Observation #8
Francelet Darina
Sociology 481
Prof Hechtman
May 19th, 2016
In the reading "Identity Careers of Older Gay Men and Lesbian" by Dana Rosenfeld, Rosenfeld first summarizes "the meaning of homosexuality that prevailed when her subjects came of age and the radical changes it underwent during their middle years". She talks about construction of homosexuality and the idea of it being seen as a pathological condition provided by gay men and women. "Their secret feelings and language has put them in a way that describes themselves and put them in a position in society." Even though many homosexuals embrace who they are without an issue or problem regarding their roles, still others see their sexual desires as a condition
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E. B. DuBois, was a very significant piece in regards to its strong symbolisms and themes. The veil took the entire white population and separated them from the blacks (Page 317-321). "This made it so only African-Americans could exist within the veil". This is where African-Americans experienced oppression. "Since white people could not fully understand life inside the veil, that meant they could never fully understand or feel the oppression that black people endured". At first Du Bois was unaware of the veils existence until he experienced personal discrimination. He was then able to fully examine the life of a Negro from within the veil. Throughout this book, Du Bois has a high focus on African-Americans and education. Through education, Du Bois believes African-Americans can become empowered and use that to fight the existence of the veil. In the time of slap , and the extreme oppression brought on by the white man, African-Americans had little to no sense of self. They were unable to form any potential idealistic beliefs. However with a growth in education in African-Americans, they'd be able to go up against the white man. This reading is truly an important piece to me because I've had to deal with racism yet I never went through what the early African Americans went through. On May 17th I observed two white Americans discussing their ideas about Black people and how hard it is to understand black culture. I had my headphones on and I was sitting behind them on the bus. They didn't say anything racist and it just seem like because of the separation of our skin color it's sometimes hard for them to understand black culture. You can just read a book and go "hey I know what it's like to be black!" That's not how it goes. You would have to live the lifestyle that many black Americans lived as well as understand the difficulties that many faced with racism. Black culture isn't just limited to just black people
The veil mentioned in the book serves as a dark shadow which represents being shut out of the world, it also serves as a mask concealing contempt. It was within this veil that Blacks experienced oppression “Then it dawned upon me with a certain sadness that I was different from the others; …shut out from the world by a vast veil. I had no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it” (2) In the first essay Dubois describes his realization of the veil, in this he realized the troubles he would face because of his skin color. He noticed that those who were unveiled lived lives with “dazzling opportunities” which he longed to have.
W.E.B. DuBois was an educator, writer, scholar, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, and later in his life a communist, whose life goal was to gain equal rights for all African Americans around the world. DuBois’ writings were mostly forgotten till the late 1960s, because of his involvement in communism and his absence during the civil rights movement in America. Even though his writings were temporarily forgotten because of his tarnished reputation, his legacy has since been restored allowing for his writings to be reprinted becoming a major influence for both academics and activists. DuBois’ accomplishments include his part in the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and his support for the civil rights movement advocating for equal social and economic rights for all African Americans. His accomplishments and efforts in order to gain equal treatment for African Americans outweigh his shortcomings and failures.
W.E.B. DuBois, in The Souls of Black Folk describes the very poignant image of a veil between the blacks and the whites in his society. He constructs the concept of a double-consciousness, wherein a black person has two identities as two completely separate individuals, in order to demonstrate the fallacy of these opinions. J.S. Mill also describes a certain fallacy in his own freedom of thought, a general conception of individuals that allows them to accept something similar to DuBois’ double-consciousness and perpetuates the existence of the veil.
The poem, "We Wear the Mask”, by Paul Laurence Dunbar is about separating Blacks people from the masks they wear. When Blacks wear their masks they are not simply hiding from their oppressor they are also hiding from themselves. This type of deceit cannot be repaid with material things. This debt can only be repaid through repentance and self-realization. The second stanza of “We Wear the Mask” tells Blacks whites should not know about their troubles. It would only give them leverage over Blacks. Black peoples’ pain and insecurities ought to be kept amongst themselves. There is no need for anyone outside the black race to know what lies beneath their masks. The third stanza turns to a divine being. Blacks look to god because he made them and is the only one that can understand them. They must wear their mask proudly. The world should stay in the dark about who they are. This poem is about Blacks knowing their place and staying in it. This is the only way they could be safe.
...s, whose school of thought inspired much of the agitation which, after the break with the 'accommodationist' position of Washington, began to develop in the 1950's and exploded in the 1960's civil rights movement. His influence can be seen best in his prophetic work “The Souls of Black Folk”, a work which many credit for the inspiration of modern civil rights leaders. In it Du Bois describes the scope of American discrimination, and uses it to predict the formation of ‘black consciousness’ and activism in the future (B., Du Bois W. E. Souls of Black Folk.). Thats not to say there were no points of similarity between Washington and DuBois. Both worked against racially motivated violence and the lynchings African Americans faced in the south. Furthermore, while one of his harshest critics, Du Bois also appreciated and acknowledged many of Washington's accomplishments.
