphia “was going to the dogs
because Of the crime and venality Of its Negro citizens” (Dusk
58) . Du Bois’ study concludes with “the Negro group as a symptom,
not a cause; as a striving, palpitating group, and not an inert,
sick body of crime; as a long historic development and not a
transient occurrence” (Dusk 59).

Theory of mind was also becoming popular, with psychology
emerging as new discipline. Early German physiological
neurologists and psychological theories were developed (Button
and Provenzo 203-204). Leahey argues that William James’
publication of Principles of Psychology in 1890 was “a watershed
in the history of American psychology” and that “it set the tone
for American psychology from 1890 to 1913 and beyond” (371).
Thomas Hardy Leahey points out that William James “advanced his
philosophy timidly, as psychology rather than philosophy” (341) .
As John T.A. Cobb notes, Du Bois started serious study of
psychology and philosophy as a student of William James at
Harvard (6) .78 When Du Bois became a student of James in 1888,
James was a professor of psychology and philosophy and was
teaching and working on The Principles of Psychology and

discussed it with Du Bois. James’ philosophy courses also

 

” As Cobbs points out, the relationship between Du Bois and James
started when Du Bois was an undergraduate student at Harvard in 1888 and
persisted to 1910 when James died (6). Before Du Bois entered Harvard, he
graduated from Fisk University in 1888, where he took an undergraduate degree
in philosophy.

168

included a new developmental science called psychology. During
this time philosophy and psychology were under one rubric. It
was in James’ course in psychology that the concept of
consciousness was developed, and appears to have influenced Du
Bois later concept Of double consciousness (Cobb 16).

Ideas about complexity of the mind became popular among
psychologists. As I argued in chapter 1, in his illustration
of the concept Of double consciousness, Du Bois introduced the
complex mechanism of black psychology as an inner struggle. In
this sense, Du Bois’s double consciousness reflects the
intellectual trends of that time. However, his concept was
dynamic and was based on interaction, and he also takes up the
psychology of “races” as the key for solution of human contact

(or imperialism) or for understanding racial histories:

We feel and know that there are many delicate differences
in race psychology, numberless changes that our crude
social measurements are not yet able to follow minutely,
which explain much of history and social development
(Souls 134).

Du Bois further argues:

The problem of the future world is the charting, by means
of intelligent reason, of a path not simply through the
resistances of physical force, but through the vaster and

far more intricate jungle of ideas conditioned on

169

unconscious and subconscious reflexes Of living things;
on blind unreason and Often irresistible urges of
sensitive matter; of which the concept of race is today
one of the most unyielding and threatening. I seem to see
a way of elucidating the inner meaning and significance
Of that race problem by explaining it in terms of the one
human life that I know best (Souls 134).

Du Bois felt the need to meditate on “the concept of race” by
paying attention to psychology as a reflection of reality. Like
Freud, Du Bois found early childhood experience to be important
for later development, but unlike Freud, who found significance
in the Observation of the sexual act, Du Bois found it in the
experience of discrimination. Furthermore, Du Bois' concept did
not condemn the individual to a life of neurosis, but provided
a dynamic condition of mind that depended for its well-being on
the ability of society itself to heal social conflict. For Du
Bois, psychology was a method useful for finding the solution
to race problems.

As I have suggested, Du Bois formulated the concept of
double consciousness as a pragmatic tactic for uplifting black
people. .Around the turn of the century, three philosophers in
America, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey
founded pragmatism. Leahey regards pragmatism as “America’s
only homegrown philosophy” (339).

William James suggests in his lecture Pragmatism (1906;

I70

1907) that C.S. Peirce first introduced pragmatism into
philosophy in 1878 (James Writings 506) . Leahey argued that “the
practical, scientific attitude of C.S. Peirce as a way of
determining whether concepts had any empirical reality”
initiated Pragmatism (346) . After Peirce, William James started
to formulate “his own version of pragmatism” in the 18705 and
18805 (341) , thinking “ [t]here is absolutely nothing new in the
pragmatic method” (James Writings 508) .

James emphasized the practical use of pragmatism, stating
that “the term [pragmatism] is derived from the same Greek
word, . . . meaning action, from which our words ‘practice’ and
‘practical’ come” (James Writings 506). Du Bois uses black
psychological models in order to change African Americans’
reality and to raise practical goals in formulating a double
consciousness model. In this sense, Du Bois is pragmatic in
introducing the concept.79

In Pragmatism James encapsulates the nature Of pragmatism,
stating that a pragmatist “turns away from abstraction and
insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons,
from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes,

and origins. He turns towards concreteness and adequacy, toward

 

” Some scholars commented on the relationship between Du Bois and
pragmatism. For example, John T.A. Cobb regards Edward Hudlin’s work (name
Of the book) as “a part of the reassessment Of the claims that Du Bois should
be considered America’s first Black American philosopher in the tradition
of pragmatism” (2) .

171

facts, toward action and toward power” (James Writings 508-509) .

Here James did not define a pragmatist in relation to race
problems. But when Du Bois discusses race problems, he shares
the pragmatist perspective with James. Du Bois fought against
what James rejects in the passage above. If the definition is
applied to “race problems” , “bad a priori reasons” or “pretended
absolutes” include the absolutism of white supremacy shown in
the creed of the Ku Klux Klan, alleged black inferiority myths,

or all existing myths which attempt to assume blacks to be “the
worst.”80 The implied or stated hierarchies Of power are
represented by “the eyes of others” in double consciousness. As

I described above, Du Bois deployed science and showed concrete
and scientific facts in order to prove that these myths are

imposed lies without concrete evidences to support them. The
Philadelphia Negro (1899) represents an attempt to counter these

beliefs and leads to James’ 5 sense of “action” and “power.” Thus,
Du Bois’ promotion of resistance against “the eyes of others”

is the discourse of a pragmatist.

William James argued that “ideas (which themselves are but

parts of our experience) become true just in so far as they help
us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our

experience. . .” (James Writings 512) . In terms of the relation

 

” As I argued in Chapter 1, Du Bois’s definition of “the eyes of
others” signifies the “Devil” in “Credo” 1904). In “Credo,” Du Bois argues
that “Devil” regards blacks as “the worst.”

172

between idea and experience as necessary conditions, Du Bois and
James share a common position. Since Du Bois’ formulation of
the concept of double consciousness emerged from his
interpretation of African Americans’ history and experiences,
one of his aims in introducing the concept is to formulate
discourses which would change their experience. In this aspect,
Du Bois is a pragmatist.

James argues in “Some Problems of Philosophy”:

It (pluralism) protests against working our ideas in a
vacuum made of conceptual abstractions. Some parts Of our
world, it admits, cannot exist out Of their wholes; but

others, it says, can (James Writings 1053).

The ideas and aims such as‘Wxakmza co-worker in the kingdom of
culture” which Du Bois raised in double consciousness were not
abstract but very practical ones (Souls 5).

James stressed the importance of “consequence” as the
criteria of judging notions: “The pragmatic method in such case
is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective

practical consequences” (James Writings 506) . Also, he argued:

To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an Object,
then, we need only consider what conceivable effects
Of a practical kind the object may involve—what sensations
we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must
prepare. Our conceptions of these effects, whether
immediate or remote, are then for us the whole of our

conception of the object, so far as that conception has

173

positive significance ateall.. . . It.is astonishing to
see how many philosophical disputes collapse into
insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple
test of tracing a concrete consequence (James Writings
506-508).

In the case of Du Bois’ introduction of the double consciousness
concept, he did not end up with his revelation of the existence
of others’ gaze of “second-sight” notion, but also points out
its effect on black psychology; Du Bois Observes James’ sense
Of “effect,” or “sensations” on black consciousness—-
deprivation of true self consciousness. Also, Du Bois not only
revealsaa black psychological mechanism, but also the effect
or consequence that could be drawn from the betterment of the
mechanism. For example, to “escape from others’ gaze” or recover
“true-self consciousness” leads to his goal “to use his best
powers” (Souls 5).

As for the importance of “consequence,” James further

argues for:

[t]he attitude of looking away from first things,
principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of
looking towards last things, fruits, consequences,

facts (James Writings 510).

This idea resembles Du Bois’s promotion Of the merit system.

As argued in chapter 1, Du Bois was opposed to an essentialism

174

in which biological differences fix or limit one’s identity or
a racism which does not respect any “real good, truth, and
beautiful” thing. James’ “first things” and “categories” relate
to Du Bois’s hate of power which limits or bounds rights or
activities of African Americans within the black community.
James’s emphasis on “fruit,” “fact,” and “consequence” and the
crucial point of Du Bois’s slogan, exercise of power and genius
in escaping from being categorized as “Negro” share elements of
a common discourse.

James argues that “Pragmatism is uncomfortable away from
facts. Rationalism is comfortable only in the presence of
abstractions” and that “The pragmatist clings to facts and
concreteness, Observes truth at its work in particular cases,
and generalizes. Truth, for him, becomes a class-name for all
sorts of definite working-valuerin experience” (James Writings
516). In these passages, James emphasized the importance of
“facts,” and “truth” not as a metaphysical concept, but as a
practical one relating to reality. In the Souls of Black Folks,
Du Bois pursued “Truth” in opposition to racist reality. In
advocating the merit system, his belief in African Americans’
contribution to America and their genius, he tries to find
“truth.”

William James argued that pragmatists should confront

reality. William Taft Feldman points out on Dewey that:

175

In the ‘nineties, however, as practical matters engrossed
Dewey more and more, he was attracted to a different
problem, and he began to develop his characteristic
doctorine that philosophy should interest itself mainly
with the role of reflective experience in human living”
(5)

So James, Dewey, and Du Bois were all working toward discourses
that link notion, reality and effect. For James, “the first part
of reality” is in general what truths have to take account of;
and the first part of reality from this point of view is the flux
of our sensations. Sensations are forced upon us, coming we know
not whence” (James Writings 593).

Next, he defines “the second part of reality” in

Pragmatism:

The second part of reality, as something that our beliefs
must also Obediently take account of is the relations that
Obtain between our sensations or between their copies in
our minds. This part falls into two sub-parts:1) the

relations that are mutable and accidental, as those of
date and place; and 2) those that are fixed and essential
because they are grounded on the inner natures Of their
terms. Both sorts of relations are matters of immediate
perception. Both are ‘facts.’ But it is the latter kind
Of fact that forms the more important sub-part of reality

for our theories of knowledge (James Writings 593).

James thinks the‘“sub-part.of reality”—relations between

176

sensations or their mental copies—is more important than the
“flux of our sensations” which is “forced upon us.” Du Bois
calls double consciousness a “peculiar sensation,” a “sense of
always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others. ”
(Souls 5) . This effect is produced by the asynchronous relations
in the culture, rather than, in James terms, by mental conditions
and qualities of facts.

Not only pragmatists, but other thinkers emphasized the
importance of practical experience. For example, Henry Adams

stresses “useful education” and “social education” in his essay,

“The Perfection of Human Society” (1864):

Henry Adams had failed to acquire any useful education;
he should at least have acquired social experience.

Curiously enough, he failed here also. From the European
or English point Of view, he had no social experience, and

never got it (195).

This passage suggests that for Adams “useful education” is not
vocational training, but education which connects to real life
experience. Du Bois also questioned the effectiveness of
practical education, asking “[hJere vna have, then, nearly
twenty-five hundred Negro graduates, of whom the crucial query
must be made, How far did their training fit them for life?”

(Souls 84).

Double consciousness among other things is a political

177

concept for uplifting African Americans. After his introduction
of the concept, Du Bois raised several “aims” of blacks’ fighting
such as “to be a co-worker of whites in the realm Of culture,”
and.“[t]o avoid death and isolation” (Souls 5). Vkacan regard
his introduction of the concept as a pragmatic use of the idea.
In this sense Du Bois’ concept is not an abstract psychology,
but directly addresses practical solutions to real world
stresses.

In The varieties of Religious Experience (1902), James
insists on the power of something “unseen.” For James, the

function of the unseen is defined as follows:

All our attitudes, moral, practical, or emotional, as well
as religious, are due to the ‘objects’ of our
consciousness, the things which we believe to exist,
whether really or ideally, along with ourselves. Such
objects may be present to our senses, or they may be
present only to our thought. In either case they elicit
from us a reaction; and the reaction due to things Of
thought is notorious as strong as that due to sensible

presences. It may be even stronger (James Writings 55).

As an example, he describes, “The memory of an insult may make
us angrier than the insult did when we received it” (James
Writings 55). And he concluded that “ [t]he sentiment of reality
can indeed attach itself so strongly to our Object Of belief that

our whole life is polarized through and through, so to speak,

178

by its sense Of the existence of the thing believed in, and yet
that thing, for purpose of definite description, can hardly be
said to be present to our mind at all” (James Writings 57).

James takes up the power of the unseen as preparation for
discussing religion. But in terms of the power of the unseen
on human action, Du Bois emphasizes the effect of “the eyes of
others” on selves. He argues that this not only deprives blacks’
of self-respect, but it also weakenes their will to strive for
full human rights. This resignation can be seen as an effect
“of the existence of the thing believed in.”

Williams James argues in Principles of Psychology (1890)
that “the constituents of the Self” are (a) The material Self;
(b) The social Self; (c) The Spiritual Self; and (d) The Pure
Ego (292). .Among these “the social Self” is closerto Du Bois’s

“the eyes of others.” James defines “the social self” as

the recognition which [one] gets from

his mates. We are not only gregarious animals, liking to
be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate
propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed
favorably, by our kind. . . . Properly speaking, a man
has as many social selves as there are individuals who
recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind
(293-294).

Du Bois’ double consciousness describes a much more powerful

social dynamic in which a continuous form of Oppression is at

179

workg Part Of the problenlis that “the eyes of others” hinders
blacks’ from having their own self-image directly, so that an
“American world” does not provide blacks the means of “true
self-consciousness.” Du Bois’s sense of “true-self-
consciousness” and James’ 5 straightforward perception of things
both signify the need to reject obstacles or bad influences on
consciousness. Both James and Du Bois signify the existence of
two kinds of lives. For James, it is dichotomy of “the natural”
and “the Spiritual, and for Du Bois, it is that of being “A Negro”
and “an American.” This dilemma and James’s “we must lose the
one before we can participate in the other” similarly suggest
the difficulty of being both or participating as both. James
regards this condition as a negative state of the human soul.
But the problem is more difficult for Du Bois. If African
Americans stay within black communities, they lose opportunity,
but if they join in white society, they are excluded from their
communities.

In “the Varieties of Religious Experience,” James
attributes the structure of the “sick souls” to being
“oppositely constituted” as having “whimsical inconsistency,”
or “discordancy of which the consequences may be inconvenient
in the extreme,” as having “a stronger degree of heterogeneity”
(James Writings 156; 157)

As seen in Chapter 1, Du Bois defines black and white as

180

polar extremes. Thus, the two selves in one black body are “two
souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings: two warring
ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it
from being torn asunder” (Souls 5) . In James the “two types are
violently contrasted” internally where “Their spirit wars with
their flesh” (“Varieties” 155; 157) . So in terms of the conflict
of two selves in one’s psychology, James and Du Bois share the
common model. But, the dichotomy James sets is formed of “pure
naturalism” and “pure salvationism.” Besides the former
dichotomy of “the natural” and‘“the Spiritual” (James Writings
155), this dichotomy is contained in the mind.

James defines the “heterogeneous personality” as “the
result of inheritance—the traits of character of incompatible
and. antagonistic ancestors are supposed to 1x2 preserved
alongside Of each other” (James Writings 157-158). In.DuiBois’
case, the dichotomy signifies two kinds of citizenship. Du Bois
argued that “The history of the American Negro is the history
of this strife”-—“to merge his double self into a better and truer
self” (Souls 5) . Yet neither James nor Du Bois sets up a
psychological model which simply signifies aImelting condition
of two selves. Both models set the self as one container which
contains parts—plural selves—as the way they are, but they see
the pressure of the world quite differently. In Du Bois’ model,

combining the two selves does not transform to some different

181

thing. He assumes that combining the black self and the American
self would neither lose the original partial self nor bring
blacks any disadvantage such as loss of opportunity in real life.
James' model of divided consciousness and Du Bois’ model of
double consciousness have some common structures. In either
case, consciousness is divided into parts, and those coexist in
one person. In case of Du Bois’ model, the “consciousness” which
is “split into parts” are defined as a black one and an American
one.

As I argued in Chapter 1, we can interpret the interaction
of two selves in Du Bois’ sense in multiple ways. One possibility
is that the two selves do not interface with each other as “parts”
Of “consciousness” do in James’ model where they “mutually
ignore each other.” As the “parts” of James’ model “share the
objects of knowledge between them,” the two selves in Du Bois’s
consciousness model compete for control of perception. James
assumes that the parts of consciousness are internal conditions
rather than the competition of internal and external influences.

For James:

systematic healthy-mindedness, conceiving good as the
essential and universal aspect of being, deliberately
excludes evil from its field of vision; and although, when
thus nakedly stated, this might seem a difficult feat to
perform for one who is intellectually sincere with
himself and honest about facts, a little reflection shows

182

that the situation is too complex to lie Open to so simple
a criticism (James Writing 1902-1910 86).

For both James and Du Obis the good state of mind needs to be
free from negative influences. Yet James argued that in order
to lead a satisfactory life “evil simply cannot then and there
be believed in. He must ignore it; and to the bystander he may
then seem perversely to shut his eyes to it and hush it up” (James

Writing 1902-1910 86).

James’s definition of “evil” is as follows:

Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men
take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into
a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the

sufferer' s inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight;
its sting so Often departs and turn into a relish when,
after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about
and bear it cheerfully, that a man is simply bound in honor,
with reference to many of the facts that seem at first to
disconcert his peace, to adopt this way Of escape.

(James Writing 86)

James’s assertion on the need of transforming “evil” as
an Object of fear to that of fight is also same in Du Bois’ 5 view.
He argues how annoying the “eyes of others” or its deprivation
of true self-consciousness had been historically, and also

advocates the fight against this oppressive power as a solution

183

in his double consciousness concept. Du Bois and James share
the common view that fighting against negative power would bring
happiness.

James’ following passage strongly indict the power of
“evil,” and these are James’s sense of “fight” against evil in

one’s mind to be happy:

Refuse to admit their badness; despise their power; ignore
their presence; turn your attention the other way;

And so far as you yourself are concerned at any rate,
thought the facts may still exist, their evil character
exists no longer. Since you make them evil or good by
your own thoughts about them, its is the ruling of your
thoughts which proves to be your principal concern

(James Writings 86-87).

James calls this stance “the deliberate adoption of an
optimistic turn of mind” (James Writings 87). As I argued in
Chapter 1, Du Bois asserted.the need for blacks to change their
existence to be seen to the seer of others or reality. SO James’
active agency and independence here auui Du Bois’ idea are
similar.

James’ 5 grasp of “evil” seems naive in relation to Du Bois’
understanding of the “American world” or “the eyes of others,”
although both are based on external phenomena. James’ 5
assertion that “the sufferer’ s inner attitude” can transform it

to positive a thing is again similar to Du Bois’s position that

184

a change in thinking can change the state of one’s mind and
external reality, but with Du Bois the external reality must
change as well.

Du Bois’ assertion that the others’ gaze must be rejected
might not be optimistic, but he shows the need to establish an
independent gaze as part of the solution Of the African
American’s dilemma. He advocates the need for blacks to reject
the “eyes of others” contempt for one’s black self and restore
self-respect in order to change blacks’ condition in America.
While Du Bois was immersed in the intellectual currents of the
time he brought together discourses in unique ways—for example
by engaging social Darwinisntand developing pragmatisnlfor his

own purposes.

185

CHAPTER 6

Double Consciousness in Political Discourse
in the Civil Rights Era

The American Negro has now reached a point in his
progress where he needs to take serious account of
where he is and whither he isigoing. This day has
come much earlier than I thought it would.(“Whither
Now and Why” (1960) The Education of Black People
193)

Dr. Du Bois recognized that the keystone in the arch of
Oppression was the myth of inferiority and he dedicated
his brilliant talents to demolish it (“Honoring Dr.

Du Bois” (1968) Dusk of Dawn vii-viii).

W. E. B. Du Bois presented the above passage in 1960 when
more than sixty years had passed since he first introduced his
concept of double consciousness. As he suggested, the
legalization Of segregation and the fixation of blacks in a
marginal status as second-class American citizens would become
illegal and blacks’ acquisition Of equal rights was going to be

81 How did the double consciousness

accomplished in the 1960’s.
discourse function in the pivotal period of African-American

history—the Civil Rights Era?

 

81The view that the 19605 was the turning point for blacks was also
presented by Martin Luther King, Jr., by

186

This chapter aims to examine if the double consciousness
concept or its related discourse existed during the Civil Rights
era of the 19605, and if it did, how it functioned in the
political discourses surrounding black liberation movements.
In order to do this effectively, it is important to focus on the
discourses found in the writings and speeches of Martin Luther
King, Jr. , and Malcolm X, the two prominent leaders of the Civil
Rights Era.

James H. Cone argues that “Martin and Malcolm X represented
the two sides in W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept Of double identity,”
and that “their answers to Du Bois’ question, ‘What am I?’ were
clear, emphatic, and Opposite: ’American’ was Martin’s answer
and ’African’ was Malcolm X’s during “the early part Of their
participation in the black freedom movement” (Cone 270) . Martin
Luther King, Jr., an activist of the Civil Rights Movement and
Malcolm X, the main spokesman of the Nation of Islam were
generally known as representing the dichotomy between
integrationist and black nationalist. But, as Cone and some
researchers point out, in their late years they show some

2

similarity of ideas.8 It could also be argued that some of the

 

his addresses such as “Where do we go from here?” (1967) (A Testament of Hope
555-633) .

n For example, William Cosgrove points out in “Modern Black Writers”
that, after his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, Malcolm X got “the new sight”
that some whites hoped would change racism in America, and that “his
late-found desire tO create rather than destroy made him not unlike Martin
Luther King” (“Modern Black Writers: The Black Self,” 120-121) .

187

ideas Of both King and Malcolm X revolved around Du Bois’ double
consciousness discourse, but in different ways. As Manning
Marrable points out, “The double consciousness theory helps to
explain Du Bois’ entire political and academic career, as he was
constantly at odds with both the integrationist and the black
nationalist leaders and organizations” (Black Leadership 44).
The meanimg of Du Bois’ concept cannot be limited to mere
integrationist nor black nationalist positions.

The awareness of race and the meaning of being black became
a part Of both King’s and Malcolm X’s consciousness when they
were still children. Their autobiographies revealed their
often-common view of whites and those similar views indicate the
danger Of categorizing them as just integrationists or
nationalists. King noted that, “ [t]wo incidents happened in my
late childhood and early adolescence that had a tremendous
effect on my development” (Autobiography 6) . One was the death
of his beloved grandmother and the other was the loss of his
friendship with a white boy.83 King and his friend had been
together from the age of three and King remembered that, “[w]e
always felt free to play our childhood games together,” then
when King was six years old, he and his playmate entered school

(Autobiography 7). His friend entered one school (which King

 

83 King’s parents told him “the doctorine of immortality”
(Autobiography 7). King thought this incident made him “such a strong
believer in personal immortality” (Autobiography 7).

188

calls a “separate school”) while King entered another. King
notes that, “I remember how our friendship began to break up as
soon as we entered school; this was not my desire but his”
(Autobiography'7). Furthermore, his friend told King that his
father had banned him from playing with King (Autobiography 7) .

This shocking occurrence was one Of the common realities
Of segregation in mid-1930’s Atlanta. King noted later that,
“here for the first time I was made aware of the existence of
a race problem” and that, “from that moment on I was determined
to hate every white person” (Autobiography 7) . This experience

made King reconsider what his parents had told him,

My parents would always tell me that I should not hate the
white man, but that it was my duty as a Christian to love
him. The question arose in my mind: How could I love a race
of people who hated me and who had been responsible for
breaking me up with one of my best childhood friends? This
was a great question in my mind for a number Of years.

(Autobiography 7).

How to love white people became King’s life-long theme
(Autobiography 7) . This was a contradiction of both the existing
reality and his Christian belief, but it became the basis, or
theme, of his later meditation on the solution to the race
problem. Malcolm X had similar experiences with white people

when he was growing up in Michigan. When he was in the seventh

189

grade, he sensed something like a “physical barrier” that “the
mascot wasn’t supposed to dance with the any of the white

”8" Later, his experience with his advisor, Mr.Ostrowski

girls.
made him want to stay far away from white people (Autobiography
38). When Malcolm X told Mr. Ostrowski that he wanted to be a
lawyer, Mr. Ostrowski told him to be‘“realistic,” while at the
same time encouraging the whites to become professionals. What
shocked Malcolm X was that his grades were higher than the white
students’ . He discovered that a fair merit system was not being
applied.

However, it was in experiencing the death of his father at
the hands of whites that Malcolm X’ s distrust of whites reached
a more bitter and deeper level. His father, called “the Reverend
Earl Little,” was a Baptist minister and an organizer for Marcus
Garvey’s U.N.I.A.(Universal Negro Improvement Association).
When Malcolm X’s mother, Louise, was pregnant with him, the Ku
Klux Klan had surrounded his house in Omaha, Nebraska one night.
They shouted for Earl Little to come out of his house,
flourishing their shotguns and rifles. Earl Little was
preaching in Milwaukee then” The Klansmen menaced.Malcoln1X’s

mother, warning that his family had better leave town because

Earl Little's “back to Africa” preachings of Marcus Garvey for

 

8‘ “The mascot” in this passage signifies Malcolm X himself. Malcolm

X analyzed later that he was seen as a mascot by whites in the detention home.

190

blacks in Omaha would be unbearable for “the good Christian white
people” (Autobiography 3) . The Littles moved from Omaha to East
Lansing, Michigan after Malcolm X was born in 1925. Earl Little
continued his work there, but for his advocating of Garvey’s
belief in blacks’ self-respect, freedom, independence, and
rights, Earl Little was almost lynched by the KKK. In 1929, the
house of the Littles was burned down by two white members Of “a
local hate society”. Malcolm X recollected that, “The white
police and firemen came and stood around watching as the house
burned down to the ground” (Autobiography 6) . In 1931, when
Malcolm X was six years old, Earl died. Malcolm X claims,
“Negroes in Lansing have always whispered that he was attacked,
and then laid across some tracks for a streetcar tO run over him.
His body was cut almost in half” and remembers people saying,
“the White Black Legion had finally gotten him” (Autobiography
13). Also, Malcolm X recollected that Louise “looked like a
white woman” and she was ashamed of her white father
(Autobiography 4-5) .

King and Malcolm X are both aware of “the eyes of others”
discourse. Malcolm X Observed in the 19605 that “A black man
is supposed to have no feelings” in America and that blacks were
taught that whites were “the personification of beauty and the
personification of success” (Malcolm X Talks to Young People 38) .

As Du Bois attempted to resist the myth which denies the

191

existence of blacks' soul in the Souls of Black Folks, Malcolm
X’s observation reveals the existence of the same suspicion in
later periods.

The “eyes Of others” concept changes between Du Bois’ time
at the turn of the century and the Civil Rights Era due to the
press’ use of the media such as television.85 One Of the
functions of the press MalcolnxX observed in 1965, was to serve
as a myth-making device that subtly underscored the negative
image of blacks and emphasized their status as lower class, evil,
and problematic: “Racists and segregationists use the press
skillfully to project an image of the Black man as a

86 His awareness Of the camera

criminal” (The Final Speeches 21) .
eye and television journalism were derived from his mentor,
Elijah Muhammad’s teaching that the white devils were always
watching them and they should be careful.

Popularization of television in the 19505 and Du Bois’ “the

eyes of others” need .more consideration. Black leaders,

including King and Malcolm X, appeared on TV programs and assumed

 

” Richard Valeriani, NBC reporter who “covered the civil rights
protests in Albany, Birmingham, and Selma” commented that “television helped
accelerate the progress of a movement whose time had come” (Eyes on the Prize:
America’s Civil Rights Years 270).

“ As I argued in Chapter 1, Part 2, in Credo (1904) DuBois defines
whites as “the Devil” who “believe the worst and work to prove it” and who
impose a negative image of blacks on “a brother’ 5 soul” (1) . Although DuBOis
defines the function of “the Devil” as cause of blacks’ self-degradation,
his perception of whites as myth making of wrong image of blacks and Elija’s
view are conunon. As for Malcolm X’ s stance in terms Of medium, Peter Goldman
calls him “a medium genius” who knew the “medium politics” well (“The Real
Malcolm X ”).

192

that their activities or addresses were aired on TV.87 This means
that not only their spoken or written words but also their actual
voice, their visibility, and their gaze towards the people
(through the camera) were directly transmitted to Americans and
in many cases to those outside America. In the path to the
acquisition of Civil Rights in the 1950’s and the 1960’s, the
African American “message for the world” was thrust into the
wider worlds by this technological breakthrough, television,
where it functioned as a form of resistance against “the eyes
of others” and revealed what was actually going on in America.88
Richard Valeriani, NBC reporter who covered the civil rights
movement, thinks that the uniqueness of television was an
immediacy that “forced the print media to be more honest than
it had ever been in covering these events” (Eyes 270) . Valeriani

further argues that:

In the old days, the wire service guy would sit there
in Birmingham and call up the local sheriff. . . . He
would write the sheriff’s point Of View entirely.
Television forced [print journalists] to gO there and
see what was happening, and then they could not
distort it” (Eyes 270).

 

3” Some works discuss television’s role as notifying the world about

the civil rights movements . For example, Herman Gray points out that “because
of television many of the aims and struggles of those movements became widely
known” (The Revolution wasn’t Televized 349) . But the present study explores
the relationship between double consciousness discourses and media coverage
of those movements.

193

The distorted news articles from “the sheriff’s point of
View” in Valeriani’s View is “the eyes of others” of Du Bois’
double consciousness. “The message for the world,” in double
consciousness, would be the information and perspective of
blacks being presented to the world. In Souls, Du Bois
emphasizes that he writes the book.as a black and from'“inside
the veil.”89 Valeriani's comment implies that the visual
presentation of events on television protected the blacks’
“message” from the possibility of being filtered through “the
eyes of others”—the white gaze and the print media’ 5 distortion
of facts. 90 In other words, television Offered more possibility
for the “message” to overcome “the eyes of others. As Linda
Brent in Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents used the eyes of the
neighborhood in order to evade the danger in which her master
would sexually exploit her, blacks’ active use of the medium in
the 1960’s notified the broader world about the injustices

against them in America.

Some good examples of how the medium (in this case,

 

”9 Other than Du Bois, David.Walker wrote pamphlets and news articles
in order to notify international people of injustices in the U. S. The writers
of slave narratives such as Harriet Jacobs indict slavery by introducing
readers to hidden and cruel facts they experience. These writers emphasizes
the importance of being insiders of the black community who actually
experience and witness injustices in the U.S. Their writings play an
important role in circulation undistorted facts to the world.

9° Needless to say, the visuality of television is not perfectly honest
in terms of transmitting facts of “the message for the world.” Various visual
techniques, for example editing and camera techniques manipulate the text
that audiences receive.

194

television) was used to benefit the blacks’ cause and get their
“message” out to the world, were the broadcasts Of marches and
luncheon sit-ins that took place. Often, the marchers and sit-in
participants received direct media attention by being
interviewed, so that their feelings and perspectives were being
relayed to American citizens as well as to the world. For
example, on April 19, 1960 the “Home of Z. Alexander Looby,
prominent black attorney in Nashville, is destroyed by dynamite.
That same day 2,500 students and community members march to
Nashville city hall, the first protest march of the modern civil
rights period.” A student activist from Fisk University and a
leader Of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) ,
Diane Nash asks the mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, Ben West,
"Mayor West, do you think it is wrong to discriminate against
a person solely on the basis Of their race or color?" (“NO Easy
Walk (1961-63),” Eyes on the Prize Program 4) The person whom
Nash directly asked was West, but I argue that her direct address
also functioned as her message to the viewers of the TV program
or challenge to racist discourses in America. In this sense,
this case signifies one example of Du Bois’ “message for the

1

world” discourse.9 Another case is Emmett Till’s case. When

 

” Eyes on the Prize is “a six-part documentary series that tells the
human stories of the movement for social change in the words of both famous
and less-known participants. Produced by Blackside, Inc.l, and presented
on PBS by WGBH Boston, Eyes on the Prize premiered Wednesday, January 21,
1987” (Blackside, Inc., 1996).

195

two white men, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, killed a
fourteen-year-Old black boy, Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955,
an Open-casket funeral was held in Till’s hometown Chicago.
Till’s body was harshly beaten and his head was shot. His eyes
were gouged out. SO his face was hardly recognized by people
who knew him. Only a ring he wore was the evidence to identity
him. Till’s mother commented to the reporters that “world must
see what had been done to her child” . The picture of Till’ 5 dead
corpse was published in the magazine Jet. The open-casket
funeral and publication of Till’s picture signify appeal to the
world and demonstration of injustice, and were made to expose
people to what happened, and signify Du Bois’ message for the

world discourse.

This was a new and characteristic phenomenon in the era of
the 19605, which was not available at the turn of the century.
Herman Gray writes that King’s Affiliation, the Southern
Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), and students’ committee,
and SNCC used television (mainly news programs) in order to evoke
“moral and financial support for their causes” and “to focus
national attention on various protest campaigns” (The
Revolution wasn’t Televized 349). Gray points out that
organizations such as the Nation of Islam to which Malcolm X
belonged and the Black Panther Party attempted to use press and

media to “illustrate the complex strategies and machinations at

196

work to contain and neutralize their efforts” although the media
coverage of them were mostly negative (The Revolution wasn’t
Televized 349).

Although Malcolm X and Muhammad viewed whites as “ racists,”
the image of Malcolm X and Muhammad as themselves “racists” was
popularized in white America. Following a television program
about the rise of MalCOlHlX, “The Hate Produces Hate,” Malcolm
X and The Nation Of Islam (NOI), the black nationalist
organization with which both Malcolm X and Muhammad were
involved became widely publicized in 1959.92 The images of
Malcolm X and NOI as “black supremacists,” and “racists,”
together with Malcolm X’ s slogan, “By Any Means Necessary” were
used to reverse Du Bois’ original definition of the “white gaze”
as oppressor and the black self as oppressed.

King’s case was literally a situation where blacks were
able to meet the gaze of the national audience, give their
“message for the world,” and actively participate in the
changing of white America’s stance of being just onlookers on
the their plight. As stated in Chapter 1, one of the definitions
of the “eyes Of others” Of Du Bois’ double consciousness was that
Of whites as bystanders onlookers. Du Bois started the Souls
of Black Folks with his observation that whites were bystanders,

while blacks confronted the problem after Emancipation. Du Bois

197

was frustrated with the whites’ lack Of involvement, because he
felt that what blacks faced was a problem that all Americans
should be grappling with. In the 1960’s, media development
helped challenge this inactivity. The concept of double
consciousness was formulated as a pragmatic means for solving
the plight Of African-Americans. In this sense, the pragmatic
function of the concept was exercised by the use of the new medium
to prejudice and discrimination.

African Americans assumed that their resistance against
the police, who expelled them from marches, or whites’ violence
against those who set in the white sections of lunch counters,
would be seen by thousands of TV viewers. In this way “the eyes
of others” became split between whites’ violence and segregation
in public places and television viewers, who would be able to
judge for themselves what was right and wrong. To reveal their
very existence was resistance against the discrimination of “the
eyes of others.” For example, King deliberately utilized
non-violent tactics when police would use violence to break up
demonstrations, in order to arouse the viewer’s sense of guilt
or conscience as they watched the blacks being victimized. This
plan proved to be very successful and resulted in a very
effective resistance consistent with Du Bois’ sense of “message

for the world.” A good example Of this was when President

 

” Malcolm’s address and activities of NOI were featured.

198

Kennedy was duly shocked by a news broadcast showing police using
high pressure hoses on blacks to break up a march (Garrow 45).
One could speculate that perhaps his shock led to even more

effective action and support by the federal government to ease
the black situation and bring about integration.

Martin Luther King, Jr. observed another pattern of “the
eyes of others” ignorance. Du Bois had pointed out that whites’
ignorance of blacks had.a:massive and an oppressive power over
them, but King argued that, “Ten years ago, Negroes seemed almost
invisible to the larger society, and the facts of their harsh
lives were unknown to the majority of the nation” (Where Do We
Go From Here 15). He went on to say, “Today, civil rights is
a dominating issue in every state, crowding the pages of the
press and the daily conversation of white Americans. In this
decade of change, the Negro stood up and confronted his
oppressor” (Where Do We Go From Here 15).

King interprets this historically important decade of
moving toward civil rights as the turning point for blacks
escaping from an oppression invisible to most whites. In his
“Where do we go from here?” speech in 1967, a year before his
assassination, King recollected the year 1957. Although the
year 1957 was after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision
that banned school segregation in 1954 and the Supreme Court

decision that segregation on school busses was illegal in 1956,

199

Jithrow laws and segregation still upheld in the South. Pmshe
mentioned, the period between the mid 19505 and 1967 marked a
significant change in African-American and American history.
Several actions such as the Sit-in Movement in Greensboro (1960) ,
the Freedom Ride in 1961 and the fight against the white backlash
led to the Civil Rights Act in 1964. This period, the path to
Civil Rights, marked the time when blacks were able to overcome
their invisibility or the traditional sense of “the eyes of
others.”

The “eyes of others” symbolizes massive prejudice that
oppresses blacks' inner psychology and external conditions,
causes self-criticism, and leads to giving up demands for the
equality and ideals of justice. lkltermm;of'the effect of “the'
eyes of others” on blacks’ external conditions, King’s famous
speech “I have a dream” in Washington. D.C. (March,1963) , shows

some elements of the discourse:

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free;
one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still
sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the
chains of discrimination; one hundred years later, the
Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst
of a vast ocean of material prosperity; one hundred years
later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of
American society and finds himself in exile in his own
land (A Testament of que 217).

2M)

As Du Bois points out, “the eyes of others” made blacks
outsiders in the society, and he regards poverty as one of the
effects of “the eyes of others” on blacks around the turn of
the century, mentioning that “To be a poor man is hard, but to
be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of
hardships” (Souls 9). King'also emphasized blacks’ alienation
in American society and the persistent poverty in the 19605,
citing the number of years from.Emancipation, now adding up to
“one hundred years later.”

The Souls of Black Folks was written about forty years after
the Emancipation Proclamation right after Plessy'vs Furguson’s
“Separate but Equal” decision in 1896, and King’s “I have a
dream” speech was addressed one hundred years after the
Emancipation Proclamatitnn While Du Bois’ introduction of the
double consciousness concept in 1897 was in the “second-slavery”
era (Du Bois’ phrase), King’s time still inherited the legacy
of the decision, which was segregation. In his speech, King’s
frustration against Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others” was
revealed.in his indictment Of segregation, discrimination, and
the mechanism that hinders blacks’ economic wellbeing and
excludes them from the center of society; These conditions in
the 19605 prove the continued existence of the structure
which the double consciousness discourse originally addressed.

In his Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community? (1967) , King

201

.said that “the Negro still lives in the Basement of the Great
Society. . .. In consequence, Negroes are still impoverished
aliens in an affluent society” (18-19). In referring to
Johnson’ 5 slogan, King emphasized that blacks were persistently
poor even in the “Great Society” that advocated the abolishment
of poverty and racial inequality in 1965.93

Malcolm X also noticed the continued existence of Du Bois’
sen5e Of “veil.” In the detention home in Mason, Michigan, in
1938, all the white people in charge of the home or who cooked
were “good people” and liked him.“ But he came to realize that
“they all liked my attitude and it was out of their liking for
me that I soon became accepted by them—a5 a mascot, I know now”
and remembered that “they would even talk about me, or about
‘niggers, ’ as though I wasn’t there, as if I wouldn’t understand
what the word meant” (Autobiography 27) . The veil existed in his
perception of his invisibility.

Malcolm X, a member Of the Black Muslims, argues that

 

” David Levering Lewis points out that Du Bois once recognized King
as “the American Gandhi” comparing “Gandhi’s liberation of India” with
“King’s success in Alabama,” but King’s “nonviolent passive resistance
devoid Of an economic agenda increasingly disappointed Du Bois”(557).

“ When Malcolm X was thirteen years old, he went into a classroom
wearing his hat. His white teacher ordered him to keep wearing the hat, and
to walk around the room until he told Malcolm X to stop. Malcolm X walked,
took a thumbtack, and put it in his teacher’s chair. Then, the teacher hit
the thumbtack. With his deportment record, a decision to expel Malcolm X
came. A states man took Malcolm X down to court and Malcolm X was told to
go to a reform school, but he went to the detention home in Mason, Michigan,
which is about twelve miles from Lansing, Michigan. Malcolm X explains that
the home was the place where “all the ‘bad' boys and girls from Ingham County
were held, on their way to reform school—waiting for their hearings” (The
Autobiography of Malcolm X 24-6.)

202

“America.is a colonial power. She is just as much.as alcolonial
power in 1964 . . . and she has colonized twenty-million
African-Americans” (Malcolm X Talks to Young People 16). He
called himself “one of the victims of America, one of the victims
of Americanism, one of the victims of democracy” (Malcolm X Talks
to Young Peopple 11). lklhis view, American social, political,
and economic systems are based upon “the castration of the Black
man” (Malcolm X Talks to Young People 22) and that blacks were
“cargo for purposes of a system that was bent upon making a
profit” in America (Malcolm X Talks to Young People 11).
Although the slavery was abolished their status as a cheap mass
labor force became fixed and functioned as the basis of the
American economic system, so that the difficulty exercising
their abilities still remained for African Americans. SO for
Malcolm X, in terms of America’s exploitation of blacks, the
condition had not been changed from Du Bois’ time.

