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Meanings and Typologies of Duboisian Double Consciousness Within 20Th Century United States Racial Dynamics Marc E

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Meanings and Typologies of Duboisian Double Consciousness Within 20Th Century United States Racial Dynamics Marc E University of Massachusetts Boston ScholarWorks at UMass Boston Graduate Masters Theses Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses 6-1-2012 Meanings and Typologies of Duboisian Double Consciousness within 20th Century United States Racial Dynamics Marc E. Black University of Massachusetts Boston Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/masters_theses Part of the African American Studies Commons, Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, and the Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons Recommended Citation Black, Marc E., "Meanings and Typologies of Duboisian Double Consciousness within 20th Century United States Racial Dynamics" (2012). Graduate Masters Theses. Paper 87. This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses at ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MEANINGS AND TYPOLOGIES OF DUBOISIAN DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN 20TH CENTURY UNITED STATES RACIAL DYNAMICS A Thesis Presented by MARC E. BLACK Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS June 2012 Applied Linguistics Department © 2012 by Marc E. Black All rights reserved MEANINGS AND TYPOLOGIES OF DUBOISIAN DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN 20TH CENTURY UNITED STATES RACIAL DYNAMICS A Thesis Presented by MARC E. BLACK Approved as to style and content by: ________________________________________________ Lilia Bartolome, Professor Chairperson of Committee ________________________________________________ Panagiota Gounari, Associate Professor Member ________________________________________________ Donaldo Macedo, Professor Member _________________________________________ Donaldo Macedo, Program Director Program in Applied Linguistics _________________________________________ Donaldo Macedo, Chairperson Applied Linguistics Department ABSTRACT MEANINGS AND TYPOLOGIES OF DUBOISIAN DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN 20TH CENTURY UNITED STATES RACIAL DYNAMICS June 2012 Marc E. Black, B.A. in African American Studies Oberlin College M.A., University of Massachusetts Boston Directed by Professor Lilia Bartolome Americans still have more work ahead before we can come together and laugh together as a race-conscious people. This thesis is about the sad and painful work we need to do so we can heal and rejoice as a truly free and equal partnership of all our various communities. To tie ourselves together through and after our healing of our racial conflicts, we will share a special intimacy, a human connection, where our shared culture, our partnership, (overlapping with our primary cultures) includes our high proficiency at understanding how we appear to each other. This new cultural understanding and partnership is explored in this thesis as the conception of, ―Multilateral double consciousness,‖ which is derived from W.E.B. DuBois‘ (1903) conception of African American double consciousness. In the first of three sections of iv this thesis, the Introduction and Literature Review explain and explore some general, historical and literary meanings of DuBoisian double consciousness as a political position of oppression. Second, the Methodology and Findings sections offer evidence of seven typologies of DuBoisian double consciousness within twenty six African American works of fiction and non-fiction. These examples of double consciousness reveal some degrees of personal harm caused by double consciousness. They demonstrate that the prevalence of the problem deserves far more attention, especially from academia, than it has received. Last, the third section of this thesis includes the Discussion and Conclusion. The Discussion extends the focus to consider how white Americans can learn to see themselves as white, and see their whiteness, from perspectives of people of color. That would situate double consciousness as a shared burden and a shared gift. All Americans would be equally situated to negotiate their identities and relations on fair and transparent terms. The Conclusion shows how race and colorblindness are hidden ideologies. It also shows how they can help reveal the meanings and functionings of hidden ideologies more generally. The Conclusion ties in DuBoisian double consciousness and Multilateral double consciousness to their brother-concepts of ideology in Marxian philosophy. v DEDICATIONS Lilia Bartolome Glenn Loury Ajume Wingo Calvin Hernton Akwazi Osei Pavlos Kouvaris vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATIONS ............................