" Du Bois does not claim that transcending the veil will lead to a better understanding of the lord but like Saint Paul he finds that only through transcending "the veil" can people achieve liberty and gain self-consciousness. The veil metaphor in Souls of Black Folk is symbolic of the invisibility of blacks in America. Du Bois says that Blacks in America are a forgotten people, "after the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the
This statement suggests that the quality of life for colored people in this time period is worse than being dead. It is implied by Dubois in this essay that not only would the white people be happier if the black people were all killed, but also that the black people would be happier due to them not having to face the hatred and segregation that they were subject to at the time. Dubois makes a sound argument that the white people in this time period have a problem with a black man making the same amount of money as them and getting the same education as them. They do not believe the black man is their equal. He uses the colored man in the essay to bring to light an extreme solution to the apparent problem, which in turn makes the white people, and the reader, open their eyes to the glaring issues inherent in racist behaviour and
Andrew Sullivan, author of, What is a Homosexual, portrays his experience growing up; trapped in his own identity. He paints a detailed portrait of the hardships caused by being homosexual. He explains the struggle of self-concealment, and how doing so is vital for social acceptation. The ability to hide one’s true feelings make it easier to be “invisible” as Sullivan puts it. “The experience of growing up profoundly different in emotional and psychological makeup inevitably alters a person’s self-perception.”(Sullivan)This statement marks one of the many reasons for this concealment. The main idea of this passage is to reflect on those hardships, and too understand true self-conscious difference. Being different can cause identity problems, especially in adolescents.
W.E.B. Du Bois is a world-renowned American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, and author whose life goal was to educate African Americans and whites about the realities of race by posing and answering the question, “How does it feel to be a problem?” On the other hand, William Faulkner is an American writer whose specialty in Southern and American literature won him a Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford. Faulkner’s Southern literature illustrated the difficulties of being behind a societal veil, with special attention to gender and racial issues. Both of these authors have attempted to tackle the difficult questions regarding race and addressed some ties between race and economics. Du Bois focuses on the black narrative and Faulkner
In Du Bois' "Forethought" to his essay collection, The Souls of Black Folk, he entreats the reader to receive his book in an attempt to understand the world of African Americans—in effect the "souls of black folk." Implicit in this appeal is the assumption that the author is capable of representing an entire "people." This presumption comes out of Du Bois' own dual nature as a black man who has lived in the South for a time, yet who is Harvard-educated and cultured in Europe. Du Bois illustrates the duality or "two-ness," which is the function of his central metaphor, the "veil" that hangs between white America and black; as an African American, he is by definition a participant in two worlds. The form of the text makes evident the author's duality: Du Bois shuttles between voices and media to express this quality of being divided, both for himself as an individual, and for his "people" as a whole. In relaying the story of African-American people, he relies on his own experience and voice and in so doing creates the narrative. Hence the work is as much the story of his soul as it is about the souls of all black folk. Du Bois epitomizes the inseparability of the personal and the political; through the text of The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois straddles two worlds and narrates his own experience.
To understand the viewpoint of W.E.B Dubois and his argument for having a well-educated African American population, his own background and life experience of the struggle to be African and American must be considered. DuBois is born in the north in Massachusetts where the so-called Negro problem paralyzing the
In his book, Du Bois stated that the "Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil" (Pg 12). The veil in this sense is like a curtain that separates different types and groups of people. It is portrayed by showing that the veil is separating the whites’ and the blacks’. The veil acts as a mask for the whites and they are not able to see the importance of black culture for the American culture. It blocks off the African Americans that are born “In the veil”, which makes them invisible to the rest of America. DuBois was trying to say that he wants to lift up this veil that the blacks’ are under and show us, the Americans, what is inside the
Du Bois and describes the experiences of discrimination and racial inequality of black John and white John. This essay was written as a representation of the inequality that existed in America. In the essay, white John was able to attend a very prestigious university all because of his racial privilege and the fact that his father was a judge. The author intended this to insinuate how racial privilege was able to allow greater opportunities for people only because of the privilege that they had. Black John worked hard to get into an unknown college and even helped his hometown by building his very own school. When he returned home, he was alienated by his community because they did not like how he returned as a different person. It was at this moment that he began to understand what the “Veil” was and how his community did not accept him as more educated person. The overall message that Du Bois emphasizes in the essay, is that intelligent black people were overwhelmed with self doubt and confusion that stemmed from the racism and racial discrimination. White john however was born into a privileged lifestyle by having a judge as a father and being accepted into one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. In the end of the essay, Black John is punished for the killing of White John, thus the punishment of lynching was insinuated in the essay. White John sexually assaulted Black John's sister and out of rage
" The Souls of Black Folk", is a collection of autobiographical and historical essays contains many vast themes. There is the theme of souls and their attainment of consciousness, the theme of double consciousness and the duality and bifurcation of black life and culture. One of Dubious the most outstanding themes is the idea of "the veil." The veil provides a connection between the fourteen seemingly independent essays that make up "The Souls of Black Folk". Mentioned at least once in most of the essays, it means that, "the Negro is a sort of seventh son, 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 self through the eyes of others”. The veil seems to be a metaphor for the separation and invisibility of black life and existence in America. It is also a major reoccurring theme in many books written about black life in America.
... collective consciousness of the Black community in the nineteen hundreds were seen throughout the veil a physical and psychological and division of race. The veil is not seen as a simple cloth to Du Bois but instead a prison which prevents the blacks from improving, or gain equality or education and makes them see themselves as the negative biases through the eyes of the whites which helps us see the sacred as evil. The veil is also seen as a blindfold and a trap on the many thousands which live with the veil hiding their true identity, segregated from the whites and confused themselves in biases of themselves. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folks had helped to life off the veil and show the true paid and sorry which the people of the South had witnessed. Du Bois inclines the people not to live behind the veil but to live above it to better themselves as well as others.