THE INVISIBILITY OF "SECOND SIGHT": DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND POPULAR CULTURE

ASHLIE DABBS

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

December 2011

Committee:

JOLIE SHEFFER, Advisor

KIMBERLY COATES

ii ABSTRACT

Jolie Sheffer, Advisor

In The Invisibility of “Second Sight”: Double Consciousness in American Literature and

Popular Culture I examine the metaphor, “second sight,” as a signifier of the concept of double consciousness, described in William Edward Burghardt Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk

(1903). I observe how the metaphor operates to express various perceptions of double consciousness as intrinsic to the African-American. As such, I provide a close reading of second sight in Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood (1902-3), noting the ways in which her portrayal of second sight as a biological inheritance transforms the metaphor from a signifier of double- consciousness to a signifier of blackness. I subsequently move eighty years beyond Du Bois and

Hopkins to scrutinize the depiction of second sight in Gene Rodenberry’s popular television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994). In doing so I illuminate the ways in which

Du Bois’s metaphor continued to be relevant in popular culture at the end of the twentieth century. I argue that the three texts depict second sight as a racialized knowledge and reveal a concurrence that race is corporeal and fixed. However, while Hopkins’s text asserts that the

African-American will, by way of race, inevitably develop “second sight,” Du Bois and

Rodenberry articulate that it is not race, but culture that leads to the successful development of such skills. In examining second sight as a racialized and coded signifier relevant beyond its inception, I open doors for the continued exploration of the signifier in the American literature and popular culture of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

iii

To my husband, Anthony Weygandt, whose unwavering confidence in my abilities never fails to

astonish. I thank you for your support. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the uninitiated, writing a thesis may appear to be a solitary undertaking. However, a thesis represents the culmination of years of study, and as such, requires a supporting team.

Consequently, I am indebted to many people. I am most especially grateful to my advisors, Dr.

Jolie Sheffer and Dr. Kimberly Coates, whose guidance spurred my beleaguered brain onward when I thought it could chug no more. v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION...... 1

1.1 Defining Second Sight ...... 11

CHAPTER I. SECOND SIGHT IN PAULINE HOPKINS’S OF ONE BLOOD ...... 23

CHAPTER II. SECOND SIGHT IN STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION ...... 38

CHAPTER III. CONCLUSIONS ...... 52

WORKS CITED...... 55

Dabbs 1

INTRODUCTION

“After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, 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 in the revelation

of the other world.”

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (2-3)

It is by correlating blackness to a “problem” that William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, writer, editor, and political activist, begins his highly influential text, The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903. Following a quote from the song “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” Du

Bois asks “How does it feel to be a problem?” (1), a question he attempts to answer throughout the duration of his text as he promotes a new understanding of race that sees blackness as being an advantage, rather than a hindrance. His main concern, shared by his contemporary, Pauline

Hopkins, writer of Of One Blood, published serially in 1902 to 1903 in The Colored American

Magazine, was to problematize the seemingly “naturalized” concept of race, i.e., that being raced, or non-white, was indeed a problem. However, while the “Negro Problem” was the motivating factor behind Du Bois’ attempts to establish a new understanding of race as a concept, today’s cultural critics seek to examine the ways in which race influences our social, historical, and political discourses. As Michael Omi and Howard Winant explain, “our central work is to focus attention on the continuing significance and changing meaning of race” (200 original italics), as opposed to challenging a normative concept of race.

It is my intention to examine a specific concept first introduced by Du Bois in his groundbreaking work The Souls of Black Folk, which asserts that African-Americans are privy to Dabbs 2

a mode of seeing, known as “second sight” (3). I concern myself with this particular notion

because it has remained a common thread between the racial discourse of the early and late twentieth century, from Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood (1903), to the popular television show,

Star Trek; the Next Generation (1986-1994). In examining “second sight,” I hope to illuminate

the ways in which it has been adapted and re-adapted to reflect and inform the perception of

blackness in the U.S. cultural imaginary.