As Du Bois perceived that the existence of the “veil”
between him and the other world symbolizes blacks’ double or
divided psychological identity and the existence Of something
which represses black psychology, King found that segregation

divided the structure of his own psychology:

The first time that I was seated behind a curtain
in a dining car, I felt as if the curtain had been dropped

on my selfhood. .After that summer in Connecticut, it was

AB

a bitter feeling going back to segregation. It was hard
to understand why I could ride wherever I pleased on the
train from New York to Washington and then had to change
to a Jim Crow at the nation’s capital in order to continue
the trip to Atlanta. The first time that I was seated behind
a curtain in a dining car, I felt as if the curtain had been
dropped on my selfhood. I could never adjust to the
separate waiting Rooms, separate eating places, separate
rest rooms, partly Because the separate was always unequal,
and partly because the very idea Of separation did
something to my sense of Dignity and self-respect

(Autobiography 11-12).

Segregation created not only two selves in King’ 5 mind, but also
an Obstacle which repressed his will to go outside the curtain
or “veil.” Likewise, when Malcolm X was in his seventh year
at Junior High School, he sensed as something like a‘“physical
barrier” the awareness that “the mascot wasn’ t supposed to dance
with the any of the white girls” (The Autobiography'of Malcolm
X 27) . He sensed that “ [i] t was some kind of psychic message—not
just from them, but also from within myself. I am proud to be
able to say that much for myself, at least” (The Autobiography
of Malcolm X 34).

Both.of King’s observations of the curtain’s dividing his
selfhood and Malcolm X’ s observation of the power that represses
his activity signify Du Bois’ problematization of double
identity. King’ 5 case fits Du Bois’ “two selves”-“American” and

“Negro”—argument, and Malcolm X’s case fits the alienation of

204

blacks. But, both King and Malcolm X perceived the structure
in their psychology that degrades their self-esteem, and causes
hesitancy or inability in communicating with whites.
Characteristically, they find that these powers residing not in
whites,lmn:imxtheir own psychology. This perception fits Du
Bois’ argument that a key to solving the race problem is blacks’
psychology.

Among several characteristitm;Of'double consciousness, Du
Bois problematizes the effect of “the eyes of others” on
blacks—deprivation of “true-self consciousness,” and self-
esteem. In the time of persistent segregation in the 19605, King

argues in “Our Struggle” (1956):

The segregation of Negroes, with its inevitable
discrimination, has thrived on elements of inferiority
present in the masses of both white and Negro people.
Through forced separation from our African culture,
through slavery, poverty, and deprivation, many black men

lost self-respect (A Testament of Hope 75).

Also, he argued in “I have a Dream” (1963) that “We can never
be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their
selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating ‘for whites
only’” (A Testament of Hope 218) . In King’s accounts, external
condition such as segregation, Jim Crow laws, and poverty

function as Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others.”

A”

In terms of King’s linkage Of these prejudices and their
systematic effect on blacks’ self-esteem, he reproduces Du Bois
“a world which yields [one] no true self-consciousness,” and “a
world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”(Souls 5).
In 1965 MalcolmxX also points out that America leads blacks to

dislike themselves:

But here in America, they have taught us to hate ourselves.
To hate our skin, hate our hair, hate our features, hate
our blood, hate what we are .... By skillfully making us
hate Africa and, in turn, making us hate ourselves, hate
our color and our blood, our color became a chain. Our color
became to us a chain. It became a prison. It became
something that was a shame, something that we felt held
us back, kept us trapped (Malcolm.X Talks to Young People
37).

Here America’s view toward the color Of blacks’ skin causes
blacks’ self-hate and sense of being ashamed of themselves
(37).95 Malcolm X names the blacks’ psychology which is
oppressed or exploited by whites’ gaze a “slave mind” or
“colonial mentality” (Malcolm X Talks to Young People 16).”96

King further argues in “Where DO We Go From Here?” (1967)

 

” William Cosgrove argues that “The Autobiography of Malcolm X X

contains the blueprint for rejection of invisibility-separatism and movement
toward the native son"(“MOdern Black Writers: The Divided Self” 121)

” As William Cosgrove point out in 1970, “Less literary but more
inflammatory reactions to the black man’s invisibility in America are the
separationist preachings of Elijah Muhammad and the Black Muslims.”
Resistance against whites’ ignorance and fixation of Blacks’s position as
“invisible” are one of the characteristics of the Black Muslims (“Modern

AM

that historically the deprivation of “self-conscious manhood”
has been a theme for blacks and psychological freedom would lead

them to the freedom:

The tendency to ignore the Negro’s contribution to
American life and to strip him of his personhood is as Old
as the earliest history books and as contemporary'as the
morning’s newspaper. . .As long as the mind is enslaved,
the body can never be free (“Where Do We Go From Here?”
A Testament of HOpe 246).97

He further argues that: “Psychological freedom, a firm sense of
self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long

night Of physical slavery” (“Where Do We GO From Here ?” 246).
As Du Bois advocated the need of rejecting “the eyes Of others”
and of having self-esteem as pragmatic tactics to get actual
rights blacks need, King demonstrates the need to resist against

the self-degradation power and to achieve self-respect:

And, with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the
Negro must boldly throw Off the menacles Of self-

abegnation and say to himself and to the world, “I am
somebody. I am a person. I am a person. I am a man with

dignity and honor” (A Testament of Hope 246).

Here King does not argue about how blacks should act toward

 

Black Writers: The Divided Self” 120).
m This speech was published under the title “New Sense of Direction”
in Worldview 15 (April 1972).

AN

whites, but about their “1” to “I” relationship as Of key
importance. .Also, King points out that “[t]he extreme tension
in race relations in the South today” was solved by black
people’ 5 having self-respect (A Testament of Hope 76) . In 1954,
the separate but equal decision was reversed, and legal
segregation was banned.

As the mechanism in Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness
indicates, the discourse that affirms blacks who have a key to
change the society existed in the 19605. One of the reasons why
Du Bois problematized the negative function of “the eyes of
others” on blacks was because it would lead to their

accommodation to the plight:

But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring

the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and
lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression and

breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate (Souls 10).

As I have argued, in Du Bois’ concept, blacks’ inner conflict
symbolizes or links to the external conflict of social relations.
Influence of “the eyes of others” on black psychology—
deprivation of “true-self consciousness” or self-esteem—
suggests the relationship between prejudice, self-criticism,
and blacks’ giving up achievement of their goals in America.

This structure has been a big theme for the uplift of

mm

African-Americans historically as was illustrated by Frederick
Douglass and David Walker. Du Bois formulated the concept right
after the “separate but equal” decision of Plessy vs Ferguson
(1896) , and King and Malcolm X pursued the abolishment of legal
segregation and discrimination that were fixed in Du Bois’ time.
Leaders explained the psychological mechanism of self-
degradation and how it occurred and how it relates to their
living environment and liberation. For example, Malcolm X
argued in “I’m not an American, I’m a victim of AmericanismW
(1964) that “the American racists know that they can rule the
African in America, the African-American in America, only as
long as we have a negative image of.Africa” (Malcolm.X'Talks to

Young People 14). He also argued that:

Everything needs to be controlled until the colonial
mentality has been completely destroyed, and when that
colonial mentality has been destroyed at least to the
point where they know what they are voting for, then

you give them a chance to vote on this and vote on that...
(Malcolm X Talks to Young People 16).

Malcolm X reasoned that white America knows that the degradation
of blacks’ self-esteem by massive prejudice was an effective
strategy to deprive them of their various rights or to suppress
their rising status. This mechanismlwas also problematized.by

Douglass. Later, Martin Luther King took up a concrete example

fl”

of the relationship between raising self-esteem and the

acquisition Of rights:

This growing self-respect has inspired the Negro with a
new determination to struggle and sacrifice until first-

class citizenship becomes a reality. This is the true

meaning of the Montgomery Story (Autobiography 106).98

“The Montgomery Story” referstthhe Montgomery Bus Boycott in
Alabama in 1955 which started with Rosa Parks’ refusal to move
from the white section of the bus to the black section.
Twenty-year-old King was chosen as a leader to resist the arrest
Of Parks and segregation of the bus. As a result of this boycott,
the Supreme Court decided that the segregation of the buses was
illegal.

King noted that several factors such as migration of blacks
from “isolation on the rural plantation” in the South to “urban
centers” raised their economic condition and brought “new
possibilities for educational advance” (Autobiography 105-106) .
This change gave an African American a “fresh look at himself”
(sic)(Autobiography 16). It also made blacks acquire an
anti-accommodationist stance, and pursue “first-class

II 99

citizenship. Later, Malcolm X argued in “the Organization

 

9" King regards many changes such as condition of education had Offered
blacks new kind of self-respect. He calls it “this growing self-respect”
(Autobiography 99).

99 One of the revelation of DuBois' advocate of an anti-accommodationist

210

of Afro—American Unity” that:

. we get into it without compromising. You compromise
when you’re wrong. You don’t have to compromise when
you’ re right. Why, you’ re right (Malcolm X Talks to Young
People 45)

In terms of the anti-accommodation of double consciousness
discourse they agree.

King’s linking the improvement of educational
Opportunities, the increase Of blacks’ self-esteem, and
improvement of blacks’ living conditions or acquisition of
rights reviewing the history from the migration era to the
Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1954 fits Du Bois’ message on double
consciousness, and Malcolm X shows the common Observation on
this linkage, that education is a key to uplift. Malcolm X
argued in “The Oppressed Masses of the World Cry Out for Action”

(1965) that the society degrades educational opportunity:

And they do this very skillfully to keep us trapped. They
know that as long as they keep us undereducated, or with
an inferior education, it’s impossible for us to compete
with them for job openings . And as long as we can’ t compete

with them and get a decent job, we’re trapped
(Malcolm X Talks to Young People 43).

 

stance derives from the “eyes of others” argument was his pursuit of the first
class citizenship, acquisition of full basic human rights as Americans. This
stance was shown in the mottoes of Niagara Movement and NAACP around the turn

Of the century.

2H

Blacks need education for change, but whites need to deprive them
Of their education in order to oppress them. In terms of this
mechanism, Du Bois, King and Malcolm X agree. Malcolm X further
argued in a lecture at Harvard on March 19, 1964 that education

leads to equality:

DO you believe that a nation within another nation can be
successful, especially when they both have equal
educations? If we receive equal education, how long do you
expect us to remain your passive servants, or second-class
citizens? There is no such thing as a second-class
citizen. Or we are not citizens at all. When you teach
a man the science of government, he then wants an equal
part or position in that government, or else he wants his

own government. He begins to demand equality with his
master. No man with education equal to your own will serve

you . . .” (The Speeches at Harvard 129-130).

This mechanism explains Douglass' account Of the slave
master and slave relationship that I argued in chapter 3.
Slavemasters tried to prevent slaves from gaining knowledge
because knowledge would grow rebellious slaves. They knew that
ignorance could help keep their slaves passive or repress
slaves’ demands for freedom. Neither slaves in the slavery
system nor blacks in the 19605 would accommodate the Oppressed

situation.

in

Based on this mechanism, both King and Malcolm X introduced
the solution to this problem-education as a key for demolishing
prejudice—and revealed their views that change of education
would change blacks’ self-image and white’s prejudice toward
blacks. King argued in his speech “Where DO We GO From Here?”

(1967) that:

Ossie Davis has suggested that maybe the English language
should be reconstructed so that teachers will not be
forced to teach the Negro child sixty ways to despise
himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense Of
inferiority, and White child 134 ways to adore himself,
and thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority
(A Testament of HOpe 245-246).100

King refers to the need for change in the language system in
lunerica which embeds the mechanism to create the black

inferiority myth and white superiority'mythn In 1965 Malcolm
X answered.the questitun “What do you think is responsible for

race prejudice in the U.S.?”:

Ignorance and greed. And a skillfully designed program
of miseducation that goes right along with the American
system of exploitation and Oppression. If the entire

American population were properly educated—by properly
educated, I mean given a true picture of the history and
contributions of the black man-I think many whites would

. I” This speech was published under the title “ New Sense of Direction”
in Worldview 15 (April 1972): 5.

2D

be less racist in their feelings. They would have more
respect for the black man as a human being
(Malcolm X Speaks 196).

Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folks in order to “educate” both
a black and white readership. In this respect, the views of King
and Malcolm X fit Du Bois’ argument on the concept of double
consciousness.

On the other hand, we have to know that there are
differences of strategies, positions, and views of America and
whites among King and Malcolm X while both of them revolve around
the double consciousness discourse. Before defining them just
as integrationist and Black nationalist, it is necessary to
explore their definitions of self and its symbolization of their
view of America. As I argued in chapter 2, in defining double
consciousness, Du Bois argued the need of retaining “the older
selves”-selves as “an American” and “a Negro”—in establishing
“a better and truer self” because “America has too much to teach
the world and Africa,” and “Negro blood has a message for the
world” (Souls 5). Du Bois regards internalizing the American
or whites’ perspective in blacks' psychology as an advantage for
blacks because the multiple perspective helps blacks to deepen
an understanding of America. Du Bois did not define “white” or
“whiteness” as the “enemy” as Malcolm X did in 1963: “He’s an

enemy to all of us” (Malcolm X Speaks 5). But he regarded it

214

as an opposite of blackness. In illustrating this psychological
model, Du Bois argued the need of knowing or involving the other
sides' demands, substances, and strategies.

Martin Luther King, Jr., advocated the phrase, “love your
enemies,” and the need of the Christian term, agape, in white
and black relationships. King explains that “Agape means

understanding, redeeming good will for all men” (Stride 104):

It is an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous,
unmotivated, groundless, and creative. 11:is not set:h1
motion by any quality or function of its object. It is the
love of God operating in the human heart. Agape is
disinterested love. It is a love in which the individual
seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor. (I
Cor. 10:24). Agape does not begin by discriminating
between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities
people possess. It begins by loving others for their
sakes. It is an entirely “neighbor-regarding

concern for others,” which discovers the neighbor in every
man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction
between friends and enemy; it is directed toward both
(Stride 103-104).

As Du Bois’ reason for retention of the poles in one black
mind signifies the need for understanding racial feelings,
King’s application of this Christian term, “agape” and the
phrase, “love your enemies” that signifies the need of
understanding and involving whites. In fact, one of King’s

characteristic activities was to get white activists involved

2”

in his organization. In order to appeal to both white and black
audiences and to find some strategies which are effective in
American society, he had to know the feelings and demands of both
sides. And in a sense Christianity functioned as a device that
provided a common language that appeals to both whites and
blacks.

Du Bois introduced “the waste of double aims” that is caused
by blacks' double identity as one definition of double
consciousness, and the difficulty for blacks to find the common
language that is understandable to both blacks and whites.
Du Bois argued that the discovery of a common language was the
key for blacks to be successful in America. Since King's father
was a minister of the Baptist Church, he did not intend to learn
Christianity to use for his later activities. But, as a result,
Christianity functioned as a good device to solve the dilemma

”1“ As a strategy, his slogan “love your

of “double aims.
enemies” and term “Agape” indicates that he did not intend to
attack white America. This functions as a practical strategy
which does not threaten whites and attracts them. This white
and black relationship model was the weapon for King as an

integrationist. I argued in chapter 1 that the double

consciousness concept can function as a political slogan, and

 

1“ DuBois’ assumed reader of the Souls and King's assumed audience
involved both blacks and whites.

2H5

Du Bois intended to use the philosophical concept in order to
change reality and to rescue the blacks’ plight in.a pragmatic
way. In this sense, King' 5 application of Christian beliefs was
pragmatic, as was Du Bois’. King interprets Christianity as a

belief that fits reality in a practical way. He argues that:

I can see no conflict between our devotion to Jesus Christ
and our present action. In fact I see a necessary

relationship. If one is truly devoted to the religion of
Jesus he will seek to rid the earth of social evils. The

gospel is social as well as personal (Stride 117).

Although Du Bois’ concept is not formulated in Christian terms
and beliefs, in the concept' 5 practical application to political
purposes, they share the same stance. Also, King’s View, “love
your enemy” and Malcolm X' 3 view that “whites are the enemy” mark
their difference.

Double consciousness discourse shows another implication
of the relationship between blacks’ (or the black self’s) and
whites (or the self as an American). DuBois' reasons for the
need of retaining “the older selves”—that “America has too much
to teach the world and Africa,” and that “Negro blood has a
message for the worldm—signify not only devices for
understanding both races and American society, but also
symbolize complementary relationships between the two races

(SOUlS’S). This idea relates to his idea that blacks' “ideal”

2H

is that “some day on American soil two world races may give each
to each those characteristics both so sadly lack” (Souls 11).
In his model of white and black relationships, no one race is
defined as more significant than the other (or another) race.
To achieve the American democratic ideal, Du Bois’ model demands
that both races cooperate and complement one another.

King argued that “The mere fact that we liveein the United
States means that we are caught in a network of inescapable
mutuality” (Stride 199). Also, in his assessment of Black
Power’s strategy, he argued that in “Where Do We Go from Here?”

(1967):

In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its
failure to see that the black man needs the white man and
the white man needs the black man. However much we may try
to romanticize the slogan, there is no separate black path
to power and fulfillment that does not intersect white
paths, and there is no separate white path to power and
fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share
that power with black aspirations for freedom and human

dignity (A Testament of Hope 588).

King’s complementary model of a black and white relationship
calls forth a double consciousness discourse. Du Bois argued
that mere blacks’ effort would not solve problems surrounding
them, and that whites’ action or cooperation is necessary. (hi

the other hand, Malcolm X rejected this relationship model. For

218

example, to the question, “Can whites join the Muslim Mosque,
Inc. ?” He answered, “Whites can’ t join us. . . The whites control
all Negro organizations that they can join—they end up in control
of those organizations (By Any Means 29) . Although this answer
is limited to his religious organization, it represents his View
of whites. He did not assume the model in which blacks and whites
cooperate with each other. T?mecondition.which.he could assume
was whites' exploitation of blacks.

As for the formation of blacks’ selfhood, more implications
can be found in Du Bois’ double consciousness. As Du Bois reveals
the African American dilemma in determining their identity by
asking “What am I?” (“Conservation of Races” 105) or “One ever
feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two warring ideals in
one dark body. . . ,” King took up the blacks’ question in America,
“Who are we?” and argues that “In physical as well as cultural
terms every Negro is a little bit colored and a little bit white.
In our search for identity we must recognize this dilemma” (A
Testament of que, 588).

As Du Bois avoided formulating the identity model which
forced blacks to choose either black or white identity in his
double consciousness concept, King revealed his dissatisfaction
with the tendency in which many blacks tried to choose one

identity:

NW

The problem is that in the search for wholeness all too
many Negroes seek to embrace only one side of their
natures. Some, seeking to reject their heritage, are
ashamed of their color, ashamed of black art and music,
and determine what is beautiful and good by the standards
of white society. They end up frustrated and without
cultural roots. Others seek to reject everything
American and to identify totally with Africa, even to
the point of wearing African clothes. But this approach
leads also to frustration because the American Negro is

not an African (A Testament of que 588).

Here King shows the importance of the retention.of.Africanness
as cultural pride and Americanness as a practical living place
as Du Bois argues the need for retention of “America” and.“the
Negro blood” in one black person.

Based upon this idea, King introduced the identity model:

The old Hegelian synthesis still offers the best answer
to many of life' s dilemmas. The American Negro is neither
totally African nor totally Western. He is Afro-
American, a true hybrid, a combination of two cultures
(A Testament of que 588).

As Du Bois and King link their definition of black identity or
selfhood to the uplift in their respective times, Malcolm X also
takes up the issue. He declares that he is not an American
although he lives in America (Malcolm X Talks to Young Peqple
56). His solution—separation of the black community from

mainstream America-derives from his definition of blacks’

2%)

identity. This difference of the definition of the blacks' self
between King and Malcolm X is shown in their ideals and solutions.
This is an integrationist and Black nationalist argument between
them.

As Du Bois’ goal in terms of identity formation was “to
merge his double self into a better and truer self,” and his goal
in terms of actual black and white relationship symbolized by
the identity model was “some day on American soil two world races
may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack,”
King argued that “I have a dream that one day every valley shall
be exalted, every hill and mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling
discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood”
(A Testament of Hope 219) . On the other hand, Malcolm X denounces
the integrationist idea arguing that “‘Peaceful coexistence!’
That’s another one the white man has always been quick to cry.
Fine! But what have been the deeds of the white man?”
(Autobiography 375) . Also, he argued that “It' 5 just like when
you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too
strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make
it weak” (Malcolm X Speaks 16).

Malcolm X further argued that “The black masses as
represented by the Black Muslims will never be satisfied until

we have some land that we can call our own” (Malcolm X at Harvard

221

127). He also argued that:

The only revolution hiMHULfllthe goal is loving your enemy
is the Negro revolution. It' s the only revolution in which
the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated
theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public
toilet; you can sit down next to white folks-on the toilet.

That’s no revolution. Revolution is based on land. ILand

is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of

freedom, justice, and equality” (Malcolm X Speaks 9).

Malcolm X’s Black Nationalist idea is the antithesis to Du
Bois’ advocation of the need of retention of two identities—
American and African, and avoidance of a black or white
alternative. In the era of Marcus Garvey after World War I, his
solution was the “Back to Africa” movement.102 In the 19605,
Malcolm X did not advocate blacks’ returning to Africa, but, in
terms of rejection of identity as an American, Malcolm X's
solution revolved around the alternative discourse also
promoted by Du Bois and Garvey.

I argued in Chapter 1 that Du Bois' introduction of “the
eyes of others” and its power to degrade blacks implies the need
to escape from passivity as one seen to become an active and
independent seer of Americans. In this sense, King and Malcolm

X both advocated the need for an active stance. Their solution

 

”2 Malcolm confesses in his autobiography that he did not understand

his father's advocation of going back to Africa (5).

zn

looks different, but both require blacks’ independent and active
perspective.

In both Du Bois and King's cases, blacks were defined as
active agents and their purpose is not defined as their
accommodation to whites' logic, but “American ideals” which
comprehend both blacks and whites. Although Malcolm X
criticized King by calling him “Uncle Tom” who accommodated
whites, King carefully rejects the logic—whites’ superiority to
blacks’—and blacks’ accommodation to whites by declaring

loyalty to America which did not just signify “white.America.”

On the other hand, Malcolm X’s nationalist stance is also
“active” separation from.white America” MalCOlHlX assumed the
inescapability of separation because America forced it on blacks,
arguing that “South Africa preaches separation and practices
separation: America preaches integration and practices

segregation” (Malcolm X Talks 22-23). He also argued that:

Therefore, Mr. Muhammad has demanded that you and your
government let us separate ourselves from you right here,
into a separate territory that we can call our own and
on which we can do something for ourselves and for our
own kind. . . . I repeat, “Let our people be separated
from you, and give us some territory that we call

our own and where we can live in peace among

ourselves (Malcolm X Talks to Young People 22).

Although Malcolm X emphasizes the inescapability of the

Z3

separation of blacks from white America (the “physical barrier”
of his childhood memory), he regards his choice to be an active
one. Malcolm X’ s solution—separation from white America—is not
his surrender to “the eyes of others” of double consciousness,
but another way of resisting Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of

others.” Later his emphasis on the need of blacks’ active choice

is shown:

In short, we don’t want to be segregated by the white
man, we don’t want to be integrated with the white man,
we want to be separated from the white man.

(The End of White WOrld Supremacy 69)

For Malcolm X to be “segregated” means “the eyes of others”—
whites’imposition of inadvantageous conditions on blacks. On
the other hand, “separation” requires the willful effort of

blacks. As for the message for the world, one of the crucial
points is the audiences of King and Malcolm X. Many scholars
point out the difference of audiences for King and Malcolm X.
But this is also a tricky issue. Malcolm X’ 5 wife, Betty Shabbaz
commented that Malcolm X’ 3 message was to people. If it happened
“to have been to black people and some people say, wow that’s
racist. No. You have to look at the need. Need.” (The Real Malcolm
X). So mere analysis of their audience will not enable us to

find to whom they directed their messages.

fiM

CHAPTER 7

Double Consciousness Discourse in Film.snd Literature

In this chapter, I examine how Du Bois’ double
consciousness discourse is woven into narrative structures,
images, concepts, and the construction of subjectivity. I also
explore how certain kinds of texts portray conflicts that Du Bois
regarded as double consciousness over time.

One of the purposes of the present study is to consider
fully what Du Bois’ sense of double consciousness is. Recall
that Du Bois problematizes whites’ perspectives as onlookers of
blacks’ condition or plight and provoked the readers’ serious
consideration of the race issue in writing The Souls of.Black
Folks. .His famous line, “the problem of the Twentieth Century
is the problem of the color line," also signifies his calls of
readers’ modification of their onlooker stance on race issues.
He appealed to both African-American and non-African-American
readers in writing, “suppose and suppose” what the experience
of the race problem is like. This chapter shows one way to
fulfill [hi Bois’ wish—exposing various readers tx> the race
problem, or making them abandon their (unconscious) bystanders’
perspectives on problems that the concept illustrates. As far
as we regard this concept as one of exclusively African American

experience or “others,” we cannot understand it. It is necessary

Z5

to show that the concept exists in seemingly unrelated places
or forms, and that the analogy of dilemma or conflict that the
concept reveals might be a familiar one for us.

In order to accomplish these aims, I consider literary and
film texts. These texts are different from these I took up in
Chapter 3. Around the turn of the century when Du Bois’
introduced the concept, new kind of text—moving pictures-
emerged. As time passes, media have become diverse and changed
forms. Since the present study aims to establish a genealogy,
it is helpful to see the discourse over time and to see film and
literature as the products of cultural time. Both literature
and film present slices of our daily lives or sense of values
to us. These show us that Du Bois’ double consciousness
discourse, its fragmentary' implication, and. messages are
embedded in our daily lives in familiar narratives. Motifs,
conversasion, characterization, and images of these kinds of
texts embed double consciousness discourse. In the case of
films, not only words or plots, but also visual or audio signs
and images, pacing, facial expression, time, and movement embed
these values. Thus, we can expect that in the construction of
images in film we should find the function of the discourses
which we can not find in the exploration of texts that merely
consist of words.

For example, Deliah in a film Imitation of Life (1934) and

2%5

Pierre in Bamboozled (2000) are different in terms of time,
gender, job, class, and educational background, so they should
not be compared in a simple way. But even a seemingly successful
middle class black male, Pierre, survives in white America by
degrading his black identity as Deliah accepts her image as an
unintellectual black in the 30s. This shows the persistence of
the waste predicted by Du Bois’ double aims discourse, and shows
that even hard work or the existence of a black middle class at
the beginning of the 21St century does not fully solve the African
American dilemma.

Although the world represented in the films is different
from reality, the filmmakers’ choice of topic and shots reflects
values of the times when those were made. The present study does
not focus mainly on filmmakers’ intentions or personal ideology
in making films, but on how images function for constructing
values and how audiences could perceive them. The audiences’
perception of the image might be different from what the
directors intended, and audiences change our time. I use a
French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s cinema theory in Cinema 1
(1983) and Cinema 2 (1985) , which emphasizes the relation
between images and the audience’ 5 perception of images, as a tool
to analyze film texts. Among his concepts, I will deploy his
theory of affection-image, time-image, and sensory-motor-

schema. I will examine film texts of various subject positions,

227

directors, genres (such as so-called “race films”), over time.
I also examine how white directors or black directors construct
double consciousness discourses.

One of the definitions of Du Bois's concept of double
consciousness is the “second-sight” function in which “the eyes
of others” constructs one’ 5 self image. In Nella Larsen’ 5 novel,
Quicksand (1928) , the protagonist, Helga, is a twenty-four year
old mulatto woman.103 She is a teacher at Naxos, an elite
institute for black youth. She repeats a journey seeking her
racial identity and romantic love, but, as she encounters men,
she is insulted as a black woman. At the end of the journey,
she marries a black minister and dies in childbirth. Mulatto
discourse in the literary and film texts have been explored by
many researchers. The “Tragic Mulatto Myth” is named for light
skinned people from African American communities who have
difficulty in defining their own identity and usually come to
a bad end. Among those difficulties, “passing”—as white—may be
one of the central issues.

Du Bois takes up the double identity issue in discussing
the concept of double consciousness where doubleness signifies

black/white and black/American alternatives . Given the symbolic

 

1” Deborah McDowell noted that DuBois admired it as the “best piece
of fiction that Negro America has produced since the heyday'of Chesnutt" in
his Voices of a Black Nation: Political Journalism in the Harlem Renaissance,
ed. Theodore G. Vincent, review of Home to Harlem, and Quicksand (San
Francisco: Ramparts, 1973), 359.) (Quicksand and Passing ix).

228

dilemma between black. and white, an exploration of the
similarity and difference between divided race discourse and
mulatto discourse should provide insight in understanding Du
Bois’s formulation of the concept.

Although the anonymous protagonist in James Weldon
Johnson’ 3 The Autobiography of An Ex—Colored Man (1927) mainly
experiences the ambivalent feeling caused by his dual identity,
most of his annoyance at race is generated from his own inward
feeling, his view of others (blacks and whites) and his

4 But in the case of Quicksand, Larsen emphasizes

environment.10
how others see or categorize Helga, and how cruelly the others’
judgment damages her mind as a woman.

Basically, “race” and “gender” are different things, but
the combination of race and gender discourses enables readers
to see the possibility that one’ s racial identity can devastate

5 As I argued in Chapter

one’s happiness as an ordinary woman.10
1, the basis of Du Bois’ formulation of double consciousness was
the idea that judging people by the color of their skin is
nonsense. Larsen transforms the feelings of race consciousness

of African American people into a kind of universal feeling among

all people by adding a romantic love element to the novel. Also,

 

1“ The protagonist looks like a white, so he could pass a white.

’fis For example, white men whom Helga meets shows their racist View of
her. Helga has hard time in finding her pertner with whom she can be freed
from Du Bois’s sense of “the eyes of other.”

229

Larsen uses this understandable form, the romance form in
Quicksand, and sets up Helga as an ordinary young woman. So even
a non-black reader can sympathize with Helga and might be able
to realize the tragedy caused by race in an understandable form.

Furthermore, Helga is characterized by detailed
description of her beautiful facial features and fashionable
clothes. These descriptions also help to differentiate Helga
from the image of stereotypical or caricatured black women, and
make Helga’s race consciousness vivid and realistitz Larsen’s
use of color as a symbol of race helps to explain others’
prejudice toward her-Du Bois’s sense of “the eyes of others.”
For example, Helga’ s aunt in Copenhagen recommends that she wear
primary colors, but Helga likes chic colors. Helga’s aunt
reveals her stereotypical view of “sorte (black)” who are
believed to favor gaudy colors.

Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929) takes up racial passing of

6 Irene Redfield is a respected member of

two mulatto women.10
the black middle class of Harlem. She receives a letter from
her childhood friend, Clare Kendry, a notoriously delinquent

teenager who had disappeared from the black community twelve

years earlier. Irene decides not to see Clare, remembering the

 

“m Du Bois calls this novel “one of the finest novels of the year” in
the book review of The Crisis, July 1929. Also, he argued that “If the
American Negro renaissance gives us many more books like this, with its
sincerity, its simplicity and charm, we can soon with equanimity drop the
word ‘Negro’” (Du Bois: A Reader 521-522).

2%)

time she accidentally re-encountered Clare in Chicago two years
earlier. Irene finds that Clare had married a white man while
passing as a white, and questions Clare’s choice of passing for
white. Irene does not answer the letter.

A mulatta, Clare is always conscious about how she is seen
by others and is concerned that her original background would
be disclosed by others. By passing, Clare could move on to white
society and higher social and economic status. One of the
definitions of Du Bois’ double consciousness, “the eyes of
others,” explains her psychology. For Du Bois, this
psychological mechanism is dominated by a “sense of always
looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” that offers
no true-self consciousness. Clare succeeds in passing in white
society, but in the whites only Drayton Hotel in Chicago, she
is anxious that others will discover her secret, which renders
her guarded and fearful, and demonstrates her difficulty of
having “true—self consciousness” in her new world. Clare is
self-conscious that disclosure of her racial identity would also
expose her cmiginal class identity. ij her white husband
discovers her black ancestry, Clare will lose her current
happiness available in the new world of white society.

In Imitation of Life (1934), a white widow Miss Bea
(Claudet Colbert) asks her housekeeper, Aunt Deliah (Louise

Beavers) to smile, saying, “Big One.” Deliah’s smile imitates

231

 

 

7 Although most of Miss Bea’s manners toward

a.“Mammy” image.10
Deliah are not overtly racist, what she makes Deliah do is to
accept a stereotypical image of African—Americans. Deliah is
induced to conform to the expectations of “the eyes of others.”
Bea’s establishment of the “Aunt Deliah’s homemade pancake”
results in her economic success using blacks’ stereotypical
image. I argued in Chapter 1 that one implication of Du Bois’
definition of “the eyes of others” is whites’ economic
exploitation of blacks. Thus, this film produces a fragmentary
definition of double consciousness. In the 1959 version of
Imitation of Life, Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore) remains a
servant, but she does not conform to a stereotypical image. That
is, while the coding of the image changes over time, the effect
does not.

When Jessie, a white daughter of Bea, first calls Peola,
a mulatto daughter of Deliah, “black,” Bea admonishes Jessie,
and Peola bursts into tears. When Jessie answers, “I didn’t
mean anything,” a medium shot of her blank face watching Peola
is shown. This is Du Bois’s sense of the “eyes of others” in
which Jessie deprives Peola of “true-self consciousness” and is

a bystander who looks on. Iklhis cinema theory Deleuze defines

the “affection-image”-mostly close up- as having “quality or

 

”7 Donald Bogle argues that “Louise Beavers’ Deliah was a combination

of tom and aunt jemima magnified and glorified in full-blown Hollywood
fashion” (59).

2n

power,” and explains that “it is potentiality considered for
itself as expressed” (Cinema 1 98). Jessie’s blank face has
certain power and her white gaze deprives Peola’ s of “true-self
consciousness” and alienates her by looking on her. Although
Peola and Jessie have grown up in the same house and study
together, they live with Du Bois’ sense of “the veil” between
them where racial oppression functions as an unseen power.
In Imitation of Life in the late 19505—the time of the rise
of the civil rights movement—visual construction of a white
girl’s “eye” toward a mulatto girl such as Sara Jane was almost
absent.”8 When Susie Meredith (Sandra Dee), a sixteen year-
old white girl, asks Sara Jane JOhnson (Susan Kohner), an
eighteen-year-old mulatta, if her boyfriend is “ colored” or not,

9 Susie

Sara accuses her of asking an improper question.”
withdraws her question regretfully. Her question proves that
she has “the eyes of others” toward Sara Jane, but the absence

\\

of any visual construction of her eye” toward blacks lessens
the impact of the coldness or cruelty of white gaze found in the
1934 version. The rise of the Civil Rights Movement hindered
the strong expression of those eyes. But, in Mississippi Burning

(1988) , a close-up of a white girl who slightly smiles watching

the enthusiastic white speaker at a KKK meeting is inserted in

 

1“ In 1959 version, Sara Jane, a mulatta, replaces Peola.

”9 Sara Jane replaces Peola and Susie Meredith replaces Jessie in 1959
version.

I”

the scenes of the KKK meeting at night, and as an affection image,
the close-up of eyes that reflect the burning fire transmits the
little girl’ 5 doubtless belief in what the speaker of the meeting
says—the absolutism of white supremacy. The object of the girl’ 3
gaze is not the Other for her, African-Americans, but, in terms
of use of shots of the child’s eyes, their innocence and lack
of a sense of guilt as white gaze, both Imitation of Life (1934)
and Mississippi Burning emphasize the power of “the eyes of
others” as the devastating one on blacks.

By the late 20th century filmmakers such as Quentin
Tarantino had created scenes in which racial epithets appeared
in casual conversations. For example, in his Pulp Fiction (1994) ,
his black and white characters are comfortable in using racial
slurs and we see a glimpse of the black wife of one of these
characters as a counter-image coded as justification for freedom
from restraint on racial slurs. Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000)
intervenes in this discursive situation.

Bamboozled (2000) also uses the technique of inserting a
shot that reveals whites’ “eye” toward blacks, but with a
difference from Mississippi Burning. Dunwitty (Michael
Rapaport), a network executive and boss of the protagonist,
Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) , a Harvard-graduate working as
a writer for a broadcasting network, asserts that he has a right

to use the word “nigger” because he has an African-American wife

234

0 Pierre replies, “Well, I would

and “nigger” is just a word.11
prefer if you did not use that word in my presence.” Dunwitty
says “Oh, really?” as if Pierre’s comment is an unexpected one.
In the next shot, from Pierre’ 3 point of view, Dunwitty ridicules
Pierre, repeating “Nigger, nigger.”

This technique portrays Dunwitty’s ridicule through
exaggerated acting, intensifying Pierre’s imagination and his
perception of Dunwitty’ s contempt of him and African-Americans.
Dumwitty’s use of the word “nigger” itself denotes his
derogatory view of Pierre and.African-Americans, and signifies
“the eyes of others”—whites’ contemptuous View of African-
Americans. For him, political correctness is no longer
fashionable and he is free to use the word as he pleases. So
iJItermmsof the meaning of Dunwitty’s use of the word, the shot

of Dunwitty’s exaggerated ridiculing is reality.

Geneva Smitherman and Teun A. Van Dijk argue that:

Compared with many other forms of discrimination, that
found in discourse may appear to be less harmful . However,
though it differs from the kind of physical violence

against blacks and other minorities that was outlawed

(but hardly eliminated) only a few decades ago, its

 

1” In this scene, they are talking about Pierre’s projects. Dunwitty
turns down Pierre’s proposition of having a show featuring a black
middle-class family living in a white neighborhood. Dunwitty promotes Pierre
to write situations that feature stereotypical images of blacks.
Dunwitty’s phrase signifies Lee’s response to<Quentin.Tarantino's film Pulp
Fiction (1994).

25

consequences are no less painful (11).

Dunwitty's comment that " 'nigger' is just a word" shows
his white ignorance of the word's damaging effect on
African—Americans.

The next shot is a time-image in which Pierre beats Dunwitty,
saying, “Whitey, whitey, whitey,” but since the following shot
returns to the normalcy of their conversation scene, the
audience realizes the shot portrays not an actual attack but the
virtual attack that plays itself out in Pierre’s imagination.
In reality, Pierre does not beat his boss, and the shot reveals
his unconscious desire or intense drive to strike back at “the
eyes of others”—the other’ 5 contempt. The insertion of Pierre’ 5
imaginary shot breaks the “sensory-motor schema,” mixing an
interiorized impulse with exterior control. Sensory-motor-
schema “grounds narration in the image,” producing a series that
leads the narratives flow (Cinema 2 32) .111 Dunwitty’s racism
is broken, even if only imaginatively this time. So by breaking
the sensory-motor schema, audiences experience the sudden
switching of their perception from an objective View of two men’ s
conversation to Pierre’s View.112 This technique helps the

audience experience “the eyes of others.” Audiences may

 

1“ Deleuze explains the sensory motor image as one that “linked a
perception-image to an action-image; it already modeled the first on the
second and extended the one into the other” (Cinema 2 45).

236

perceive that Dunwitty’s ridiculing—his close-up—is not
directed toward Pierre, but toward the audience themselves. As
I argued in Chapter 1, Du Bois advocates the importance of
blacks’ “message for the world.” He suspected that the rest of
the world is not aware of the racism in the U.S. and attempted
to make them imagine what racism actually is. He appeals to the
reader by writing “Suppose I have missed a Harvard scholarship?”
or “Suppose euui suppose!”(Autobiography 183). This film’s
technique responds to Du Bois’ “Suppose and suppose !” and is “the
message for the world” in the concept of double consciousness.

This technique also enables viewers to experience the dual
structure of Pierre’s perception of reality; But the boundary
between the actual (his control) and virtual (his rage) images
is blurred in this case because Dunwitty’s use of the word
“nigger” and his ridiculing mean the same thing. As Nella Larsen
enabled readers to experience race consciousness and‘“the eyes
of others” by writing a narrative romance novel in which readers
might identify with the heroine, the film’s technique enables
the audience to experience what it is like being exposed to “the
eyes of others.” Du Bois problematized the white bystander’s
relation to blacks’ plight. So the film' 5 technique to make the
audiences experience “the eyes of others” itself signifies

double consciousness discourse.

 

1” This scene is a cross-cutting of their bust shot.

237

The “eyes of others” are also constructed by remarks,
reaction, and action. When as a small white child Jessie in
Imitation of Life (1934) meets Deliah for the first time, she
calls her “horsie.” Deliah does not get mad at this contemptuous
remark. Rather, she enjoys this small baby’s remark. In this
film Donald Bogle regards as “a conscious apotheosis of the tom
spirit and unconsciously bitter comment on race relations in
America.” The characterization of Deliah is a submissive woman
who did not resist “the eyes of others” (59).113

But, in the 19405, conditions were different from the 19303.
The 19405 was called the peak of the black press. Several
anti-discrimination activities were instituted such as
prohibition of discrimination in the U. S. army during WWII (Hill
and Moon 11) . Donald Bogle points out that NAACP criticized the
stereotypical portrayal of the Uncle Tom figure like the
character in Song of the South (1946) (Bogle 136). In Pinky
(1949) when the title role, Pinky Johnson (Jeanne Crain)
confesses she is not a white but an African-American in front

of her lover, Thomas Adams (William Lundigan), he says, “Poor

 

1” Bogle defines the year 1934 as a time “when a new social
consciousness had infiltrated the motion picture industry. Already
Roosevelt’s election, the New Deal, the growing liberalism of the country,
and the Depression itself had brought to American films a new world view and
a new social order whereby many of the old racial proprieties were starting
to be discarded.” Also, Bogle calls Imitation of Life “an outgrowth of this
new conscious liberal spirit” (57)

238

Pat.”114 Pinky reacts, “I’m not looking for pity." This is Du
Bois’s idea that one of the characters of whites’ eyes is pity
on African-Americans, who need to reject the influence of this
gaze on them. Pinky is the first feature film taking up
interracial romance (Bogle 120). As Bogle points out, the use
of a white actress for the mulatta character, Pinky, signifies
a compromise (Bogle 152).115 But, the character of the heroine
is portrayed as independent in order to reject the whites’
negative assessment or pity on blacks.116

The film Pinky shows “the eyes of others” by the repetitive
use of the same composition. The composition of the scene in
which Pinky was torn by her grandmother Aunt Dicey (Ethel Waters)
doing laundry is doubled by Pinky doing laundry in the background
instead of her grandmother, with Tom watching her from the
foreground as Pinky works. In this scene, Tom’ 5 face is not shown
He is seen only from the back standing quietly for a long time.
This repetitive use of the composition signifies identification
of Pinky with her grandmother and emphasizes Pinky as an African

American woman. Confronting the reality that Pinky is an

 

1” Pinky calls herself Patricia in passing for white in the North.

