Jeanne,
Hi, this is Chyra King and Tyshae Jefferson and we are
e-mailing you to explain to you 3 of the many things
that we learned this semester in your classes. We just
picked 3 topics that came up a lot in class and also
topics that really stood out to me and changed my way
of thinking.
What we take from Du Bois' double-consciousness is that we see ourselves one way and the world sees us another way. These two are in constant conflict with each other.
I wonder if there isn't more than just conflict. I wonder if there isn't a strangeness and awe that others see you so differently from the way you see yourself. I should think you'd have to keep reminding yourself of that.I am thinking particularly of the enormity of the pain of cluster headaches, which I had for most of my life. To this day I look strangely at others who seem not to feel any pain, and ask my husband tentatively, it doesn't hurt when you fly, does it? It's hard for me to realize the world looks and feels so different to others.
Next we learned about Fellman's paradigm shift from adversarialism to mutuality. The interpretation that we took from Fellman's paradigm shift was that we as a society need to stop only looking at out for helping one's self, but also to help one another. We are all so busy trying to take what we can get for ourselves, and disregarding the fact there are many others worse off than us. For example: Now we are sending food to the Afghans, but we can not feed the hungry here.
We also need to change how we talk about others, what we think about others, and how we treat others. We spend so much time and energy expressing negativity about others. This energy can be geared towards more positive things like loving each other, which seems so impossible these days since the terrorist attacks. People resembling those from the middle East are catching hell. They are experiencing hate crimes, and they can not fly on planes without being harassed.
I'm glad you see this, Chrya and Tyshae. You are right. We do need to look more to the other, for we are social creatures for whom interpersonal relationships matter. We wither and die without nurturing and loving. But at the same time, I don't want you to think of this as a simple matter, a simple need to correct our thinking on values. Balancing the tension between our own micro world of interpersonal relationships, and the many social configurations that impinge on that micro world at each of many levels as we expand to take in the whole macro world or some part of it, is an unending social dilemma. It's as though we are operating in many dimensions at once, and somehow must take into account all those dimensions.
Lastly, dominant discourse reflects the normative expectations that we have of each other as a social group. For example: With regards to the terrorism that occurred on September 11, a majority of the society wanted the United States to retaliate. Those expectations of Americans have become the dominant discourse.
Yes. So mush so, that crowds will shout down any speaker who expresses the fear that we are going too far with retaliation, with profiling, with the sacrifice of civil liberties.
Chyra King & Tyshae Jefferson