For instance, Du Bois’s usage of the metaphor asserts that only blacks have the ability of

second sight, and Hopkins uses second sight to promote the idea that blacks are biologically

inclined towards the ability. Additionally, Star Trek; The Next Generation (STNG) also depicts

second sight as a black privilege, however, the show articulates that while second sight is a

benefit, it is gained through the negative circumstance of being black—that something desirable

manages to come from something undesirable. Both Du Bois’s and Hopkins’s articulation of

second sight demonstrate a belief that blacks are somehow fundamentally different from whites

and other races—that race is tangible, concrete, and physical This is a drastic difference from

more modern ideas of the late twentieth century that insist upon the notion that race is a social

construction.

The concept of second sight laid the groundwork for more contemporary arguments that

being different strengthens marginal people because they have had to struggle constantly. For

instance, according to Du Bois, the African-American is strong because they are constantly

“striving” and working hard to merge their two identities (Du Bois 3). As Du Bois notes, “The

black man’s turning hither and thither in . . . doubtful striving has often made his very strength to

lose effectiveness, to seem like . . . weakness. And yet it is not weakness,—it is the contradiction

of double aims” (3). Rather than becoming weak, the African-American becomes strong, and that Dabbs 3

strength alone is what keeps the African-American from being “torn asunder” (3). This argument implies that being positioned in the margins makes one tough and it appears time and again in contemporary critical works such as bell hooks’s “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical

Openness,” and provides a basis for many works that argue in favor of celebrating racial, sexual, and cultural difference.

In fact, bell hooks’s essay, published in 1989, is by and large a discourse promoting Du

Bois’s concept of second sight. The essay exudes Du Boisian concepts of privileged marginality.

Not only does hooks remark that she chooses a space of marginality, she notes that this space in

the margins is a place from where she “see[s] things differently” (158), explaining that her notion

of marginality “comes from lived experience” (157), that it is gained through “struggle” (159),

and she racializes her message by claiming a collective “We” in her implied audience of “Black

Folks” (155). Much of the essay is thus an explanation of how her location in the margins and

her choosing to re-appropriate the margin as a positive, rather than negative space, allows her a

different way of seeing and articulating the world, a message sharing many similarities with Du

Bois’s original conceptions of the benefit(s) of being black, thus demonstrating the extent to

which the positive aspects of his ideology have been appropriated. However, as Uma Narayan

warns, “the thesis that oppression may bestow an epistemic advantage should not tempt us in the

directions of idealizing or romanticizing oppression and blind us to its real material and psychic

deprivations” (340), meaning that contemporary reconstructions of Du Bois’s ideas should not

forget that second sight, though beneficial, comes from the very unromantic circumstances of

struggle and oppression.

And indeed, Du Bois’s does acknowledge that second sight can also be a painful burden

in addition to an advantage. As Du Bois notes: Dabbs 4

It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s

self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks

on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American a Negro; two

souls, . . . two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from

being torn asunder. (3)

According to this passage, the African-American, who possess double-consciousness, and thus has second sight, has to have the ability to look “at one’s self” through the eyes of a (white) society that “looks on in amused contempt and pity” (3). To be able to see one’s self through a vision that holds contempt and pity and to always feel a “warring” bifurcation is painful, as Du

Bois indicates with the comment that the African-American might be “torn asunder” by the constant clashing of the two identities (3). Hence this sight can be a gift, but also quite painful because it can never be turned off—“one ever feels his twoness” (3).

Du Bois’s articulation of double consciousness, or of one’s “twoness” (3), was a new and radical idea because the African-American, prior to emancipation had only one consciousness:

Slave. The status of a Negro was always relevant to an identity as a slave—either freed, runaway, or currently enslaved. However, in July 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment became law and the Negro became a citizen—an American. Suddenly, there were indeed two consciousnesses to navigate as well as the awareness that both identities were constantly clashing. Less than thirty years after blacks became American citizens, these identities clashed again in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a separate but equal doctrine that declared blacks politically equal but socially inferior to whites; this decision legally justified the public segregation of blacks from whites, despite the fact that the defendant, Plessy, was racially mixed and able to pass as white. The ruling against Plessy revealed the belief that Dabbs 5 not even a black man who looked wholly white was equal to the white American, demonstrating the belief that blackness was something essentially inferior, beyond color and other physical features, and that the African-American would continue to feel a “twoness”—never quite

American because of this intrinsic, inferior blackness (Du Bois 3). In the midst of a racial climate determined to see blackness as inherently inferior, Du Bois and his radical contemporary,

Pauline Hopkins, worked to establish a new way of seeing blackness, as gifted and inherently privileged rather than as a handicap. Herein lays the significance of Du Bois’s claiming second sight as a gift owned by the Negro alone.