“5 The director of the film, Elia Kazan himself confesses in 1971 that
he felt “there was some essential cop-out in casting a white girl in the lead”
(131) , and reveals his dissatisfaction of “the blandness of the leading lady”
and “something black about that film” (Kazan 132).

1” The director Elia Kazan said that the film was “a conventional
picture” and “there were a lot of cliches in it” in terms of treatment of
blacks. He calls his film Baby Doll the best in terms of portraying blacks
who scorn the whites (201).

239

African-American, Tom just stands there. After Pinky sees Tom,
Tom asks Pinky why she is doing the wash, and she answers that

.7

she has to make money.11 The long shot of Tom’s back before he
questioned Pinky functions as “the eyes of others” which Du Bois
calls “all, nevertheless, flutter round . . . an unasked
question” and situates Tom as a bystander (Souls 3) .1” When
Pinky comes back from the North to her home in the South, she
sees her grandmother as a bystander. Since Pinky lives as a white
and has a white lover in the North, her African-American
grandmother exists as “the other” for her. But after she lives
with her grandmother again, Tom’ 5 View categorizes Pinky and her
grandmother as others for him.

In the 19605, a black FBI agent, Virgil Tibbs (Sidney
Poitier), orders a white police man to call him “officer” in In
The Heat of the Night (1967) . In Jungle Fever (1991) , when the
boss of the protagonist, a black middle class architect, Flipper,
says, “Afro-American,” Flipper corrects it, “African American.”
When one of the white staff calls Pierre Delacloix “Pierre” in
Bamboozled (2000), he tells the staff to call him, “Mister

Delacloix.” In these plots, blacks reject “the eyes of others”

—whites’ assessment of them—embedded in their way of addressing

 

1” Pinky needs to make money for the trial.

1” When Pinky first comes back from North to her home, the South,
this shot of her back was used. She was the bystander of her grandmother’s
life as a black and now same composition and situation make Tom as a bystander .

240

blacks.

The “eyes of others” are expressed in acting too. In
Imitaticmzof Life (1934), when.Deliah visits Peola’s classroom,
she quickly hides her face from her mother. The appearance of
a black mother results in disclosure of Peola’s passing for a
white. A boy says, “Gee, I didn’t know she was colored” and Peola
walked to the door with heavily angry face being strongly
conscious of other kids’ eyes toward her. But in the 1959 version
of Imitation of Life, which is made after the prohibition of
public school segregation in Brown vs Board of Education (1954) ,
when her mother comes into the classroom, Sara Jane Johnson
(Karin Dicker) first looks around for other students’ reactions
to her and then hides her face with a textbook. Both 1934 and
1959 versions show the heroines’ consciousness of themselves
constructed by whites’ gaze toward them. But in the later
version, other students’ remarks toward Sara are omitted.119 The
white gaze in the 1934 version is portrayed in a Imore
straightforward way than in the later version.

In Pinky (1949) , when the police find that Pinky is black,
she was taken to the police. Pinky tells the police officer that
since she is colored, “You [the police officer] don’t believe

me.” The police officer says to her, “You’ve had advantages

 

“9 In the 1934 version, Bea suggests that Deliah send Peola to a school
in the South where she does not need to suffer whites’ reactions to her.

241

which are denied to most members of your race” such as a
scholarship in the North” When a Doctor asks Pinky, “Have you
ever given a Hypo?” she answers, “I am a graduate nurse.” These
whites’ remarks suggest Du Bois’ notion of a lowered expectation
in “the eyes of others,” and Pinky’s reaction results in her
resistance against their gaze. Whites’ actions, laying false
charges on Pinky and whites’ remarks construct whites’ values.

When Tom, Pinky’s lover, hears Pinky assuming her black
identity, the camera follows Tom’s reaction—a medium shot of
him walking slowly in Pinky’s wooden house in the South. Tom
does not see Pinky, but is looking at the floor while hearing
her voice. The scene is drawn out for effect and portrays Tom’s
fear or hesitation about hearing some facts and makes the
audience anticipate that he would not fully understand or
respect her racial identity. Although Tom does not see anybody,
the presentation of his attitude constructs his gaze. Pinky is
given no reaction shot.

Double consciousness as‘“the eyes of others” discourse is
also found ix) cross-cultural discourse. In.aa novel Abtive
Speaker (1995) written by a Korean American writer, Chang-Rae
Lee, Korean American Henry Park receives a list from his American
wife Lelia. On the sheet her assessment of Park’s character
include remarks such as “You are surreptitious/B+ student of

life/First thing hummer of Wagner and Strauss/ Illegal

242

alien/Emotional alien. . .” (Native 5).

Park did not know that his wife was making this list. In
fact, his first impression of the list was that “it was a love
poem,” but it was not (Native 5) . This means that Park was not
always aware of Du Bois’ sense of “the eye of others” on him,
his wife’s gaze toward him, or whites’ negative evaluation of
him. Lelia’s gaze did not deprive Park of “true-self
consciousness” in their relationship so far, but his wife kept
the “eyes of others” on him. Lelia’ s gaze made Park an outsider
in his own house.

Lelia’s negative View toward Park mainly relates to her
View of him as an immigrant. First, her calling him “alien” or
“stranger” directly signifies his outsiderness in American

0

society.12 Second, her use of words such as “traitor” or

“overrated” suggest her distrust or contempt of him as an

1 Lelia’s expression of his

outsider or invader of the society.12
character might resemble the mainstream Americans’ (or old stock
Americans) fear toward massive tides of immigrants at the turn
of the 20th century. The anti-foreign feeling or zenophobia

represented by KKK around the 19203 does not seem to have been

modified in the 19905.

 

1” You-me Park and Gayle Wald take up double consciousness in terms
of the similarity of outsiderness between African Americans and Asian
Americans (629-630).

1“ This contempt also relates to his job as in industrial spy.

Z8

That the list maker, evaluator of an immigrant is his own
“wife,” that he did not know his wife was making the list, and
that he trusted his wife’s love—his belief that he could
considerably assimilate to America-emphasize the inevitability
of being assessed by whites, and also demonstrates the
difficulty for outsiders to have “true-self-consciousness” or
to assimilate to American society. This case illustrates the
applicability of double consciousness discourse to ethnicity
and immigrants.

Another construction of whites’ gaze toward blacks is shown
in the presentations of another stereotype in Bamboozled (2000) .
All commercial messages for Pierre’s TV minstrel show feature
stereotypical and negative portrayals of African-Americans.
One of those, an appearance of a hypersexual woman is based on
the directors’ assumption about contemporary whites’ assessment
of African-American women. A shot of the President’s back
(Clinton) applauding her performance on TV signifies another
characteristic of the white gaze. This shot is used to confirm
that the white gaze toward a black in the previous shot and is

an indirect indictment of American racism on a national level.122

 

122 Spike Lee says both TV and cinema have been “guilty.” He mentions
that the motive for making Bamboozled (2000) was “to show that from their
birth these two great mediums, film and television, have promoted negative
racial images,” and that “You have to understand that these mediums are not
separate from society.” He thinks “Racism is woven into the very fabric of
American society...” (“Thinking about power of images: An interview with Spike
Lee” 204) . Lee does not link his view of functions of the medium and Du Bois’

2M

Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928) takes up this issue in
terms of gender. Larsen portrays the unavoidability of a high
school teacher, Helga Clane’s fate. Helga is seen by whites as
an exotic object based on the stereotype of African women as
hypersexual and primitive. She suffers white men’ 5 views toward
her. She is a teacher in a prestigious high school in the South,
and has a beautiful outlook, delicate sensitivity, artistic
sense, and intellect. But as she falls in love with men (white),
her boyfriends reveal their view toward her. They saw her as
a sexual object who does not have intellect or as a mythic figure
nymphomanical black woman.

After deep disappointment, she meets another man, but she
repeats her disappointment. In this novel, the eyes of others
unavoidably lowers her self-esteem not only as an intellectual
person, but also as a woman. At last the effect of these “eyes”
of white men deprive her of the happiness of a whole life. Her
long search to find true love results in the repetition of being

betrayed and confirmation of the inevitability of the effect of

 

double consciousness. But, Lee’s making Bamboozled itself signifies
participation in Du Bois’ double consciousness discourse, especially in
construction of blacks’ “message for the world” discourse. In showing how
devastating the effect of media could be on blacks’ minds, how media subtly
fixes negative image of blacks on non-black audience, and in the way these
discourses were made, Lee’s film shows “the world” how injustice (Du Bois’
sense of the “Devil” who “work” to make people believe that blacks are “the
worst”) is practiced under the guise of cultural productions in America.
Although I discuss TV commercial scenes of Bamboozled, as Lee suggest “from
their birth (of TV and film)," the last sequences of the film which
succeedingly demonstrates minstrel or stereotypical black inferiority image
in films fit Lee's intention most. Actually, this last sequence functions

245

double consciousness in terms of gender. The condition that
the heroine is a teacher, and the plot in which she repeatedly
confronts white men’s views of her emphasize her difficulty of
having Du Bois’s sense of “true-self consciousness.”

The title implies the novel’s theme of the gender and race
trap for African American women. There are stereotypes of black
women that label them as hypersexed prostitutes or undesirable
laboring machines. Helga is an educated, self-conscious, and
intelligent woman. She is more than a beautiful object. But
in the novel, both white men and black men try to categorize her
in one of these two ways. 'For example, when she goes to Chicago
for employment, both black and white men regard her as a whore
and beg her services. Even when she goes to Denmark, where she
expects that society appreciates variety and difference in
various aspects of culture, Helga receives insulting words.

Frederick Douglass argues that he had been deprived of his
life as an “idealistic man” and the heroine in Larsen’s work is
not allowed to be seen as an “idealistic woman” who has intellect,
a good heart, and moral sense. As I argued in Chapter 3, in
Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861),
the heroine suffers whites’ views of her, and the danger of being
sexually harassed by her master. In Oscar Michaeux’ 8 film Within

Our Gates (1919) , the heroine, Sylvia Laundry, “a schoolteacher

 

as Du Bois’ sense of “the message for the world.”

246

from the South,” also suffers the danger of being raped by a white
man. Although their circumstances are different, Douglass,
Jacobs, Michaeux, and Larsen portray the same plight of African
Americans caused by the effect of “the eyes of others” in terms
of gender identity.

But Jungle Fever (1991) reverses this structure. The
interracial relationship between black middle class architect
Flipper Purify (Wesley Snipes) and his Italian working class
secretary Angie (Annabella Sciorra) revolves around the
seer/seen problem in Du Bois’ s concept of double consciousness.
When he finds Angie’s attention to the color of his skin, their
relationship starts, and when he says, “ I don’ t love you [Angie].
I was curious,” it ends.

Flipper and his secretary, Angie, work together every night
at their office. One day, Flipper asks her if she is seeing his
“color of skin.” Flipper’ s awareness concretizes his awareness
of “the eyes of others”—white gaze-in Du Bois’ definition. But,
against Flipper’s words, the visual constructs Flipper as “the
eyes of others” and Angie as the one who is seen. A medium shot
of Flipper watching Angie starts the scene, and a medium shot
of Angie typing (Flipper’s point of view) without awareness of
Flipper’s cross-cut. Angie is shot from Flipper’s POV, and the
person who sees the other first is always Flipper. Angie finds

Flipper’s eye, and reacts to him every day. Henry Louis Gates,

247

Jr. points out that Flipper was an exotic object for Angie (Film
Views II:20:1 .) . And at the same time, the film later makes Angie
a white exotic object for a black man, Flipper.
In reversing this seen/seer situation between two races,
Spike Lee’s film shows the reverse of power relations between
the two races . While portraying race things, the reverse happens
most by anti—essentialist criteria in this film. In terms of
class, educational background, ability, marital/single status,
work place pecking order, and gender, the film defines Angie as
having inferior status to Flipper, and in all aspects black
characters humiliate or attack her, as do her father and brother.
Du Bois advocates the fairness of a merit system. In a sense,
this value works in this film, but as a reason for despising Angie.
In Quicksand, Helga is portrayed as a smart woman, so the alleged
black inferiority' myth. and Ihypersex stereotype intensely
frustrate her and emphasize how nonsensical the criteria by
color of skin is. But the superiority of Flipper’ 3 social status
to Angie forbids her to defend herself. In fact, one of Flipper’ s
wife’s frustrations after knowing her husband’s extramarital
affair was that Angie did not graduate from high school.123 Near
the ending of their relationship, Flipper rejects Angie’ s
whiteness, does not allow Angie to call his wife and daughter

“white” and rejects having a baby who has white blood.

248

Then, does the film present the successful case which Du
Bois advocated in formulating the concept of double
consciousness? Is Flipper successful in terms of becoming an
active seer or assessor of whites or of surpassing “the eyes of
others”—white gaze? The point is that the protagonist, Flipper
does not choose his position as an overseer, but is forced to
be in the situation where he is an assessor of a white

4

secretary.“2 Even though he becomes a boss of a white woman,

becomes her lover and abandons her, the visual construction

5 The more the plot, setting,

portrays his surrender to her.12
and words emphasize Flipper’ 5 higher status, the more the visual
construction of Angie’ s predominance over Flipper becomes
impressive. Thus, this technique presents the protagonists’
surrender to the massive power of “the eyes of others”—a white
supremacy discourse.

As noted in Chapter 3, Frederick Douglass wrote letters to

his ex-master after he escaped from slavery, revealing that he

was not only to be watched or dominated by an overseer, but also

 

1” She calls Angie “nothing.”

1“ Flipper wanted an African-American secretary, but his boss finds
an Italian woman. When Flipper claims, his bosses refuse it because it will
result in “reverse discrimination.”

1” In later scene, a medium shot of Angie and a close-up of Flipper
(back light) are shown. The succession of these two shots, Flipper as shadow
and Angie as shining white emphasizes the difference of conditions between
two. As for Lee’ 5 use of lighting, Michele Wallace commented on. Bell Hooks
points out Lee’s beautifying white woman (128). But the present study does
not regard not only regard it as Lee’s beautification of white woman, but
as differentiation of two races and whites’ advantageous point in contrast
to blacks.

2W

that he watched his master and assessed his ability (“A letter
to Thomas Auld” 102). In presenting the reverse of seen/seer
dichotomy, Douglass declares his victory and rejects blacks’
assumed.passivitya But in the case of Jungle Fever, Flipper’s
compelled reversal of the seer/seen power relationship
emphasizes the power of “the eyes of others” as Du Bois
originally defines it, and that the merit system does not
overcome “the eyes of others” discourse.

In Imitation of Life (1934), the mulatta girl, Peola says
to a white girl, Jessie, “You gonna get ‘D’ again.” Two girls
are talking about the coming exam at school. After this, Peola
cries because Jessie calls her “black.” As Du Bois experiences,
Peola and Jessie first reside in the world where a merit system
works while they are talking about studying. But different
criteria—biological distinction, race—hinders Peola from being
recognized as meeting the rational criteria of a merit system,
and makes her assessed by Jessie. In other words, race reverses
their relationship between being assessed/assessor.

In Guess Who’s coming to the Dinner (1967) , the protagonist
(Sidney Poitier) waits for father’s judgment on his proposal to
his fiance. But, JUngle Fever creates a black who assesses
whites in a harsh way. In constructing a white woman’ s passivity
and blacks’ contempt of her, Jungle Fever reversed the seer/seen

power game which films in former periods did not construct.

250

At the same time its visual construction betrays the power
relationship and affirms whites’ advantageous status in
contrast to blacks.

Camera angle also constructs Du Bois’ sense of seer/seen
relationship. In Bamboozled (2000), after Pierre sits in the
conference room, a montage of high-angle shots of him (which is
close to a crane shot) and low-angle of his boss, Dunwitty,
starts. Dunwitty accuses Pierre of being late to the meeting.
As this plot explains, the director’s choice of angles of two
characters determines their relationship, Dunwitty having Du
Bois’ sense of “the eyes of other,” assessor or seer, and Pierre
as the one assessed or seen.

Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved (1987) also takes up the
seer/seen relationship. The heroine Sethe lives with her
daughter Denver after escaping from slavery. Sethe kills her
baby daughter Beloved in order to avoid returning her baby to
her cruel master, “school teacher.” But, twenty years later,
the baby ghost of Beloved haunts Sethe’s house and appears as
a twenty-year old woman. Sethe, Denver, and Beloved live
together, but Beloved gradually begins to annoy, accuse, and
destroy Sethe physically and mentally. In the relation between
Beloved and the present Sethe, Sethe is passive. Sethe is first
portrayed as someone to be influenced or invaded by Beloved. Du

Bois argued the need for blacks to have active subjectivity,

251

independence, and an eye to see or assess by themselves.
Beloved’ 3 attack on Sethe represents the negative effect of “the
eyes of others” on Sethe’ s psychology. Sethe killed her own baby
because she does not want her daughter to experience the cruelty

6 But, Beloved who appears as a grown-up

of slavery as she has.12
maiden does not know why Sethe killed her. Beloved’ s accusation
of Sethe is a product of the cruel system of slavery. The power
which made Sethe kill her own daughter is white oppression. In
this case, Sethe can be a sort of victim of “the eyes of others,”
and Beloved functions as white gaze. However, Du Bois argues
that “the eyes of others” does not attack actual guilty people,
but people upon whom are imposed the alleged “worst” existences.
So Sethe’s awareness of Beloved’s gaze toward her in her own
mind-Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others”—creates her sense
of guilt. Through Sethe’s struggle to survive from Beloved’s
challenging her—Du Bois’ 5 sense of “strife. . . to attain
self-consciousness manhood, to merge his double self into a
better and truer self”—Sethe’ 5 old self is vanquished. Instead,
her second-daughter, Denver emerges as a representation of the
rebirth of Sethe’ s new self that has active subjectivity, an eye

to see herself, and independence. The weakening of Sethe and

Denver’s integration with other blacks occurs at the same time.

 

1“ The cruelty of the slavery which Sethe experiences is portrayed
in various ways. One of those is that she is raped by masters.

252

Also, the gradual ripening of Denver’s personality represents
the gradual establishing of Sethe’s new identity.

Du Bois’ definititwlof “integration” suggests integration
between blacks and whites, within the black community,
establishing active and independent subjectivity freed from the
influence of white’s negative assessment of blacks. In this
sense, Denver fulfills Du Bois’s sense of integration.

Also, in the ending, Sethe tried to kill the image of
“Schoolmaster,” a past slavemaster of her, and with Paul D’ 3 help
and the community women’s magic to sweep away Beloved, she
succeeded in removing Beloved, and could establish an
independent self that affirms her own “self-worth.”127 In doing
this, Sethe tried to kill “the eye of other,” Beloved. The story
ends in Sethe’s victory. Sethe acquires what Du Bois defined
as a goal. In this sense, Du Bois’ s concept schematizes Sethe’s
life.

Not only Sethe, but also Paul D and members ”of her community
hated Beloved and tried to get her out. For them, Beloved
represents a memory or trauma of the slavery system. After the
Emancipation, they fight the influence of the power Beloved
represents. In this sense, Morrison’s Beloved portrays an
individual and collective desire to overcome Du Bois’ sense of

“the eyes of others.”

flB

Outsider discourse which “the eyes of others” brings is
also found in some texts. In Imitation of Life (1934) when Deliah
first introduces her young daughter, Peola to Miss Bea, Peola
is outside of a screen door (the left end of the screen) of Bea’s
house. A horizontal dividing line of the door covers part of
Peola’s face, so only upper half of her face is shown. Miss Bea
welcomes Peola, and her small daughter Jessie eagerly approaches
her from inside the house, but the visual image-Peola’ 5 position,
half hidden face, and a blank face-symbolizes her position as
an outsider of the house.128

Also, the transparent screen door functions as Du Bois’
sense of “veil” which distinguishes two worlds-the worlds of the
African-Americans and the whites” As I noted in Chapter 1, Du
Bois discovered the existence of the veil when he was a child.
So before he perceives, the veil had not existed. The scene of
Peola’s first appearance fits this concept. Nobody excludes
Peola verbally, but as the transparent screen door represents,
an unseen barrier exists between Peola, a mulatta, and.whites,
Miss Bea, and Jessie.

Another complexity is found in this scene. Peola’ 5 mother,
Deliah is also inside the house. Thus, Peola’ s situation is not

only different from whites, but also from her own mother, an

 

1” Paul D is Sethe’s lover.

