SumBlog#7: Veil and Double Consciousness

This week in class I read about an African American named W.E.B. Du Bois, a Harvard graduate and co- founder of the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Du Bois was a great advocate for equal rights not only for African Americans but for all members of minority groups , including a huge push for women's rights. He believed that he lived in a land were all people ought to be treated equally despite the ongoings on the past. He believed that education was the single most important factor in the ability to reach his goal of overall equality. He was not seemingly critical of white people in general but much like fellow African American sociologist Anna Julia Cooper, he believed that the "system" was to be blamed for the continuation of discrimination of blacks. He saw that although slavery had ended, African Americans were still not viewed as equal citizens.  “The bright ideals of the past, physical freedom, political power, the training of brains and the training of hands, all these in turn have waxed and waned” (Du Bois). Essentially as one problem was fixed another problem arose in its place, forever looming over the minds and hearts of black people everywhere. It reminds me of the idea about stepping up one rung of the ladder only to be knocked down two. Even though blacks acquired the same rights as whites, they were not able to exercise those rights to their full potential. Upon reading a short passage by DuBois in class,
I learned about two concepts that were his major key elements discussed in his sociology, those being the terms veil and double consciousness. The term veil is meant to describe how blacks can live among whites yet see the world much differently than whites due to their double consciousness meaning that although they are  Black Americans, they see themselves as being black and American a in two separate entities. They see themselves as being first black and secondly American. DuBois depiction of the term veil, illustrates how white people have developed certain stereotypes regarding blacks as a result of their generalized interactions with them which unfortunately seemed to viewed in a negative light (due to the old world way of thinking, thank you Southern states). This sometimes in turn created a self-fulfilling prophecy in which blacks started to actually believe that they were inferior to whites, allowing such believes to thrive. A theory that in many cases still holds true today, when a person ( no matter their race) is constantly fed information and treated in a certain manner, they soon start to believe that it just must be true and they then act accordingly. They do this because they think, "what is the use of trying to better myself when I will just be heavily criticized by others. They are always thinking about how others view them versus how they view themselves. Once again this brings about that Double Consciousness in which they develop a public persona and a private person, a very confusing state if you ask me. I found it very interesting that DuBois was such an advocate for all minority groups, as well as for women, instead of just focusing on his particular race, for me he embodied the essence of equality for all. The picture I chose depicts DuBois vision of equality for all.