This insistence of second sight as the sole privilege of blacks is more hazardous in contemporary culture, as there are now a greater range of social identities than in the early twentieth century. As Tonya Bolden remarks:

[T]here are and always have been blacks who recognized that ‘American’ was typically

associated with whiteness, but who simply rejected that notion and considered themselves

black and American, needing no affirmation from whites, suffering no two-ness, never

living split-souled lives nor feeling on the verge of being torn asunder. (69)

However, Bolden’s observation is in danger of being viewed as an exception to the rule, rather than as a significant point of divergence. In short, the danger in late twentieth century applications of Du Bois’s concept of second sight is that the politically fueled strategy threatens to become naturalized as a truth. This is problematic for, as Narayan observes, “Mere access to two different and incompatible contexts is not a guarantee that a critical stance on the part of the individual will result” (339), meaning that simply being black in America is not enough to guarantee that an individual will have second sight. Dabbs 6

Yet, in his text, Du Bois does not seem to allow for this limitation. Instead he makes the

claim that “The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil and gifted with second sight” (3

emphasis added). His usage of the present tense implies that this state of being, this condition,

remains unalterable—no exceptions. Indeed, that Du Bois asserts that blacks are “born” with a

veil reveals a belief that blacks are somehow fundamentally and inherently different from other

races, which (presumably) are not born with this veil. Hopkins reaffirms this claim in her

fictional representation, making, as Patricia Hill Collins notes when discussing black feminism,

“the biological category of Blackness the prerequisite for possessing such thought” (341). The

result is a reaffirmation of the belief that blackness is inherently and fundamentally different

from whiteness. Conversely, STNG’s articulation of second sight does not support a reading that

the races are fundamentally different. However, the reflection of second sight in the STNG

character, Geordi La Forge, represents a concurrence with the idea that second sight is indeed, a

black privilege.

Du Bois’s concept of second sight has managed to pervade race theory to the extent that

it has influenced not only other black contemporaries of his day, such as Pauline Hopkins, but

has even made an impression on white American culture, as indicated by the depiction of second

sight in STNG. In both Hopkins’s work and STNG, second sight is indicative of blackness, and in

STNG it manages to race an otherwise non-raced character. Not only does the STNG character,

Geordi La Forge, reflect the subsumption of Du Bois’s concept of blackness into white constructions of blackness, he represents the subsumption of the concept in the larger American collective consciousness of the 1980s.

The popular culture of the 1980s saw a turn towards the shepherding in of multiculturalism, often closely followed by the rhetoric of color-blindness. I define Dabbs 7

multiculturalism as a celebration of diversity and the acceptance, nay, encouragement, of the

representation and inclusion of many different cultural backgrounds in the American imaginary.

Likewise, the rhetoric of color-blindness, in contrast to the rhetoric on race characterizing the

early twentieth century, which sought to highlight race as a biological state of being, supports the

idea that race is an illusion, encouraging society to overlook an individual’s race.

The eighties thus mark some significant milestones in black popular culture in terms of

the acceptance of such in (white) mainstream American culture. For instance, 1984 saw the birth

of The Cosby Show, one of the most highly successful television series in America, as well as the crowning of Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America. That same year, in music, Run-

DMC was the first rap group whose album went gold. Subsequently, “We Are the World,” a

song whose title identifies its themes of equality and acceptance, was composed and recorded in

1985 to promote aid for Africa. Likewise, in 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show, “the highest-rated talk show in television history” (Rose), went national.

Also in 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was celebrated for the first time as a national holiday. Moreover, Coretta Scott King described Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday honoring “the leader who not only dreamed of a color-blind society, but who also lead a movement that achieved historic reforms to help make it a reality,” once again reinforcing the rhetoric of “color-blindness” (King). The holiday then, is in part a day to honor not only Martin

Luther king Jr., but his message of peace and his dreams of a color-blind society. Clearly, the eighties represent a move towards the acceptance and the embracing of racial and cultural diversity in American popular culture.

