A Justice Site
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Created: December 23, 2001
Latest update: December 24, 2001
:jeannecurran@habermas.org.
Hi, my name is Serena Thomas, and I came across your page on the internet, and I'm not your student, but needed some help.jeanne's comments: Hi, Serena.I am at the moment doing a project comparing the concepts of Dubois' Double Consciousness and Frantz Fanon's concept of Triple and Third Person Consciousness. There are a lot of complex issues that I'm seeing present themselves, and I am gettting a bit confused with them all.
jeanne's comments: It's a confusing topic. It has to do with identity, colonization, and separating our effects that may in fact not be separable. But it's an important topic, with tremendous impact as we contemplate social issues.The first step in this project I am doing is fully understanding what Dubois means when he says Double Consciousness. I have read Souls of Black Folk and many critiques of this book, and I keep finding different and conflicting opinions on what Double Consciousness is. So what exactly is Double Consciousness? Is it as Dubois says, solely seeing oneself through the eyes of the other? Or is it two separate consciousnesses? Is it an unconscious and a conscious state of being? How does this doubleness come into play?
jeanne's comments: You're asking a very difficult question. What did another who lived very long ago mean by what he said then? As a sociologist, I would like to restate that. I think I can tell you what my perception of DuBois' concept of Double Consciousness is, sort of, through the eyes of a white woman in the early 20th Century. Will that do? I think this goes to the postmodern concept of the death of the author. DuBois, having given us the concept, as he did in the Souls of Black Folk, has given the concept over to all of us to build into what we can and will. In that sense, I do not know what DuBois meant. But I can give you an interpretation that must remain open to other interpretations from other perspectives and over time."The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card,—refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then 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. . . .""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; . . . "
And then comes . . . "a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world." . . .
Now, what I feel as I read this in Chapter 1 of the Souls of Black Folk is more than just "one consciousness, that of seeing yourself through the eyes of the other." I see a very real consciousness, one that cannot be avoided and that asserts itself, in Dubois' words as a consciousness that manifested itself, for Dubois in "beat[ing] my mates at examination-time, or beat[ing] them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. . . .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?" Notice the terms "beating my mates," "stringy heads," "pale world, "bitter cry." I feel a consciousness of self, of pain, of anger, and a need to strike back in those words. I should be angry, if I had written them. And I think that is the anger to which Frantz Fanon refers. The anger of the colonized from whom everything, including his human right to self and to the product of his own efforts has been wrested.
then we come to the mirror. Lacan, Freud, Lear, Said.
I see it from Dubois' perspective of D.C. as being one consciousness, that of seeing yourself through the eyes of the other. I would think that this is the only consciousness that the black person would see or be aware of for that matter. That would be all they know. Mabye they wouldn't even realize that they are plagued by this Double Consciousness.
As you can see I am completly confused and need some guidance. The project is due soon, so the sooner the better that I hear from you. Again, sorry to bother you during the holidays. Thank you though for your time. Happy Holidays.
Serena Thomas
- Gramsci and DuBois Adds another term to the mix: "contradictory consciousness." Link added December 23, 2001.backup
- Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Masks (Chapter Five: "The Fact of Blackness") Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 1967.
- Re: Gramsci and Contradictory Consciousness by Brian Collier on PSN.
- Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919-1991. by Marisol de la Cadena. Durham, NC: Duke University Press (2000), xiii, 408 pp. Reviewed by Sarah England, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis. Journal of Political Ecology: Case Studies in History and Society. VOLUME 8 (2001).
"Using Gramsci's notion of contradictory consciousness, de la Cadena points out that while this redefines Indianness as a social condition, rather than as an immutable, biological essence, the fact that the social conditions of Indianness are still associated with the bottom of the social hierarchy continues to leave room for racism to persist and be reproduced."
About two-thirds of the way down the file.- "If Anyone Called Me a Wog, They Wouldn't be Speaking to Me Alone": Protest Masculinity and Lebanese Youth in Western Sydney Schools." See particularly the section on Common Sense and Contradictory Consciousness about a third of the way down the file. Good use of case studies to illustrate contradictory consciousness.
- "Regionalism, Identity Formation, and Working-Class Activism in Revolutionary Monterrey" Michael Snodgrass, Department of History, Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis.