gpulcollegeprep: We appreciate a historical twitter account! @WEB_DuBois tweeted: “I’m 144 today! Here I am on my 70th in 1938 with all my friends and family at Atlanta University.”  To some, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois (pronounced duh-BOYZ) is the father of American sociology. His most widely-known work is the 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk. One of the most striking observations he makes in that book is how one’s consciousness is shaped by discrimination, segregation, and racism. Recalling a time when, as a child, his Valentine was rejected by a young white girl, he says: 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. 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 words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head, — some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?  Later in the same chapter, DuBois goes on to define “double consciousness” - an idea that is key to understanding social, racial, and economic stratification, or separation, in our society. It is  double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. Do you feel at times that you cannot think about how you view yourself without first thinking about how others view you? This is double consciousness, and it’s an idea that does not only apply to American citizens of African descent who call themselves “black people.”   DuBois is one of our favorite modern thinkers because his philosophies evolved over time. Click here to read more of DuBois’s classic work, The Souls of Black Folk, and read about his life and legacy. 
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gpulcollegeprep:

We appreciate a historical twitter account! @WEB_DuBois tweeted: “I’m 144 today! Here I am on my 70th in 1938 with all my friends and family at Atlanta University.” 

To some, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois (pronounced duh-BOYZ) is the father of American sociology. His most widely-known work is the 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk. One of the most striking observations he makes in that book is how one’s consciousness is shaped by discrimination, segregation, and racism. Recalling a time when, as a child, his Valentine was rejected by a young white girl, he says:

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. 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 words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head, — some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? 

Later in the same chapter, DuBois goes on to define “double consciousness” - an idea that is key to understanding social, racial, and economic stratification, or separation, in our society. It is 

double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

Do you feel at times that you cannot think about how you view yourself without first thinking about how others view you? This is double consciousness, and it’s an idea that does not only apply to American citizens of African descent who call themselves “black people.”  

DuBois is one of our favorite modern thinkers because his philosophies evolved over time. Click here to read more of DuBois’s classic work, The Souls of Black Folk, and read about his life and legacy. 

Source: gpulcollegeprep