Yet, in the midst of this new celebration of diversity in mainstream popular culture, there remained problems in discourse concerning race. Namely, the eighties marks moments in Dabbs 8

popular culture that manage to celebrate diversity while simultaneously promoting a color-blind

rhetoric that ultimately encouraged cultural assimilation—the very thing Du Bois and his

contemporary, Pauline Hopkins, were fighting against. As a “race” man and woman, Du Bois

and Hopkins worked to highlight race and racial difference in order to promote the benefits of

being different in an attempt to combat the more popular rhetoric of their contemporaries, such

as Booker T. Washington who argued that blacks should assimilate. However, much popular

culture of the eighties, such as STNG, promotes the idea that we are ultimately the same, and that differences in gender and skin color are insignificant, which is hardly a celebration of difference.

A primary example of the confusing juxtaposition of racial diversity with cultural assimilation that marks the 1980s is The Cosby Show. A series popular with blacks and whites, the show has been criticized just as often as it has been praised, primarily for its lack of discussion on race and race relations. As Mike Budd and Clay Steinman note in their essay

“White Racism and ‘The Cosby Show’”:

The success of THE COSBY SHOW with mass audiences of whites in the United States

. . . seems to have been dependent upon its refusal to include racism among its

representations. Accordingly, to whatever extent the program constituted a gain in the

control . . . African American[s] had over black images on television, it remained bound

by the racism its backers feared in its potential audience and by a commercial system

governed by such fears. (5)

To be precise, The Cosby Show’s success was partly dependent upon its unwillingness to delve into issues of race. A product of the racial discourse of its decade, the show was effectively color blind in that no discourse was included on race despite the show’s predominantly black cast.

With father and mother being a doctor and lawyer, respectively, the show remained focused on Dabbs 9

the family’s cultural lifestyle. In the end, the series presented a fantasy of black life in America

that hardly shared any characteristics with reality. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. notes in his 1989

article for The New York Times, “‘Cosby’ exposes more white Americans than ever before to the

most nobly idealized blacks in the history of entertainment, yet social and economic conditions

for the average black American have not been bleaker in a very long time” (4). Thus, in focusing

on the family’s cultural values and in refusing to focus on the family’s race, The Cosby show disregarded the ways in which race can often impact culture, dealing with culture and race as two completely separate considerations. Yet, despite all, the series still managed to showcase the decade’s encouragement of racial diversity in that the series presented a predominantly black cast in an era of television that still featured predominantly white casts. Nevertheless, the show can hardly be considered multicultural as the only culture displayed was that of the (white)

European culture that is so engrained in the American imaginary. Hence, in its desire to showcase the family’s cultural assimilation, and thereby promote a positive depiction of black life in America, the series attempted to be color-blind, and separated color from culture, subsequently losing touch with reality.

In the midst of this rhetoric of color-blindness, the famed series, Star Trek: The Next

Generation (STNG), created in 1987, was born. As Terry L. Shepherd, writer of “Infinite

Diversity in Infinite Combinations” notes, “throughout its numerous incantations, a focal point of the Star Trek universe has been the acceptance and tolerance of those who are different” (4). To be specific, always featuring a racially diverse crew, the Star Trek franchise has long demonstrated a message of acceptance toward racial difference. This tolerance of difference in

STNG can be seen in the message of equality from the series’ main character, Captain Picard:

“We are born, we grow, we live, and we die. In all the ways that matter, we are alike!” (qtd. in Dabbs 10

Shepherd 14). However, while the Star Trek franchise is celebrated as promoting tolerance, the

franchise has also been known to depict race and racial identity in ways that are problematic.

Allen Kwan, writer of “Seeking New Civilizations: Race Normativity in the Star Trek

Franchise” perhaps best describes Star Trek’s problematic discourse on race. Kwan writes:

As with many science fiction works, the Star Trek franchise uses allegory to address

contemporary social issues. Taking a liberal humanistic stance, it addresses race and

racism using aliens as allegorical stand-ins for humanity. However, the producers of the

Star Trek franchise were inadvertently perpetuating the racism they were advocating

against. Operating within the framework of normative Whiteness, the producers privilege

the White American male as the average human being. The characters of other racial and

cultural backgrounds try to assimilate into the normative Whiteness defined by the

producers or they are simply in the background to support the White lead characters. (59)