1” Pinky also keeps her blank face until she finds the importance of
self-respect, and escapes from being outsider.

flM

African-American. This emphasizes the complexity of Peola’s
racial identity as a mulatta and that she is alienated in America
where she is born. Once she enters the house, Jessie smiles at
Peola and tries to touch her, but Peola does not react to, Jessie,
and stands still keeping a blank face. The contrast of these
two girls’ facial expression and acting illustrates the
existence of the unseen veil between them.

As Peola becomes a high-teen (Fredi Washington), the
existence of the veil and the outsiderness of her are expressed
in an other wayu When Miss Bea has a dance party in her house,
Peola and Deliah are on the balcony. While Deliah cheerfully
looks into the inside:of the house, Peola looks in the opposite
direction. Although nobody excludes them from the dance party,
this visual image and contrast of brightness of inside and
darkness of outside constructs Peola as an outsider in her own
house.

Next, a sequence of shots reveals Peola’s outsiderness.
After the shot of the dance party on the second floory a medium
shot of Peola’s back looking up the second floor from.the first
floor is shown. On the shot of the second floor, Miss Bea is
talking with a guest about her daughter Jessie, and Peola hears
it from the first floor. Tfimadifference of the floor signifies
the two worlds and Peola’s outsiderness. Dance music and Miss

Bea’s voice link the two worlds, so the two worlds are not

Z5

f

completely separated. Sound is only an index of the material
world, however, and a weak connection at best. Instead of the
screen door, the difference between the second and the first
floor functions as “the veil” in this scene. On the other hand,
in the 1959 version of Imitation of Life, a little mulatto girl
Sara Jane asksher black mother, “Why do we have to be in the
backyard?” Verbally, Sara resists against whites’ marginalizing
of blacks.

The outsiderness discourse of double consciousness is
also found in recent films. In Bamboozled (2000) , the difference
of two successive scenes emphasizes the protagonist’s isolated
position in white America. Both scenes center on walking Pierre.
In the former scene Pierre is walking on the street horizontally
and two African American dancers come from different directions .
They meet in the middle of the screen, and the dancers accept
Pierre. After the three have cheerful conversations, this
scenes ends. The latter scene is in the corporation where Pierre
works. First, a middle shot of Pierre and a white colleague
standing side by side in the elevator appears. The white man
ignores Pierre, saying, “Have a great day.” Next, Pierre’s back
walking from foreground to background in the hallway appears.
As he walks by, many white colleagues with blank faces come from
the opposite direction and pass by him ignoring his greetings

to them.

2%

While Pierre and two dancers encounter after walking,
Pierre and his white colleagues have neither a face to face
situation nor conversations. While Pierre’s face was shown in
the former (street) scene, his back is portrayed in the
corporation. While he keeps a calm or normal attitude on the
street, Pierredramatizes his way of speech with high tone voice
in the corporation. This contrast shows the two worlds in which
Pierre is residing and emphasizes the difference of these worlds,
between himself and his position in the white society. Du Bois’
emphasis on the importance of self-respect closely relates to
his emphasis on blacks’ need for retention of Africanness in
establishing a better identity. Acting constructs this
discourse. In Imitation of Life (1934) , a mulatta Peola abhors
her black ancestry, and separates from her black mother in order
to pass for white.129 In Pinky (1949), also a story about a
mulatta, Pinky (Jeane Crane.) reveals her mind that she does not
want to go back to the South from the North. Throughout Imitation
of Life, Peola does not smile at all, nor does Pinky smile after
the first scene. Her blank face and unhappy facial expression
when she re-encounters her black grandmother at her home town

emphasize her firm rejection of her black ancestry. But, after

 

”9 S.V.Hartman and Farah Jasimine Griffin argues on the convention
of “the passing narrative” in which “via the black mother that one return
home” that “The black mother is of pivotal importance not only because she
is the site of racial origin, but because she would induce the white daughter
to give up the passing Charade, return home, and accept the limits of Negro

257

Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore), the old white woman whom Pinky serves
as a nurse says “Nobody deserve respect as long as she pretends
she’s something she isn’t,” implying Pinky’s passing for white
in the North, she starts showing a smile. The contrast of her
blank face and smile emphasizes the importance of self-
affirmation of her racial identity for her.

In Imitation of Life (1934), Peola’s rejecting her black
mother saying, “you made me black,” signifies her denial of black
identity. But her regret of abandonment of blackness in the
ending and Deliah’ 8 death caused by Peola’ s discard of blackness
fit Du Bois’s retention of Africanness discourse. In Pinky
(1949), her grandmother calls Pinky’s passing for white in the
North a “sin.” Also, a black doctor, Pinky’s colleague in the
ending, tells Pinky that he wanted to go to the North, but he
regards working for a black neighborhood in the South as his job.
Pinky chooses to open her clinic in the South. These plots affirm

0 These movies are

the importance of retaining Africanness.13
also problematic, finally, in that they end up reaffirming the

importance of race in separating the culture. None of these

stories about resist passing, after all, show a woman “passing”

 

life” (“Julie Dash’s Illusions,” 367).
13° S.V. Hartman and Farah Jasmine Griffin define Pinky as one “cease [s]
to aspire toward power and authority in the white man’ 3 world” (“Julie Dash’ s

Illusions” 371). At the same time this ending emphasizes Pinky’s active

choice of being proud of her African heritage. Since Miss M is the first white
person who tells Pinky the importance of self-respect, that Pinky opens “Miss
M’s Clinic” in the Deep South is revelation of her pride as a descent of

258

into a difficult part of the culture and happily forgetting her
past. Because of the nature of the stories they can’t show a
white “passing” into the black culture, so there is always an
imbalance based on “race,” which is a white supremacist concept.
So the stories are tragic (exposure of loss of African culture)
or happy (return to African culture).

In Jungle Fever (1991) , when Flipper’s wife was consoled
by her friends in terms of Flipper’s relationship with a white
woman, one of them says that successful black men tend to choose
white women, and that it signifies “self—hate going on.” Flipper
says to his black friend, Cyrus (Spike Lee) that sisters are
beautiful, and calls himself “Pro-black.” When Flipper talks
to Angie, he suggests her to go to Harlem because many good people
live there. This short line proves his pride as a black. Through
the interracial relationship motif, the question if black
affirms or denies his/her racial identity is meditated.

In Boyz N’ the Hood (1991) , the protagonist, Tre Styles
(Cuba Gooding Jr.) , is asked by his white teacher to lecture on

1

his class.13 Indicating Africa on map, Tre emphasizes the pride

 

Africans.

1“ Boyz N’ the Hood (1991) was directed by a black director, John
Singleton. The film portrays life in South Central Los Angeles. Donald Bogle
calls it “the most successful black genre films in movie history at that
time,” and Singleton was the first black director nominated for an Academy
Award as Best Director(347) . Columbia Pictures made $60 million in domestic
gross sales. George Hill and Spencer Moon point out in Blacks in Hollywood
that “These year end figures are based on a budget of $6 million for
production” (22).

259

of his heritage and introduces Africa as the place where all
peOple come from. This is what his father had told him, and this
lecture is a reaction against the teacher’s correction of the
word from “Indian” to “Native-American.”

The lyrics of songs construct discourses of self-respect
in the concept of double consciousness. Bamboozled (2000)
starts with Stevie Wonder’s song. At the end of the song, he
sings slowly emphasizing the phrases, “We have been a
misrepresented people. You must never be a misrepresented
people.” In Lee’s Get on the Bus (1996), the opening song of
Michael Jackson emphasizes on need of self-respect in “You see
yourself in the mirror and you don’ t like what you see and things
aren’t getting much clearer. Don’t you think it’s time you go
for a change?”

As I argued in Chapter 1, one of the dilemmas of the concept
of double consciousness illustrates anaalternative-either life
as a black or an American (white)-dilemma discourse. If blacks
want to live in white society, they experience isolation from
the black community, and if they limit them within the black
community, they can’t make a good living in America. Also, he
implies the difficulty of finding a common language which can
appeal to both blacks and whites. This enables blacks to express
their genius and to be successful in America. But the dilemma

is that the device which pleases white America in this film is

260

harmful to the cultural pride of African.Americans. .Appealing
tt>a broader audience without sacrificing black cultural pride
has been a significant theme in black history.

Bamboozled (2000) , Jungle Fever (1991) , Imitation of Life
(1934, 1959), Pinky (1949), and Quicksand (1928), Passing
(1929), and The Great Gatsby (1927) incorporate these
discourses.

In Quicksand (1928), Plots about love explains Helga’s
race consciousness. For example, Helga’s breaking up her
engagement with a black man, James Vayle, signifies that her race
consciousness as a mulatto woman cannot be understood by even
a person who has a black identity. Vayle does not understand
why Helga hates Naxos. This plot emphasizes that blacks and
mulattos are different, and how complex is the psychology of
mixed race.

Both of Dr. Anderson, a teacher at Naxos, and Axel Olsen,
a portrait painter in Denmark, reveal their sexual desire for
Helga and their contempt for her ethnicity at the same time. As
a result, she refuses their love for her. When Helga experiences
heartbreak, she chooses to go back to New York to see black
friends again. Finally, she settles down in.Alabama and lives
among black people. As Thadious M.Davis comments that Helga is
“satisfied by a black cultural identity that includes an

awareness of her physicality separate fromlan object-state” in

261

the African American environment (267), that Helga longs for
black people and Harlem signifies that the place where her black
heritage is acknowledged is the good place for her. Also, at
the place where her blackness is acknowledged, her dignity as
a woman is secured. But ironically she cannot be happy in the
“black South” at the end. In the exhausting routine of
homemaking and childbearing, she becomes sick and desperate.
This ending implies the never-ending homelessness of mulatto’s
race consciousness.

In terms of the historical context of this novel, we should
not forget what Helga’s hatred for Naxos means. Hazel V. Carby
points out that Helga’ s critique of Naxos as a black college was
a critique of the policy of racial uplift and of black
intellectual leadership (170). Davis points out that “Larsen
detached her protagonists from their class perspective. This
critique of the black middle class is continued in. the section
of the novel set in Harlem” (267) . Thus, Helga’s hatred for the
hypocrisy of the racial uplift movement around the 19205
reflects Larsen’s race (and class) consciousness that racial
uplift is a self-enslavement of African Americans. In terms of
class, Helga’ 5 class at the end is lower than her original class.
That her class comes to be lower than before as a result of her
serious quest for her racial identity also suggests Larsen’s

pessimistic view that African Americans’ various activities to

262

raise their racial and class status results in a self-
enslavement of themselves. All in all, race consciousness of
African Americans in Quicksand consists of mixture of race,
gender and class issues.

In Passing (1929) , Clare entered white society by passing
and interracial marriage. But, she experiences isolation and
alienation in the society where “her redefined self hopes to live
—a white society. Clare’s handwriting, which is “out of place
and alien” in her letter to Irene, symbolizes her isolation (143) .
The text’ 5 emphasis on Clare’s alienation signifies the
discourse that excludes “aliens.” In the 19205, massive racism
or zenophobia (or anti—foreign feeling) were revival in the
renaissance of the KKK and the immigrant acts, and those produced
discourses that exclude various kinds of “aliens” or “others.”
Clare represents “aliens” who are excluded by mainstream
Americans. Clare’s isolation explains why Du Bois’ raised up
a slogan in the double consciousness concept: avoidance of
isolation. But the historical context of the 19205 strengthens
the tendency of exclusion of aliens.

Clare bridges two worlds. She has two kinds of perspectives.
Passing as a white provides her with a chance to raise her social
status and to live in white society. As long as Clare is within
black community, she could not get a chance, but she misses black

people strongly. In this sense, Clare can not completely choose

263

living as a white. She cannot help moving back and forth between
seeing black people and trying to settle down in white society.
This stance explains Du Bois’s need to introduce the
subjectivity model of blacks—fluid identity—which allows blacks
to move back and forth between identity as a black and an American
(or a white).

Also, Clare matches Du Bois' advocation of avoidance of
alternatives—either black or white (or Americans) . Knowing how
cruel choosing an alternative is for blacks, he presents a
solution, to have the freedom to be blacks and whites as needed
(this does not mean a middleground or an amalgamation of black
and white identity) . Irene has the same desires as Clare. Irene
is interested in passing as a white. Irene longs for the wider
society that Clare lives in by passing because she is confined
to the black community in a sense. So Irene represents Du Bois’ 5
sense of alternative—either black or white. I argued in chapter
1 that Du Bois’ 5 double consciousness concept includes discourse
that blacks are outsiders of the society. In The Great Gatsby
(1927), the protagonist Gatsby is not concerned with racial
identity issues, but he is treated as a “black.” Tom Buchanan,
Daisy’s husband, is a racist. When he meets Gatsby in front of

Daisy, he tells Gatsby:

I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr.

264

It' .
r" _

Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. . . Nowadays
people being by sneering at family life and family
institutions, and next they’ 11 throw everything overroad

and have intermarriage between black and white (56).

Jay Gatsby in the Great Gatsby also confronts the
difficulty'of having “true—self consciousness” in high society
and his hiding his dialect and his mastering high societal manner
of speech represents Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others” on
him—the high society’ s assessment of Gatsby who comes from lower
class. Tom uses the word “black” as an alien. Gatsby’s
association with Daisy is treated as interracial love, and
Gatsby is regarded as an alien in the 19205. The 19205 was an
era when racial intolerance and anti-foreign feeling were
widespread. The migration of blacks from the South to the North
caused by industrialization brought many black people to
communities outside of the South.

Thus in the background of the 19205, the same discourse
which excludes the outsider exists. In case of Gatsby, what
determines Gatsby as “outsider” was the class into which he was
bornd .Although he becomes rich, changes his name, and passes
into high society, his original background still hinders him
acquiring a secure position in the new world, high society in
New York.

Du Bois presented the black dilemma in introducing the

%fi

double consciousness concept. As long as blacks stay within the
black community, they confront poverty and have to give up
acquisition of basic rights as Americans. But if they try to
move into a new world, the white society, they are excluded by
whites and experience isolation. In Gatsby’ 5 case, if he remains
in the midwest, he cannot realize the so-called American dream,
financial success, and getting back his past lover, Daisy. He
cannot help being excluded by high society.

Thus, both blacks around the beginning of the 20th century
and Gatsby in the 205 experience a similar dilemma, though
obviously, different in degree. What brought their dilemma is
their original background, “race” and class. Du Bois argues that
the criteria of judging human beings should be hard work or a
good heart, and that distinction of people by race is nonsense.
In this sense, the values of blacks in Du Bois’ time and Gatsby
are judged by criteria that they cannot change by their effort.
So the people who experience “outsiderness”-immigrants, blacks,
and lower class people—are excluded by whites' criteria, which
Du Bois regards as nonsense.

When Pinky goes to Miss Em’ 5 house, a V shaped road in front
of the house is seen in the foreground of the screen. Although
her grandmother orders Pinky to take care of Miss Em, Pinky does
not want to do it. Pinky remembers her childhood memory in which

Miss Em expelled her from the garden. Pinky interprets this as

266

2 Miss Em’s house is at the end of

Miss Em’s racist attitude.”
the left side of the fork of the road. Pinky stands at the edge
of the fork and considers. The camera captures a long-shot of
her back. Then, she tried to walk on the right fork of the road
(she tried not to go), but comes back to the edge and walks on
the left side to Miss Em’s house. This visual image signifies
double consciousness’ alternative discourse. In this case, the
alternative which Pinky confronts is whether she keeps her pride
as an African-American (the right side) or not (the left side).

Another visual pattern to signify alternative discourse is
shown. ‘When Pinky’s lover, Tom visits her, he pulls her hand.
A long-shot of Pinky’s back sees her grandmother surrounded by
laundries in the background. Pinky once tries to go to the
grandmother’s place, but Tom pulls her to the foreground.
Pinky is taken in the direction which she does not see. Here
Pinky’s identity istxnnuixxopposite directions—grandmother on
the background and Tom on the foreground. The grandmother who
is washing represents Pinky’ 5 life as an African—American in the
Deep South, and Tom who takes Pinky away in a car represents
Pinky’s life as a white in the North.

The protagonist of Bamboozled, Pierre Delacloix, a black

TV writer is ordered by his white boss to write a “coon” show

 

1” Later Pinky finds this is her misunderstanding. Miss Em reminds
Pinky of the importance of self-respect as an African American.

KW

for TV in order to raise audience ratings. If he does not, he
breaks his cOntract and will be sued by the company; He makes
the show because he needs the job, but Pierre is condemned by
his black friends. Flipper’ 5 having affair with the white
secretary results in the loss of her job and his wife’ 5 rejection.
Flipper’s dilemma is also caused by his economic needs to keep
his place in the whiteefirmn But Imitation of Life (1934) does
not present this dilemma. Deliah and Miss Bea’s cooperation in
selling pancake flour using Deliah’s imagery as a black woman
of the South secures her financial condition. The film does not
portray her black folks’ exclusion of her. Although the picture
of pancake flour is her “big smile,” and her smile shines as a
neon sign on the streets, no blacks condemn her permission of
whites’ consumption of a black stereotypical image in the Great
Depression years. Instead, Deliah asks Miss Bea to have a
gorgeous funeral in order to surprise her black folks, to nurture
cultural pride and conceal or erase black condemnation. This
ending would satisfy Booker T. Washington.

Lack of a serious black or white dilemma in Imitation of
Life (1934) tells us that the serious dilemma and isolation of
the protagonists in Bamboozled and Jungle Fever present the
dilemma of new generations—black middle class called Buppies
(black yuppies) that emerged since the civil rights era as a

result of polarization between the middle and lower classes.

mm

Desire for upward social status provides the key to solve this
difference. Deliah in Imitation of Life (1934) does not hope
to earn big money and own her house from the pancake business.
Her hope is to serve Miss Bea. Without resisting against the
whites’ stereotypical view of blacks, she creates a milieu where
she can coexist with whites.

But both Pierre and Flipper originally find their place in
white company by demonstrating their ability high educational
background and successful employment. Their position fits Du
Bois’ assumption in double consciousness-belief in a merit
system and the importance of hard work, education and rejection
of Deliah’s way as accommodationist. In terms of harmony with
whites, Deliah is portrayed as more successful than the other
two protagonists. In the 1959 version, a comparison between the
two daughters, white and mulatto in terms of ability is erased.
Jungle Fever and Bamboozled use the same technique in showing
the protagonist’s conflict with other white bosses, their
liminality and the difficulty in finding a place in white
companies. When Flipper asks his boss to replace a white
secretary with African American secretary and his boss rejected
it, the scene is a montage_inc1uding a close-up of standing
Flipper and medium shot of two bosses sitting calmly. When
Pierre resists his boss, Dumwitty turns Pierre’s scenario into

a derogatory one, and the boss refuses to correct himself, the

269

same montage close-up of Pierre standing and medium shot of
Dumwitty and his white follower sitting and speaking mildly is
used. This technique-one black and two white—emphasizes the
isolation of the protagonists among the majority whites. The
protagonists’ standing and.speaking with emotion while whites’
sit with comparative calm are effective in leading to the
protagonists’ inescapable resignation to their fate, and
portrays whites as winners who do not need to struggle to win
over blacks.

The black characters’ inability to escape from an
accommodationist stance or from outsiderness in their own
country, and the absence of a solution to the problem of the waste
of double aims is portrayed in another way. Jungle Fever (1991)
culminates in Flipper’s long cry, “No” on the street. Although
multi-faceted values are assumed to be constructed in this
ending, one of those is despair, absence of solution for Du Bois’
sense of the “twoness” dilemma of blacks, or limitation of middle
class blacks’ possibility for winning a satisfactory place in
white America. Also, the cry signifies Du Bois’ sense of a
“message for the world.” The high-angle crane shot signifies
his cry to the world which is not particularly America, and seeks
Du Bois’ definition of “hope,” the “assurance of boundless
justice in some fair world beyond.” Flipper is appealing to the

world to see what is going on in America. He laments the fact

2W)

that the little girl is prostituting, and seems trying to inform
the world of this tragedy as Du Bois tried to make his reader
“Suppose and suppose” about racism in America.

The film repeats Flipper’s walk with his daughter,
Ming (Veronica Timbers) on the street. Their horizontal move
and a drug addicted black girl, Vivian’ 5 (Halle Baily), vertical
move intersect at the corner. Vivian tries to seduce Flipper
and he escapes crying, “Get off from me!” These two streets
visually signify the difference of class and morality between
lower and middle class blacks in Harlem. The corner is the
intersection of them, and there Flipper has tried to escape from
what the other street represents. He struggles to distinguish
himself from other blacks and the power that limits him to the
black community. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr., regards Lee’s
creation of Flipper as “a mordant commentary on the new black
middle class, the post-1970’s generation of buppies and
wannabees,” and argues that “To be black and middle class was
tc>betray, some how, one’s black heritage,” Flipper’s desire to
separate himself from other blacks signifies his denial of his
racial identity (“Film View: II:20:1 .) . But in the ending, when
he encounters a different drug addicted girl at the same corner,
he shows surprise:in.reacting against her seductive remark, and
suddenly hugs her and cries, “No.” A crane shot closes in on

and captures them and a freeze frame close-up of Flipper end the

271

film.