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................... xii CHAPTER Page 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 1 Definition of Race and its Link to Double Consciousness ...... 1 DuBoisian Double Consciousness ........................................... 3 2. RESEARCH QUESTION .............................................................. 7 3. AFRICAN AND AMERICAN CONTEXTS OF DUBOISIAN DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS .......……………………….. 8 4. DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT: RECONSTRUCTION, POST-RECONSTRUCTION AND THE WASHINGTON/DUBOIS/GARVEY DEBATE…….. 27 PART I. LITERATURE REVIEW CHAPTER Page 5. LITERATURE REVIEW ARTICLE ONE: WALTER RUCKER‘S, ―‗A NEGRO NATION WITHIN THE NATION‘: W.E.B. DU BOIS AND THE CREATION OF A REVOLUTIONARY PAN-AFRICANIST TRADITION, 1903-1947‖…………... 42 6. LITERATURE REVIEW ARTICLE TWO: DAVID KRASNER‘S ―PARODY AND DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE LANGUAGE OFEARLY BLACK MUSICAL THEATRE‖…. 54 7. LITERATURE REVIEW ARTICLE THREE: ROSEMARY HATHAWAY‘S ―THE SIGNIFYING (G) DETECTIVE: BARBARA NEELY‘S BLANCHE WHITE, UNDERCOVER IN PLAIN SIGHT‖`` ..............................……….…………… 60 vii CHAPTER Page 8. LITERATURE REVIEW ARTICLE FOUR: VERNON ANDREWS‘ ―SELF-REFLECTION AND THE REFLECTED SELF: AFRICAN AMERICAN DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SOCIAL (PSYCHOLOGICAL) MIRROR‖ ......................................... 67 Narrative One: ―White Like Me‖ ........................................... 73 Narrative Two: ―Social Lenses and Mirrors‖ ........................ 76 Narrative Three: ―Scotland, Kilts, and the Camera Man: Black to the USA‖ ........................................................... 82 Narrative Four: ―Black Pacifica: New Zealand and African American Bodies‖ ............................................................ 85 Narrative Five: ―Fat Bob‖ ...................................................... 87 Narrative Six: ―Whose Norms Are Watching You?‖ ............ 89 Narrative Seven: ―Situations and Contexts‖ .......................... 92 Discussion and Conclusion .................................................... 93 9. LITERATURE REVIEW ARTICLE FIVE: TODD SHAW‘S ―‗TWO WARRING IDEALS‘: DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS, DIALOGUE, AND AFRICAN AMERICAN PATRIOTISM POST-9/11‖BY TODD SHAW ............................................. 95 Invested and Iconoclastic Patriotism as Double Consciousness .................................................................. 96 Theoretical Framework .......................................................... 98 African American Dialogical Interactions ............................. 101 African American and White American Dialogical Interactions ....................................................................... 104 Multi-Racial Dialogical Interaction ....................................... 105 Conclusion and Hypothesis of Theoretical Framework......... 105 Research Sample .............................................................. 106 Findings and Discussion .................................................. 106 10. RECAPITULATION OF THE INTRODUCTION, THE LITERATURE REVIEW AND THE CONCEPT OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS .............................................. 112 11. WHITE SUPREMACY AND BLACK DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS: FROM KERNER TO BAKKE ........... 118 12. OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS ............................................................... 136 viii CHAPTER Page 13. LITERATURE REVIEW ARTICLE SIX: ERNEST ALLEN JR.‘S ―DU BOISIAN DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS: THE UNSUSTAINABLE ARGUMENT ....................................... 137 Misreadings of Double Consciousness .................................. 140 Double Consciousness: Literary and Medical Expressions ... 149 Alternative Source of Anguish: The Agony of Misrecognition ................................................................. 149 The Agony of the Divided Self: Three Arguments ................ 151 Warring Thoughts, Strivings, Ideals: How Defined? ............. 146 Examples of Double Consciousness ...................................... 159 A Tactical Choice in the Battle for Respect ........................... 168 Why Was the Concept Dropped? ........................................... 172 Double Consciousness: Mini-History of a Misconception .... 174 Was an Afro-American Double Consciousness Possible?..... 178 14. LITERATURE REVIEW CONCLUSION.................................. 182 PART II. METHODOLOGY 15. METHODOLOGY ...................................................................... 186 Bounding and Sampling ......................................................... 186 Data Coding and Display ....................................................... 189 Typologies of Double
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