As Kwan identifies, one of the major problems with Star Trek’s depictions of race is that despite the inclusion of various minorities in important positions of power, ‘Whiteness’ is still privileged as normative. Star Trek, as a fantasy of a colorblind future, cannot escape the dominant

American cultural conception of race which informs it; the series is still the product of white males, and of Gene Rodenberry, to be specific, whose understanding of race is informed by the larger American cultural consciousness which sees white as standard. Consequently all other races are seen as being deviant from the norm. In particular, as I later demonstrate, the character of Geordi La Forge, from STNG, is problematic in that his “Visual Input Sensory Optical

Reflector” (Shepherd 5), or his “VISOR,” is a depiction of second sight that privileges the ability as black, yet maintains that it is a superior ability adapted through an unchangeable inferiority demonstrating that, while Du Bois’s assertion that blacks have second sight has been absorbed Dabbs 11

into the racial discourse of the late twentieth century, the underlying racial hierarchies that

informed perceptions of blackness remained largely unchanged.

To this end, it is my assertion that Du Bois’ privileged ability of “second sight,” stands as

an example of racialized knowledge, one that continues to be perpetuated as the benefit of being

non-normative. My usage of the term “racialized knowledge” refers to a learned worldview,

perspective, and/or ability that has been deemed the exclusive privilege of a specific race, solely

by circumstance of being a member of that race. As such, it is my claim that Du Bois’ The Souls

of Black Folk, Pauline Hopkins’ Of One Blood, and the popular television series Star Trek: The

Next Generation (STNG) all depict second sight as a racialized knowledge and this depiction reflects the underlying conceptions of race characterizing their specific socio-historical moments.

Through usage of second sight, Du Bois and Hopkins assert that the races are fundamentally different and that these differences are significant, unchangeable, and desirable, while STNG asserts that the varied races are mostly alike, and that the differences are insignificant. The main point is that no matter how the second sight is depicted, as positive or negative, significant or insignificant, the significance of Du Bois’s metaphor of second sight lies in its operation as a vehicle through which Du Bois, Hopkins, and STNG articulate their perception of the African-

American experience.

1.1 Defining Second Sight

The concept of second sight is originally attributed to the Scottish Highlands as an ability to see future occurrences. In the Highlands, second sight was a widely believed folk tradition and appeared in much Scottish folklore. The phenomenon caught the attention of scientist and philosopher Robert Boyle who began investigating after hearing tales from his friend on Dabbs 12 incidents of second-sight in the Highlands during the Interregnum (1649-60), (Hunter 48).

Michael Hunter tracks the study and investigation of second sight, noting that famous figures,

Samuel Pepys, John Aubrey, Robert Kirk, Martin Martin, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell all studied second sight. Second sight was thus a popular subject of study in the late seventeenth century, garnering much attention and debate between many well known philosophers and scientists of the time. Additionally, as Thomas Jemielity, writer of the essay “Samuel Johnson, the Second Sight, and His Sources” notes, “This faculty [second sight], Martin insists, is neither hereditary nor communicable” (417). Moreover, seventeenth century scholar Robert Kirk quite firmly believed that those who had second sight must have had contact with fairies (Hunter 51).

Additionally, Samuel Johnson defines second sight as “an impression either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future are perceived and seen as if they were present” (qtd. in Jemielity 405). Likewise, Martin Martin, writer of

“Account of the Second Sight” in The Description of the Western Islands of Scotland published in 1703, defines second sight as “a singular Faculty of Seeing, an otherwise invisible Object, without any previous Means us’d [sic] by the Person that sees it for that end;”(qtd. in Jemielity

417). Both of these definitions characterize second sight as an ability which allows the seer to unexpectedly see “the future” through visions, as Hopkins’s characters, Reuel, Dianthe, Aubrey, and Mira are able to do.

