How does racism affect identity?
W.E.B Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk
in 1903.
The book exposed the material causes of racism
at that time – and explained the effects
that racism has on black identity.
Du Bois wanted to show his readers the ‘strange
meaning of being black’.
He believed, at the dawn of the twentieth
century, that the laws and the society that
had prevented blacks from achieving equality
in a post-slavery era would continue to pose
a problem for black identity.
He argued that, as a result of this, blacks
and whites in the United States were separated
by a ‘color line’.
Du Bois’ book pioneered a related concept.
He believed that the ‘colour line’ did
more than deny blacks fair access to jobs,
education and opportunity – it actually
weighed so heavily on their souls that it
prevented them from achieving their potential
as human beings.
He used the term ‘the veil’ to describe
the way in which racism made it hard for whites
to see blacks as true Americans - and for
blacks to see themselves in anything other
than the way they were portrayed by whites.
Finally, Du Bois wrote of the ‘double consciousness’
produced by wearing ‘a veil’ – the split
identity that blacks feel as they attempt
to be both American and African, in a white
society where one identity is less equal than
the other.
We can understand ‘double consciousness’
better if we compare it to a work-life balance
scenario.
Meet Sasha.
She has two identities.
She is both a full-time single mother and
a full-time company executive.
Both roles are both part of Sasha’s reality,
but they often overlap and create anguish
in her daily life.
When her son is sick from school, she leaves
work to take care of him.
When work is busy, she misses events like
her son’s school concert.
The ‘contradiction of double aims’ leaves
her feeling unfulfilled, and her potential
unrealised.
Realising this, her boss offers her flexible
working hours so she is able to fulfil her
role in the company – and her role as a
mother – without the two conflicting.
This solution – a merging of a conflicted
double self – into a better and truer self
that is free of contradiction was something
that Du Bois hoped for.
He talked of ‘lifting the veil’ – a
metaphor for white society recognising the
equality of African American people.
Du Bois became a central figure in shaping
the movements that ended American segregation
and colonialism in Africa and Asia.
He is regarded as a great figure of history.
A more detailed analysis of his ideas can
be found in the MACAT analysis.