Michele Wallace points out that Vivian signifies a grown-up
Ming (Black Popular Culture1129). Certainly, after he crosses
the street, he says to his daughter Ming, he would kill her if
she uses drugs. Then, what does the other girl at the end
signify? Since the prior scene is a conversation between Flipper
and.Ming, this succession of two scenes might link Ming and the
other girl as grown-up. 11350, why did Flipper not escape from
her? This girl plays his daughter role and at the same time
himself. His look at the girl signifies his look at a mirror.133
Also, his hug implies his identification with her and what she
represents, and the unavoidability of his identity'as a black.
Flipper and the girl are under the same power. What makes her
an immoral drug addict teenager and what chokes his position-an
interracial relationship, loss of his position in an office with

whites, and the break down of his family are the result of the

same dynamics and links them.134 The use of the crane shot

 

1” I agree with Benjamin Saltman that Flipper faces “the black
condition from which he has been escaping through personal ambition and
cross-racial dalliance” in this scene (37). But this scene means more than
that. That he first watches her face seriously and that he hugs her signifies
disappearance of his view of her as “Other” and his understanding that he
cannot escape from racial oppression. The crane shot does not only aim at
Flipper, but includes both of them, categorizing them as one.

1“ Among critics who take up interracial love motif as the central
theme of the film, Benjamin Saltman regards “the real theme” of the film.as
“the power and persistence of racial oppression” and conditions of blacks
such as drug, economic problems, and the black middle class problem, and
argues that “Lee’s concern transcends “romance”(37). I agree with his
interpretation. Although Saltman does not mention the reason why he thinks
so, I think that Lee’ 5 repetitive use of the intersection of Flipper and drug
addict girl (black) and the last scene which also takes up their meeting

Tn

features them as similarly small and powerless in the 'world, and
the sudden fast movement of the camera itself from high up to
them on the street with Flipper’s intense shout represents the
existence of an unseen powerful dynamism which violently
swallows them. The freeze frame of Flipper’s face represents
his inability to escape from the influence of racial oppressions.
The crane shot moves as if the crane itself has personality and
is an eye. Flipper crying on the street also seems a victim who
is. Here Spike Lee portrays the existence of unseen power.135
The ending credit shows the flows of captions of lyrics of Stevie
Wonder’ 5 song. Captions move accompanying the song and the size
of the letters of each line differs. Among them one of the
biggest letters features the line, “Agree or war has been our
way of compromising." If this choice of the size of letters is
to emphasize the line as a core value of the film, it also
constructs the absence of a solution.

In Bamboozled, when Pierre receives an Emmy, he plays
several black personas who are assumed to be favored by the
audience—white America. Du Bois points out that the blacks’ eye
toward themselves are mostly whites’ eye or an assessment of them,

and he advocates the need for blacks to have an eye which can

 

proves his emphasis on the power of racial oppression. The interracial motif
could be a variation of the effect of this bigger racial dynamism of blacks.

’35 In Malcolm X, before Malcolm was assassinated, he stops walking
on the road as if unseen power hinders him walking. Lee’ 5 visual construction
of the unseen power fit Du Bois’ and Douglass’ observation of unseen power.

23

see themselves by their own criteria in order to keep self-
respect. While Du Bois assumes that this degradation of black
psychology occurs on an unconscious level, Pierre intentionally
makes use of this function for his image, making of successful
black in the new century; In other words, assuming how whites
would see him, he calculates how he should behave. After he
receives the Emmy, he gives his statue to the presenter.
Although the presenter refuses, Pierre gives it again, and the
presenter sobs. While conversation between Pierre and the
presenter (bust shot of two on the same screen) on the stage goes
on, a voice-over of Pierre, “the Grateful Negro” comes up in a
dramatic way. This voice-over signifies his assumption of the
audience’ 5 assessment of him at the moment—Du Bois’ sense of “the
eyes of others.”

When Pierre receives the Emmy, (slight) aerial and long
shot captures his romping about on the stage, tap dancing, and
imitating Michael Jackson’s moon walk on the left side of the
screen. The two presenters see him from the right side. While
Pierre is dancing and talking to the presenter, Mira Solvino
(real actress Mira Solvino) who graduates from the same
university (Harvard) as1madoes, Pierre’s voice-over,‘“Dancing
Fool. Hollywood’s favorite Negro” is heard. Again, this
voice-over signifies his assumed or desired audiences’

assessment of him—Du Bois’s “the eyes of others.” Aerial and

274

long shots emphasize the audiences’ psychological distance from
Pierre or their view of him as the “other” or their bystander
discourse:in double consciousness. The distance between Pierre
and the two presenters on the stage also emphasizes the distance
between black and white.

This scene explains Pierre as a contradictory presence.
At the beginning of the scene, Pierre’s narration about his
feeling that he anticipates an award as a reward for his long
overlooked talent, as “vindication of hard work” and for his
demonstration that he is graduate of Harvard suggest, this scene
is to appeal to his success as a proof of America’s application
of a fair merit system to blacks. Du Bois’ belief in the
importance of hard work, a merit system, and growing
intellectuals as the solutions for uplifting the race is
embodied.in his receiving an award here on a verbal level- 'But
his use of the word “NegrcW in‘“the Grateful Negro” in assuming
an audience’s view of him proves his ironical view of a white
world that does not fully accept blacks’ dignity and limits
blacks’ role as a submissive one, and his assessment of himself
as an accommodationist. He defines his stage persona as a
“dancing fool,” which represents his acceptance of a
stereotypical image of blacks.

The camera and voice over technique proves Du Bois’ sense

of the “twoness” dilemma—his isolation in the world he should

2%

feel his home ground and his limitation in fulfilling Du Bois’s
sense of double aims—getting opportunity and avoiding isolation
in white America. The alternative discourse—a life as a black
or a white-closely relates to Du Bois’ sense of a “common
language” problem in art. lilorder to enter white society and
be socially and.economically successful, blacks should acquire
a common language which appeals to both whites and blacks,
especially in the field of the arts. As Du Bois advocates the
need to present a counter discourse to the value which denies
blacks’ contribution to arts and letters, “art” is the trump card
which limits and offers blacks’ opportunity. The dilemma is that
black art should take a favorable form for whites and it tends
to take a form which affirms negative black stereotypes.

In Jazz Singer (1927) , a Jewish immigrant uses black face,
the stereotype of a “darky jester” and jazz music as devices to
capture the so-called mainstream audience (Bogle 26). This
choice reflects the double-edge aspect of the 19205 that
features black culture in the Harlem Renaissance and shows
massive racism. The protagonist of James Weldon Jonson’ 5 novel,
Autobiography of An Ex—Colored Man (1927) dreams of creating
“American music” using a black musical motifs and his white
friend calls it a too ambitious dream. This dream is to fulfil
keeping black cultural pride and recognition of it as high art

by a broader audience. Bamboozled (2000) takes up the case of

276

a TV show which badly needs to catch a wide audience in order
to save a failing company. Black face and the 19th century
minstrel show were used as a “common language” which is expected
to appeal to both black and white audiences. The title,
“Millennium Minstrel Show” reveals the persistence of the same
dilemma of a common language in a new century. When Dumwitty
changes Pierre’s scenario, he says, he just made it “funnier.”
Pierre asks, “ for whom? And at whose expense?” in his mind. This
question is visualized with the succession of an extreme
close-up of the smile of the black face of Eureka (tap dancer),
a close-up of Pierre’s head (Pierre is tearing his hair out on
air during the minstrel show) sighing, and a medium shot of
Pierre’ 5 back while he is looking at the picture of a slave ship
on the computer screen at his home. The big smile signifies
Pierre’s success in white America, and Pierre’s suffering
signifies that a “common language” results in the degradation
of blacks and his own racial identity. In the next shot, the
irony of the two shots reminds him of the inevitability of what
the slave ship symbolizes—whites’ exploitation of blacks and the
persistence of this structure so far. When a DJ on a radio show
condemns Pierre’s restoring the Minstrel show which affirms
alleged black inferiority, Pierre calls himself an “artist,” and
insists on the freedom of artistic expression. But here “art”

does not function as a milieu of blacks’ art expression or proof

277

of their contribution to American culture or genius. The word
“art” is used as an excuse for restoring an offensive form, the
minstrel show.

Visual images construct Du Bois’s divided self discourse.
In the Jazz Singer (1927) , when the protagonist Jack Robin (A1
Jolson) painted black face is seen in the mirror, another image

36 This signifies his double

that does not wear make-up appears.1
identities—One as a Jew, the other as an American-. Also, it
shows his dilemma of having Du Bois’ sense of a forced
alternative—either a life as a Jew or an American. In Pinky
(1949) , at night when she comes back from the North to her home,
the South, Pinky has a nightmare hearing somebody calling, “Tom,
Tom.” A medium-shot of Pinky’s face on the bed shows her pain.
The voice finally shouts, “Tom!” and awakens her. This scene
concretizes Pinky’s divided self. Two kinds of Pinky’s voice,
the groaning voice and the voice calling “Tom” are
simultaneously used. Although she comes back home, her other
self seeks for her white lover in the North, Tom, and her life

7 In passing, Pinky has two racial identities, and

as a white.13
the two kinds of voice implies her identity torn between herself

as an African—American and herself as a white. The voice

 

”5 The protagonist’ 5 name is Jakie Rabinowitz. When he starts working

in New York as a performer, he changed his name into more Americanized one,
Jack Robin.

”7 In the North, Pinky passes for white and Tom regards her as a white.
Pinky tells to her grandmother how good it was to live as a white in the North

278

signifies Pinky's other self, and Deleuze’s sense of “time—
image.” Deleuze argues that there are “two possible time-images,
one grounded in the past, the other in the present” (Cinema 2

98) and that:

The past is not to be confused with the mental existence
of recollection-images which actualize it in us. It is
preserved in time: it is the virtual element into which
we penetrate to look for the ‘pure recollection’ which
will become actual in a ‘recollection-image. ’ The latter
would have no trace of the past if we had not been to look

for its seed in the past (Cinema 2 98).

Pinky’s other self expressed by voice-over is a “time-image”
which is “grounded” in the present. This is not “the mental
existence of recollection-images,” but “the virtual element”
that “would have no trace of the past.” Although Pinky’s life
in the North was past, her other self’s crying for Tom is
“present.” As far as we see the scene, there is no element which
signifies that her voice is her past voice. This film’ 5 technique
brings the voice-over—Deleuze’s sense of “time-image”—as
signifier of coexistence of different spheres and Pinky’s
desire.

Deleuze argues on the symbiosis of two different spheres

in the film in discussing Bunuel’s cinematic techniques

 

in the first scene.

ZN

developed in “Obscure Object of Desire”:

instead of having one character play different roles
casting two characters, and two actresses, as one person
it is as if Bunuel's naturalist cosmology, based on the
cycle and the succession of cycles, gives way to a
plurality of simultaneous worlds; to a Simultaneity of
presents in different worlds. These are not subjective
(imaginary) points of view in one and the same world, but
one and the same event in different objective worlds,
all implicated in the event, inexplicable universe.
Bunuel achieves here a direct time-image which was
previously impossible for him because of his naturalist

and cyclical point of view (Cinema 2 103).

Pinky'constructs “a plurality of simultaneous worlds” and.both
of two worlds are “present.” Also, in the case of The Jazz Singer,
the two images, Jakie (as Jew) and Jack (as an American) on the
mirror are “present.” The plurality of two selves is “the same
event in different objective worlds” in an “inexplicable
universe.” The answer to the question, “Who am I?” in these films
provide two different answers. As I argued in Chapter 5,
pluralist discourse was the basis of the formulation of double
consciousness discourse. [hlBois uses Arthur Symmons’s poetry
as the epigraph of the chapter 1 of the Souls of Black Folks,
and signifies the relationship between “I” and “the water” as
African Americans’ discovery of themselves. As “I” perceive “O

water, crying for rest, is it I, is it I?" Pinky also finds her

280

 

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unconscious desire, her life in the north as a white. One
definititwlof Du Bois’ double consciousness is internalization
of the plurality of “different objective worlds.” As I argued
in Chapter 3, Douglass had the multiple worlds and
perspectives—his self under the slavery and that after escaping.
Although his experience under slavery'is past, his identity as
a slave functions as Douglass’ current “other self” or other
perspective. Thus, all of these narratives have simultaneous
coexistence of mmltiple worlds and perspectives as ongoing
existences.

I mentioned in Chapter 1 that Du Bois wrote that “The
history of the American Negro is the history of this strife—
this longing to attain self-consciousness manhood, to merge his
double self into a better and truer self” in the succeeding part
of his direct definition of the double consciousness concept
(Souls 5) . But Du Bois’ proposed solution is not just combining
two selves, but to “conform” blacks’ selves to the ideal of
America. He rejects the alternative—either a black or an
American. Ihi The Jazz Singer (1927), when the protagonist
confronts the alternative—to go back to his Jewish father in
order to sing in the synagogue or to sing in the theater as a
black face singer-his white girlfriend Mary tells him to escape
from the alternative. His father represents his ethnic identity

and Mary represents his success in America. Mary recommends

281

that he to think about himself. This suggestion makes Jack
transcend the either or-discourse. To choose one racial or
ethnic identity cannot be a solution. To look at oneself or to
think for oneself was proposed as a solution. This signifies
the rejection of alternative—either or—discourse.

In this sense, Toni Morrison’ 5 Beloved (1987) touches these
themes-“merging double selves into one better and truer
identity” and whether blacks confront this theme consciously or
not. This work takes up one African American woman’s struggle
to get over the theme Du Bois took up—“merging double selves into
one better and truer self.”

Beloved is the symbol of Sethe’s other selves in her own
psychology. Sethe has double selves as Du Bois defined, and in
Du Bois’s term, Beloved is “the eyes of other” and Sethe’s past
self. As Du Bois lamented the influence of the “eye of others,”
Sethe suffers the influence of “the eye of others” on her.
Beloved represents Sethe’s assessment of her present self. For
example, Beloved’s accusation of the present Sethe represents
Sethe’s accusation of herself or her guilty feelings on her
murder.

Sethe represents the need of integrating double selves.
Sethe, twenty-year-old Beloved, and Denver skate on ice.
This scene is famous as the representation of unity. In fact,

this scene shows the reconciliation between mother and murdered

mu

daughter, and the resolution of past problems. Sethe seems to
be able to accept her own assessment of herself—Beloved’s
assessment of the present Sethe—. But as the fragile ice
represents, this is not real unity and Sethe does not establish
her independent subjectivity which is free from the other’s
eye—Beloved’s eye toward her, her past trauma, and her identity
as being oppressed.

Sethe’ s lover Paul D, an ex-slave man, discovers Beloved’s
negative effect on Sethe and tries to get her out of Sethe’ 5 house
(He removed baby ghost) . Since he has experienced slavery, what
he tried to remove from Sethe was the memory of the cruelty of
the slavery system. He is also vexed by horror of the memory of
slavery. In this sense, Beloved represents the horror of slavery.
Paul D does not analyze the psychological mechanism of Sethe,
but what he tries to do for Sethe in fact is bring about Du Bois’
sense of “merging” two selves into one self. He knows the
prescription for Sethe’s recovery of the “true-self
consciousness” which Du Bois presented his removal of Beloved
represents Sethe’s removal of the influence of “the eye of
others,” on her and his help for Sethe’s discovery of “self-
worth” represents her establishment of independence, autonomy,
and active subjectivity—Du Bois’ sense of “true self-
consciousness.”

The merging of two selves discourse may exist in films

283

 

 

which do not take up race issue» The heroine of The Piano, Ada
(Holly Hunter) is a mute woman. She expresses her feeling by
playing the piano. The piano is defined not only as a substitute
for her voice, but as the core component of her identity as an
artist or her divided self. When her newly married husband
leaves the piano on the beach she goes to visit it on the seashore.
The extreme close-up of Ada’s face watching the piano, and the
long-shot of the guano shows Ada’s two selves. Also, the
micro-movement of her facial expression, Deleuze’s sense of
decisign (perception image of character who is seeing) transmits
her suffering caused by her torn self. This shot of Ada’s face
and the piano on the shore is repeatedly used. After Ada could
reach and play the piano, she walks on the shore diagonally from
the left bottom and her footsteps draw a bold line. The aerial
shot captures the line. Nextly, her daughter (from the right
bottom) and a man, Baines (Harvey Keitel), who enables Ada to
access the piano (from the left bottom) follow Ada. Two lines
are merged into one line which Ada initially drew. In chapter
1, Du Bois’ word in the epigraph of the final chapter of Souls,
“And my soul and thy soul shall meet that day” represents his
synthesizing solution (204) . Although this film does not deal
with racial issues, this visual image signifies the synthesizing
of two selves as a solution.

In the “Forethought” of the Souls of Black Folks (1903),

284

Du Bois declares that his aim of writing this book is to “educate”
black and white readers. As I argued in chapter 1, we should
know that basis of his formulation of double consciousness is
perspective. So the concept functions as slogan for uplift. In
Boyz N” the Hood (1991), Tre’s father, Furious Style (Laurence
Fishburne) starts to lecture for Tre (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and his
friend, Ricky (Morris Chestnut) under the big sign of the Korean
estate office in the Compton suburbs. When they get out of the
car, Furious walks to the sign (bottom of screen), and Tre and
Ricky look in the opposite direction (up screen) at the street
people in Compton. As Furious calls the boys, “Amos’n Andy,”
or “knuckle heads,” and says, “it’s 905. We can’t afford to be
afraid of our own people anymore, man,” the difference of
physical direction between Furious and the boys signifies the
difference of what they'seeu The direction which Furious sees
signifies the future and what the boys see is past. Furious plays
a role as leader or even predictor of the future of blacks. The
youths in Compton see Tre and Ricky as others, and Tre and Ricky’ 5
looking back toward the youth shows their awareness of their gaze
toward them. Originally, Du Bois’ s “the eyes of others”
signifies white gaze toward blacks. But this scene shows that
among blacks, the “eyes of others” discourse exists. Tre and
Ricky are others for the youth in Compton. The difference of

classes creates this discourse.

flfi

Once Furious starts talking, peoplerin Compton gather in
front of him. A montage of a medium shot of Furious, that of
a group of young peOple in Compton, and that of two boys signifies
Furious’ role as leader or preacher and others as audience or
his disciples. When the medium shot of an old black man is
inserted into this montage, this scene becomes a conversation
that bridges three generations of blacks, and a call and
response-like rally starts among them. Furious tells his
audience on the street that “They (whites) want us to kill
ourselves. The best way you can destroy our people is to take
away your ability to reproduce themselves. Who’s it dying out
on these street every night ?” The old man indicates young people.
The young audience asks, “What am I supposed to do? Fool try to
smoke to me? I'm going to shoot motherfucker if he don’t kill
me first?” Furious says, “You [black youths] are exactly what
they [white Americans] want you tocka. YOu have»t0‘think.about
your future.” Furious told his audience that the bad habit of
black youth would demolish themselves. The construction of a
liquor shop is the example in which white Americans skillfully
manipulated them to kill one another. As I argued in Chapter
2, Du Bois proposed several solutions in order to overcome
whites’ oppressions of blacks. Characteristically, he
advocates that knowing the mechanism in which whites try to

degrade blacks is one of the crucial solutions. He also argues

2&5

 

 

 

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that “the suicide of race” is skillfully attempted (Souls 10).
Here Furious’ perspective is father (of Tre and other young
people) and as Ricky’s brother, Doughboy’s (Ice Cube) comment
implies “Your pap is like Mother fucking Malcolm Farrakhan”-

8 He laments the young generation’s lack

he is a black leader.13
of morality and its self-destructive habits.

Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever (1991) does not show an apparent
black leader’s role like Furious in Boy N’ the Hood. But the
portrayal of the protagonist Flipper embeds the perspective of
father/black leader/educator of younger generation. Flipper
has a drug addict brother, Gator (Samuel Jackson). Flipper is
asked by his mother to look for the missing Gator. Flipper starts
walking on the streets crowded with drug-addicts, drug sellers,
prostitutes, and delinquent teenagers. 'This scene starts with
a close-up of a fundamentalist woman preaching loudly on the
street. The camera is situated at her feet and the low—angle
shot of her signifies Flipper’s viewpoint. This technique
results in emphasizing Flipper’s psychological distance from
this woman, and constructs Flipper’s view of her not as his
people but as‘“otheru” .After the«camera catches him looking up

at this woman, there is a close—up of Flipper’s surprised face

and moves its position 45 degrees following him turning toward

 

1” Ending credit shows “Nation of Islam.” Furious’ separationist
philosophy might be that of Nation of Islam.

an

the street“ Flipper’s exaggerated facial expression (surprise
at or contempt for the street people) and the camera’ 5 following
his change of direction emphasize his shock and how he is amazed
to see the corruption of the street people. Although Flipper
is a black, his view of these street people is close to Du Bois’
sense of “the eyes of others”—white gaze—toward blacks. The gaze
signifies his contempt and bystander stance. The class
difference between Flipper and other blacks produced new kinds
of seer and seen relationship among blacks. This technique also
shows his hesitation before he starts walking on the street and
the difference between Flipper and other people.