Such definitions of second sight mark the popular understanding of the concept and are those most often invoked when the ability appears in literature. The entry for second sight in The

Encyclopedia Britannica notes:

Perhaps our earliest notice of symbolical second sight is found in the Odyssey, where

Theoclymenus sees a shroud of mist about the bodies of the doomed Wooers, and drops of Dabbs 13

blood distilling from the walls of the hall of Odysseus. The Pythia at Delphi saw the blood

on the walls during the Persian War; and, in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, blood

and fire appear to Circe in her chamber on the night before the arrival of the fratricidal

Jason and Medea. Similar examples of symbolical visions occur in the Icelandic sagas,

especially in Njala, before the burning of Njal and his family. (“Second Sight” 570)

All of the literary examples of second sight as outlined by The Encyclopedia Britannica depict

second sight as an ability that affords visions of the future, and such depictions of second sight

apparently hearken all the way back to Greek tragedies and epic poems. In fact, the Greek tale,

Ethiopica, written in the fourth century A.D., contains a “seer” named Calasiris, demonstrating

that the concept of second sight is nothing new, especially in literature (Harris 377). In the past,

second sight was more synonymous with the concept of clairvoyance and had little or nothing to do with race prior to Du Bois’s usage of the term.

However, Du Bois, Hopkins, and STNG racialize second sight as an ability specific to

African-Americans. Their usage of second sight differs in that Du Bois uses the term as a

metaphor for having a particular worldview, whereas Hopkins and STNG use second sight as

literal abilities as well as metaphorically. Likewise, Du Bois and Hopkins’s racializing of second

sight demonstrates their political strategies in a time period in which the Negro was a part of the

“problem,” whereas STNG’s racializing of second sight reflects the influence of Du Bois.

However, to clarify these claims, it is necessary to first examine Du Bois’s discourse.

According to Du Bois, double consciousness is the awareness that one is, “an American, a Negro: two souls, two thoughts . . . two warring ideals in one dark body” (3), and occurs as the result of being both black (a “Negro” in early twentieth century parlance) and an American. That the two identities are rendered incompatible, indeed “warring,” reveals a hostile relationship Dabbs 14

between blackness and what was perceived as being “American” in the early twentieth century.

Du Bois thus reflects the belief of the early twentieth century that to be American was

necessarily to be white, a belief that remains constant today as every non-white American still

suffers a hyphenated American status, as African-American, as Asian-American, and so on. This hyphenated existence is the breeding ground for double consciousness. It should be noted, however, that while such hyphenated terminology was not yet in use in the early twentieth century the analogy still applies, as the line between Negro and American was as salient as any hyphen.

Essentially, there are two signifiers of double consciousness in Du Bois’s text: “second sight” and the “veil” (3). The metaphor of “second sight” implies a duality of sight—an

American vision and a Negro vision. The metaphor does not necessarily imply a hierarchy of vision, in that it does not seem to privilege one type of vision over the other; rather, both sets of vision exist simultaneously. However, while second sight signifies double consciousness, the two terms are not synonymous. To clarify, I return to my earlier analogy: double consciousness is the constant awareness of the hyphen, while second sight is the “vision” created by that hyphen, in that one vision is of the racial side of the line and the other is the American side. The phenomenon of having both sets of “vision” is what is referred to as “second sight.” Second sight is thus the result of experiencing double consciousness.

Likewise, the equally important metaphor of the veil also operates as a signifier of double consciousness. Taken literally, a veil is a translucent material through which one can see, but which also shades one’s view. Although one can see through the veil, one is forever conscious of its presence darkening the view. This, in and of itself, creates a literal second sight. Namely, when wearing a veil, one quite naturally has dual sight—of everything in front of and up to the Dabbs 15

veil, including the veil itself, and of everything through (and thus beyond) the veil. According to

Du Bois, the African-American is “born” with this veil, and to be born with a veil means that

every African-American has this potential for second sight (3). Based upon this precise diction, it

follows, then, that the African-American is, somehow, inherently different from the white

American because blacks are born with the veil as opposed to whites who do not have this veil.

Indeed, according to Du Bois, even his son was born with the veil. For example, following the death of his son, Du Bois celebrates the fact that his son will never understand that he was born with a veil. He notes:

All that day and all that night there sat an awful gladness in my heart, -- nay, blame me not

if I see the world thus darkly through the Veil, -- and my soul whispers ever to me saying,

‘Not dead, not dead, but escaped; not bond, but free.’ No bitter meanness now shall sicken

his baby heart . . . Fool that I was to think or wish that this little soul should grow choked

and deformed within the Veil! (150)

This lamentation of life with the veil is littered with bitterness at such an existence. According to

Du Bois, who saw the world “darkly through the Veil” living with the veil is oppressive and, at times, imprisoning (150). Additionally, since the veil leads to second sight, and since second sight is not possible without the veil, the two terms can operate synonymously, and the veil is thus, also a signifier of double consciousness.

