In The Souls of Black Folk by WEB DuBois, he introduces two concepts that are essential to understanding what life is like for the modern Black American. These concepts are: Double Consciousness and the Veil. These two concepts are intrinsically linked; Understanding Double Consciousness requires understanding the Veil, and vice versa. Double consciousness refers to the idea that black Americans live in two distinct Americas: white America, where they are forced to behave according to white America's social protocol and where they must live up to the non-black Americans' expectations of black Americans. and black America, where there is an entirely separate protocol. “It’s a special sensation, this double consciousness,” writes DuBois. “This feeling of always looking at yourself through the eyes of others, of measuring your soul against a world that looks on with amused contempt and pity. We always feel his duality: an American, a Black; two souls, two thoughts, two irreconcilable efforts; two warring ideals in a single dark body, whose tenacious strength alone keeps it from being torn apart. (Souls of Black Folk 885) The Veil represents the cause and effect of Double Consciousness. In his essay “The Veil of Self-Awareness,” DuBois says: “Then, with a certain suddenness, I realized that I was different from others; or perhaps, in my heart, in my life and in my desires, but excluded from all contact. their world by a vast veil” (“Veil” 1). apart from the stereotypes and assumptions made about them by White people; and the inability of whites and blacks to fully connect and work in solidarity, or to see each other as equals. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay at. "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essay This idea is also explored, although under a different metaphor, in Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem, "We Wear the Mask." In this poem, Dunbar specifically addresses the internal struggle of a black American working within a non-black (especially white) America. “Why should the world be too wise, / Counting all our tears and sighs / Nay, let them see only us? , while / We wear the mask” (1033). In this stanza, Dunbar tells the reader that the veil can be used in favor of black Americans. This stanza raises the question: why let the cries of the oppressed fall on ears that are. intentionally covered? In Dunbar's view, there is no point in expressing to white people the same things that can be expressed among other black people. Instead, Dunbar chooses to use the Veil to his advantage to consciously shift his consciousness toward what white America expects. so that his own true consciousness may remain safe beneath. However, not all black authors agree that living a life behind a mask is ideal. In his poem "If We Must Die", Claude McKay speaks directly against the concept of changing one's own. consciousness within white spheres, as a black man, to better integrate into white society. The poem “If We Must Die” thematically tells the reader that it is better to die to live truly – with dignity – than to assimilate into white culture and die anyway, deprived of dignity. “If we must die, let it not be like pigs / Hunted and herded in an inglorious place, / While around us mad and hungry dogs bark, / Mocking our cursed fate. / If we must die – oh, let us die nobly, / That our precious blood may not be shed / In vain; so even the monsters thatwe defy / Will be forced to honor us even if they are dead! (483). McKay, through this poem, maintains the binary of oppressor versus oppressed (in this case, white versus black), but McKay's concept differs from DuBois' concept of double consciousness because he maintains: even though this binary exists – and the black man must be aware of this – it is more ideal for a black man to fully embrace the black side of his consciousness and unite in solidarity with his black community to overcome their difficulties. oppressor: “Oh, Parents! We must confront the common enemy; / Although we are greatly outnumbered, let us be courageous, / And for their thousand blows, let us deliver a mortal blow! / But what lies before us is the open grave? / Like men, we will face the murderous and cowardly pack, / Pressed against the wall, dying, but fighting back! (483). He suggests that by obediently observing the white ideal of what a black man must be to survive, the black community should not sell itself short because it is outnumbered by the white majority, but should fight to his right to claim his black right. identify. With this ideal, McKay launched the Harlem Renaissance, inspiring peers like Langston Hughes. Like McKay, Hughes writes about the beauty of his black community and warns against allowing ourselves to be divided into double consciousness, instead valuing the black man who embraces his self and his black community. Hughes begins his manifesto, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, by saying: "One of the most promising young black poets once said to me, 'I want to be a poet, not a black poet,' meaning that I believe: “I want to write like a white poet”; unconsciously meaning: “I would like to be a white poet”; which means behind it: “I wish I were white”. And I was sorry that the young man said that, because no great poet was ever afraid to be himself. And I doubted then that this boy, with his desire to spiritually escape his race, would one day be a great poet. But this is the mountain that stands in the way of any true Negro art in America – this impulse of the race toward whiteness, this desire to incorporate racial individuality into the mold of American standardization and to be as unblack and as American as possible” (348). Hughes argues that a black person can never create art that is true to themselves unless they accept their blackness. Hughes interprets the veil between whites and blacks as a mountain; something to overcome. This, like McKay's writings, is in direct opposition to DuBois' idea that surviving in America requires greater assimilation into white culture; or, rather, postulates that surviving is not enough. To thrive in America, to create art, one must shed two separate consciousnesses and, instead, embrace one's consciousness in its entirety – blackness and all. Hughes does not think DuBois was wrong in his writings per se – in fact, Hughes calls DuBois's writings "the finest prose written by a black man in America." But there is a time to meet the oppressor where he is, and for Hughes and his contemporaries in the Harlem Renaissance movement, that time is over. “…over the next decade,” writes Hughes, “I expect to see the work of a growing school of colored artists who paint and model the beauty of dark faces and create with new techniques the expressions of their own spiritual world. And the black dancers who will dance like flames and the singers who will continue to carry our songs to all who listen to them, they will be with us in greater numbers tomorrow” (349). For Hughes, the way to dismantle the systematic oppression of black people is through art. He works.