As Flipper walks by in a medium shot from left to right
diagonally, a drug-seller talks to him, and teenagers on the
sides of the street try to seduce him. The camera reveals
Flipper walking in the foreground and street people in the
background, people’s reaction to Flipper with Flipper’s
viewpoint, and a close-up of many discarded drug syringes on the
ground. Stevie Wonder's lyric about a boy born and “surrounded
by four walls that ain’t so pretty” in Mississippi, and his.
parents’ trial to make him go:hialgood direction explains the
landscape of the street» This technique distinguishes Flipper
from street people in terms of moral, job and class, and defines
them as the “other” for Flipper. Also, as the divide between

Tre/Furious and Compton people shows, polarization of blacks

mm

after the civil rights movement—middle class and lower class
(street people)—creates a new dichotomy within blacks in the
scene, and the film portrays “the eyes of others”-—street
people’s eyes on middle class blacks who are called “wanna be
white” or “buppies.”

In Spike Lee’s Ablcolm X (1992), Malcolm walks on the
streets in Harlem as Flipper walks. The direction of
walking—from left to right—the pace of walking, and Malcolm as
Foreground/street people as background relationship are exactly
same as in Jungle Fever. lWalcolm (Denzel Washington) does not
show surprise when prostitutes try to seduce him with overly
sexual words, but keeps a blank face and is quiet. Instead, a
voice-over of Malcolm’s address on the problem of prostitutes
and its influence on their children is heard simultaneously with
the prostitutes’ seductive voice. This scene turns into
Malcolm’s preaching scene.

In the last scene of JUngle Fever, Flipper hugs a drug
addict teenager girl, saying, “No.” As I argued before, this
girl might be a symbol of his daughter’ 5 future. But at the same
time this girl links to Flipper’ s tour on the street scene which
also features a teenage girl who tries to seduce him. Flipper’ s
perspective constructs the father of a daughter and young street
girl as well as black leader—like the perspective of a figure

who laments the lack of morality of the young generation and

2&9

criticizes the condition of his own race.

In Boyz N’ the Hood (1991), the black leader’s name is
Furious Style, and in Jungle Fever (1991), his name is Flipper
Purify. If naming signifies their character, Furious is an angry
father or angry leader who is frustrated with the status quo of
blacks in America, and the self-destructive nature of the young
generation. Flipper is not directly angry at the corruption of
street people, and does not bear a leader-like character at all.
But, his name “Purify” functions as an effacement of his ego to
distinguish him from other blacks who are in a different class.
I argued that his “No” and hug of the girl suggests the absence
of a solution or his inescapability from the twoness dilemma,
but at the same time it constructs his hope to be a savior of
the young generation and his culture. Some reviewers point out
that his nature shown in the whole film does not provide any cue
to the reason why he yells “No” at the end. Certainly, as Henry
Louis Gates Jr. points out, he is not sympathetic and is a rather
egoistic character (Film Views II:20:1.) . But the film
carefully constructs his role and value with repetition of his
encounters with drug addicts, the portrayal of his brother’s
problem, his direct walk on the street, and the drug factory,
Taj Mahal. These scenes construct his role as different from
that of a mere black guy who falls in love with a white woman.

Tours of Tre, Ricky, and Furious in Compton, and the tour

290

of Flipper in Harlem provides them with a look at other black
people and their lives. These tours result in constructing their
motivation of saving black people or their perspectives as black
leaders of people who meditate on the future of their folks. Du
Bois, who was grown up in Great Barrington, first visits the
South—Tennessee-when he was a student at Fisk University. He
was then sent to the South as a school teacher of black children.
He visits his students’ houses and talks to their parents. He
first experiences poverty and ignorance of black parents in the
South. It was difficult for him to persuade them of the
importance of education. Josie, one of his students, a
twenty-year-old girl, hopes to studyu In the chapter, “Of the

Meaning of the Progress” in The Souls of Black Folks, he notes:

. and Josie, hearing my errand, told me anxiously that
they wanted a school over the hill; that but once since
the war had a teacher been there; that she herself longed
to learn,—and thus she ran on, talking fast and loud, with

much earnestness and energy (Souls 52).

He helped her accomplish her dream, but when he returns to
Tennessee several years later, Josie’s parents tell him of her
death. In order to support her family, to supplement for lack
of male work in her family (her brother was arrested after being

falsely charged with stealing flour and took revenge on the

291

person who accused him) in her family, she works hard. Du Bois
writes, “Josie grew thin and silent, yet worked the more” (Souls
58) . Her hard work away from home in Nashville helped her family
and even enabled them to repair their broken house.

But when her sister, “bold and thoughtless,” was seduced
by “the tempter,” and “brought home a nameless child,” Josie had
to work more, and her “vision of schooldays" disappeared while
she kept working. When she crept to her home, she died.

Du Bois concluded this chapter, saying:

My journey was done, and behind me lay hill and dale, and
life and Death. How shall man measure Progress there where
the dark-faced Josie lies? How many heartfuls of sorrow
shall balance a bushel of wheat? How hard a thing is life
to the lowly, and yet how human and real! And all this
life and love and strife and failure,-is it the twilight
of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day?
Thus sadly musing, I rode to Nashville in the Jim Crow
car (Souls 62).

Du Bois’ intense sorrow is found in Tre’s “Furious” father

facing self—destructive young people, Flipper’s cry; “No!” and
Malcolm X’ 5 walking on the street in the 19905. Josie’s tragedy
and her sister’s lack of morality or “thoughtlessness” was
brought by poverty. The relationship between Du Bois and Josie
is educator and student and father and daughter. All three

father/educators/leader—1ike men, Furious, Flipper, Malcolm

rm

 

and Du Bois hurt their hearts with the tragedy of their children
or the next generation, and shows their stance-admitting
negative sides of the lives which their people experience.

Among them, Du Bois, Malcolm and Furious think that they
are victims of America and criticize what made them degrade
themselves. They advocate the importance of knowing unseen
whites’ strategy to oppress blacks, and education as one of the
solutions. What Flipper did in the film first was to ban the
use of drugs by his daughter. Then, after he hugs the drug addict
girl, what will he present as a concrete solution? Besides the
lyric, “Agree or war has been our way of compromising,” only the
mileu for meditating or finding the solution is presented (or
remains) in Jungle Fever. And the construction of this blank
space with Flipper’s role as leader/saver of young generation
in the 905 film proves the persistence of the soil which embeds
various implications of Du Bois’s double consciousness concept
functioning as a slogan.

Sethe does not know what she is fighting against, and what
vexed her. Then, does Sethe’s removal of old selves represented
by her ice picking School master or the community’s magic on
getting out of Beloved miss Du Bois’ sense of retention of “older
selves”? He argued that the blacks' retention of blackness and
whiteness in their merging “two selves.” Sethe erased the past

represented by Beloved. But is she really free from whites’ or

293

 

 

slavery’s influence on blacks? Douglass made use of the memory
of his past self as data to analyze what race meant to America
and black people. On the other hand, Sethe suffers these two
selves.

Du Bois argues that “the Negro blood” of the “twoness" of
the double consciousness discourse throws “message for the
world,” and it signifies the blacks’ voice seeking for “hope,”
“justice,” and “truth” (Souls 215 ). In Souls, Du Bois takes
up the Negro spiritual as an example of “the message for the
world.” But literary and film texts also embed these discourses.
Soliloquy in literature and direct address in film function as
Du Bois’ “Gentle Reader,” who tries to make the readers consider
“the strange meaning of being black” (Souls 1). When Harriet
Jacobs calls to the “reader,” she also tries to make the readers
imagine her sufferings under slavery. In Imitation of Life
(1934), Deliah talks to the audience “Nobody knows why (racism
exits)” by direct address. In Bamboozled (2000), Pierre
considers whether he lives like his father who affirms a racist
joke or not. When he finds the answer “No,” the film uses direct
address. In Get on the Bus, the direct address of the bondswoman
in the opening scene does not say anything, but throws out
questions on what America does to blacks and black women. In
Du Bois’s own case, as the passage “This meaning is not‘without

interest to you” shows, he points to the need to think about

294

racism. Jacob’ 5 case also signifies her appeal to the world and
disclosure of injustice in America. Deliah asks the world the
reason why racism matters in America. Pierre in Bamboozled
declares his stance in seeking for Du Bois’ 5 sense of “justice.”

As Du Bois predicted in 1960 that although blacks’
acquisition of the right to vote, “equal rights to education,”
civil rights, and ‘“social equality” is ‘“in sight,” this
situation would bring “not as many assume an end to the so-called
Negro problems, but a beginning of even more difficult problems
of race and culture” (The Education of Black People 193), the
films portray a persistent dilemma illustrated in the concept
of double consciousness after the 605, the civil rights era.
Alienation of a black elite in Bamboozled (2000) in white America,
and polarization of blacks in terms of class in Jungle Fever
(1991) , and Boyz N’ the Hood (1991) , creates a new kind of “eyes
of others” among black community. Double identity or divided
self discourses are expressed by coexistence of different

spheres in films.

295

 

Conclusion

Chapter I. examined time multi-faceted structure,
implication, and messages of the concept of Du Bois’ double
consciousness. I argued that in formulating the concept of
double consciousness, Du Bois originally tried to deconstruct
the power structure and social relations surrounding
African-Americans and whites, and.to demonstrate the unseen or
subjugated mechanism that embeds certain values in the minds of
both whites and blacks. In Chapter 2 I found that his
illustration of blacks’ subjectivity and psychology in double
consciousness closely relates to his proposal of resolutions to
the plight of African Americans. I emphasized double
consciousness as a pragmatic tactic to uplift blacks“ Chapter
3 focused on if or how my findings in Chapter 1 and 2 existed
or functioned before 1897 when Du Bois first introduced the
concept. I found double consciousness discourse and its
fragmentary appearance in slave narratives, autobiographies of
slaves, and the pamphlet of an abolitionist. Double
consciousness discourse existed not only in race, but in other
conflicts. In examining the concept as an intersection of
several different discourses, I found that it existed in several
black leaders’ experiences and resolutions. Chapters 4 and 5

showed what social and intellectual discourses paved the way for

%%

 

Du Bois’ formulation of double consciousness. Since I regard
double consciousnesszas an intersection of several discourses,
I examined several plural discourses circulating around the time
when Du Bois introduced the concept. The change of academic
trends around the turn of the century made examination of
academic trends necessaryu 'Various events and discourses that
justify and support white supremacy were prevalent that led Du
Bois to present counter discourses to those oppressive
discourses.

To separate Du Bois’ ideas and his cultural experience as
an African American is impossible. His duty as a public
spokesman was necessarily a revelation of why racism is a
hindrance to democratic social organization.
Characteristically his proposed solution to race-related
problems contains something that transcends race issues. This
seems to be paradoxical. For example, while introducing the
unique difficulties of African American experiences such as the
pain in which an African American’s identity or consciousness
is split in two or presenting the serious dilemma caused by being
forced to choose between an African-American and an American
identity, Du Bois rejects limiting this discussion ‘to aa
discussion of racial identity. Although he had grappled with
“race” issues, his concept of how people and society should

behave are informed and perhaps enriched by his particular

297

 

background and the “race” problem. While responding to the
historical and cultural background<mftflmesocial constructions
of race, he did not retreat from the basic principles that people
need to survive in society.

The study explored the multi-layered definitions,
implications, and messages in Du Bois’ concept of double
consciousness, and established the genealogy of the discourse
and its fragmentary emergence before, after, and around the year
when Du Bois first introduced the concept. I found that the
discourses function differently over time. Although studies of
the relationship between double consciousness and literary or
film texts have been done, this is the first study of the concept
using Foucault and Deleuze to demonstrate how the concept
addresses the deep embeddedness of selected cultural issues.
The study emphasizes the concept of double consciousness as a
pragmatic slogan for liberation and uplift of blacks and other
oppressed peoples.

The study shows that Du Bois’ illustration of African-
Americans’ psychological model relating to oppression emerges
frtmlblack and white relationships in realityu Du Bois defines
the white gaze—“the eyes of others”—in various ways. He
problematizes not only the “pity,” and “contempt” of whites’
gaze, but also their bystanders’ stance toward blacks’ plight,

or their perspective as assessors of blacks’ abilities. Du Bois’

298

 

 

careful positioning of “twoness”—an African one and American
one—in one identity shows the complexity of his logic. In terms
of racial identity, he defines twoness as equal, but the
directions toward which each identity looks is subtly different.
This unbalanced juxtaposition embeds resolution for the
survival of.African.Americans. [M1Bois’ resolution transcends
choosing either a black or an American alternative. He advocates
the need for having two identities or perspectives as distinct
forms. The retention of these two identities relates to his
promotion of anti-accommodation in demanding equal economic
opportunity and political rights.

Du Bois links blacks’ psychological adaptation and
provides a key for a solution to problems that African-Americans
confront. For example, blacks’ self—degradation mechanism that
whites’ gaze imposed on them directly relates to lowering their
ideals and giving up on the acquisition of rights, but their
resistance enables multiple perspectives on social conditions.
This capacity for becoming is necessary to an emergent democracy.
In the nineteenth century, Frederic Douglass lamented that under
slavery he cannot get freedom and opportunity, but after
escaping he felt intense loneliness in being far from his friends
and excluded from whites in the North. In this sense, Douglass
is compelled to confront a dilemma that Du Bois illustrated in

double consciousness.

299

 

The study demonstrates that double consciousness discourse
and its fragmentation functioned during the slave period, as
seen in slave narratives where people confronted the situations
that double consciousness illustrates. Their perception of the
white gaze’s exploitation of their dignity and Du Bois’ sense
of “true self-consciousness” were found in their relationship
to slave masters. Under slavery, blacks’ awareness of the gaze
as power enabled them to more successfully escape from
oppression. Although Douglass is famous, the examination of
slave narratives shows that not only in leaders, but among
anonymous people as well there were glimpses of solutions for
fighting against oppression.

The present study also considers discourses circulating in
Du Bois’ own time. To promote his basic principles on how human
beings should live and true democracy should emerge, Du Bois
first fought against the hindrance called white supremacy and
“accommodation.” Whites kept blacks’ from gaining political
rights and advancing their prosperity, and promoted laws and
public discourses to justify their actions. When these
strategies failed, and often when they did not, violence was
common. Du Bois called for black people’s recognition of the
fact that they deserve all basic human rights. .His so-called
anti-accommodation stance asserts basic principles of freedom

and democracy as well as the pursuit of enlightenment and better

um

 

 

employment.

The academic trends and intellectual discourses around the
end of the nineteenth century, the rise of new disciplines such
as sociology, psychology and anthropology, all aided and
provided challenge for Du Bois’ formulation of double
consciousness. The popularity of Social Darwinism especially
functioned to justify white supremacy discourses and the
oppression of blacks. Du Bois needed to present counter
discourses to it. His pragmatist logic helped and he deployed
scientific methods in order to refute the black inferiority myth
that affirms blacks as the cause of social exploitation.

Black leaders have tried in different ways to address the
problems of living in a historically white supremacist society.
Slogans or tactics such as need for self-respect are based on
an illustration of psychological mechanisms, so it might seem
metaphysical or abstract, but in the leaders’ solutions, these
function as the practical tactics.

Although expression of black leaders’ solutions varied,
the present study found that the concepts of Martin Luther King
and Malcolm X revolve around Du Bois’s double consciousness
discourse in different ways. For example, as Du Bois emphasized
the importance of self-respect as the counter discourse to the
dominant accommodationist discourse around the turn of the

century, black leaders in the civil rights era also brought up

301

 

the theme in order to persuade blacks not to give up acquisition
of basic human rights, equal education, and civil action. Their
dilemma in choosing an alternative—either black or American—
constructs one of the aspects of double consciousness discourse.
Literature and films embed or hide fragments of discourse
of what Du Bois observes as the promotion or hindrance of
democracy. The study of these texts identifies discourses of
double consciousness in seemingly unrelated or unexpected
places. The interactions characters experience and the solution
to their problems are often the conflict and solutions that Du
Bois defines as double consciousness. His definition, “the eyes
of others,” represents discourses related to social problems.
Characters’ remarks, action, and the visual composition of
films construct the function of social situations. .As Du Bois
predicted in 1960, a new kind of dilemma emerged and new kind
of double consciousness discourse arises. For example, the
polarization of blacks after the civil rights era creates a new
kind of “twoness” and “eyes of others” in terms of class, and
visual images construct this discourse. In the 19905 and 20005,
films construct the dichotomy in double consciousness, black and
white as seer/seen discourse. In literary texts, “the eyes of
others” discourse is shown in whites’ remarks on blacks and
their assumptions about them. The need for the modification of

whites’ perspectives as bystanders toward the dilemma of most

302

 

 

blacks persists in 19905 and 20005. Black directors often use
specific film techniques in order to make audiences experience
what receiving Du Bois’ sense of “the eyes of others” is like.
Compared to the construction of the white gaze in the early
twentieth century, the technique succeeds in forcing audiences
to conceptualize race problems in more sophisticated ways.
One of [hi Bois’ key assertions is time importance of
retaining a perspective as.African American in establishing “a
better and truer self.” He thinks that blackness has a “message
for the world”—actitn1in overcoming adversity, notification.of
injustices, and cultural pride. The “message for the world”
discourse creates threads before, after, and during the time
when Du Bois formulated double consciousness. Early in the
nineteenth century (1829), an African American abolitionist,
David Walker appealed to the world about the injustice that
blacks experienced in the U.S. In the early 18305 a Native
American, William Apess, lamented that Native Americans have no
press to inform the world of their plight. Although Walker and
Apess belonged to different “races,” they confronted the common
need of Du Bois’ sense of “the message for the world.” In
Clarence Muse’s film Broken Strings (1940), music functions as
“the message for the world” as Du Bois defines African American
folksongs as “the articulate message of the slave to the world”

(Souls 207) . The mass mediation made possible by television in

MB

 

the 19505 and the 19605, became the new device for black leaders
and common black people to transmit their “message” to the world.
As the protagonist of Harriet Jacobs’ slave narrative, Linda
Brent, used the public gaze toward her slave master to escape
from his Violation of her, black people in the Civil Rights Era
made use of the television viewers’ gaze toward the whites’
oppression of blacks. The new visual device functioned to move
the world. The results of the Civil Rights Movement and the rise
of the black middle class have not erased this discourse but have
changed it. The crane shot of a middle-class architect, Flipper,
as he cries “No” in Jungle Fever (1991) constructs a black voice
demanding justice, solution, “some fair world beyond” America,
and the absence of a definite solution in the 19905. A black
middle class has emerged that mediates between the larger
society and the oppressed mass represented by Taj Mahal.

The present study juxtaposes various kinds of discourses
representing shared experiences, ideas, solutions, and the
rancor between oppressors and oppressed. All of these cases take
different forms, but their common need to confront these issues
and questions link various kinds of people over time. When
hindrance does not exist, people might not need to confront these
questions, to meditate the answer, and to squeeze out the
solutions.

As the basic solution Du Bois advocates conforming to the

304

 

principles of democracy—“the greater ideals of the American
Republic” . (He did not trust America as a country, but he trusted
its principles .) His view of American democracy fits his answers
to the question, how should people live. I wanted to avoid easy
application of Du Bois’ concept to other social issues, but many
people have experienced cultural exclusion over time. In Du
Bois’ case, one of the major hindrances to democracy was racism.
In cases of others, it has been gender or class or a combination
of several factors. The present study establishes several
threads that bridge the common ideas among those who experience
double consciousness and their solutions for overcoming their
struggles.

I found that discourses related to the concept of double
consciousness exist in the problems or events that are not
necessarily race related issues, but have also tx><fl3 with
cross-cultural identity formation, gender, and class related
issues. In other words, in the problems that do not directly
relate to race issues, double consciousness discourse emerges
to define the situation and provide concepts for resolutions.

Recognition that not all cfi [Mi Bois’ struggle and his
proposed solutions in double consciousness are exclusive for
African-Americans offers us some clues or chances to understand
the concept. His solution for overcoming race problems would

provide some clues for our overcoming other kinds of social

305

 

 

problems. Du Bois provoked modification of both whites’ and
blacks’ positions in facing the race problem are introducing
double consciousness. White readers are offered a chance to know
the burden for black people, and black readers are offered a
chance to know what deprived them of their own important parts
of identity—dignity, opportunities, and life experience. In his
illustration of the seer/seen relationship, he did not demand
changes on one side alone. Seers can be the seen and the seen
can be seers. Who would take the seer role or seen role will
not be predictableu The contemporary'multicultural world will
make this relationship more complicated. A multicultural world
is a place where interactions of self and others multiply. Class,
gender, race, and ethnicity would turn one person into seer and
seen. This is a sense in which having multiple identities or
perspectives is an advantage for blacks. Now at the beginning
of the 21St centuryu Du Bois’ call, “suppose and.suppose,” might
be heard from unexpected or hidden places, people, or groups.
This might not only come from those who feel oppressed.
Realizing the pain of being seen would contribute to the
elimination of oppression and “other.” Du Bois’ illustration
of the second—sight and torn identity of African Americans
itself signifies his “message for the world”—notification of
pain of African Americans to the broader world and indictment

of oppression in the U.S. So understanding the situations of

306

others illustrated in double consciousness will enable us to
eliminate unnecessary divisions among people—a hindrance to

democracy.

307

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