While both metaphors resonate at the end of the twentieth century, as demonstrated in

STNG with La Forge whose VISOR both works as a veil and gives him second sight, I primarily focus my attention on the metaphor of second sight. This is because, as of late, the term “veil” has connotations concerning the Middle East, and while an investigation of such a weighted Dabbs 16

metaphor is encouraged, it remains, understandably, beyond the scope of this essay. As such, I focus my attention on the less dense metaphor of second sight.

Du Bois’s usage of the term “second sight” redefines it as a worldview racialized as being the sole privilege of blacks in America. His “second sight” operates as a metaphor for a particular worldview, as well as a political stratagem designed to combat the segregationist ideology of the twentieth century. Like many black leaders of the time, Du Bois chose literature to further advance his politics. Du Bois explains, “These are my plans: . . . to make a name in literature and thus to raise my race” (qtd. in Bolden 49). Likewise, Hopkins notes, “Fiction is of great value to any people as a preserver of manners and customs—religious, political, and social”

(qtd. in McDowell vii). Thus, both Du Bois, and Hopkins, who was clearly influenced by Du

Bois’ concepts of double consciousness and second sight as demonstrated by her final novel, Of

One Blood, had very specific agendas to attend to when they wrote their respective texts.

Both Hopkins and Du Bois were working against the political rhetoric of Booker T.

Washington who, many felt, too often preached assimilation and understanding of the injustice done to African-Americans rather than fighting against it. Hopkins, who worked as The Colored

American Magazine’s literary editor from 1903 to 1904, was unable to continue there after

Booker T. Washington, whom she had openly criticized, began financing the publication

(McDowell vii). Similarly, Du Bois also quite openly criticized Washington, noting:

But so far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, North and South, does not rightly

value the privilege and duty of voting, belittles the emasculating effects of caste

distinctions, and opposes the higher training and education of our brighter minds -- so far

as he, the South or the Nation does this -- we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them.

(42) Dabbs 17

Thus, The Souls of Black Folk was quite obviously politically fueled, suggesting that much of the

text represents a political stratagem designed to influence the black community. Hence, both Du

Bois and Hopkins attempted to work against Washington’s assimilation politics and agitate the black community and their efforts are quite apparent in their usage of second sight, as well as in their racializing of the ability throughout their respective texts.

Du Bois’s process of redefining second sight as a particularly racialized worldview and his wielding of it as a political strategy is apparent in his work. He names second-sight a “gift,” a technique that reveals his attempt to use literature in order to create a new method of seeing the

Negro (3). Du Bois, as a “race man,” i.e., someone who wished to highlight race (as opposed to downplaying difference in order to assimilate) and the benefits of racial difference, uses the metaphor of second sight to put forth a way in which the Negro is blessed. This is in direct opposition to the early twentieth century’s “all pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black” (Du Bois qtd. in Japtok 409). Du Bois’s agenda then, was to change the ways in which African-Americans were perceived, not only by whites, but by blacks as well. Hence, his essay speaks of a “gift,” of second sight, terminology that has positive connotations—there’s no such thing as a “gift” being an unfortunate or negative circumstance (Du Bois 3). By couching second sight in positive terminology the moment it is mentioned, he sets the stage for a message that will be used time and again—that there is a benefit to being different. He then racializes this gift as knowledge that is the exclusive benefit of the African-American, creating a message radical even to blacks of the time.

In order to define second sight as a type of privileged knowledge, Du Bois uses positive connotations and terminology in order to first depict knowledge as beneficial. To do so, he relies Dabbs 18 on biblical references and religious language to suggest that such knowledge brings one closer to

God. Du Bois writes:

Slowly but steadily, in the following years, a new vision began gradually to replace the

dream of political power . . . It was the ideal of “book-learning”; the curiosity, born of

compulsory ignorance, to know and test the power of the cabalistic letters of the white

man, the longing to know. Here at last seemed to have been discovered the mountain path

to Canaan; longer than the highway of Emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but

straight, leading to heights high enough to overlook life. (5-6)

The land of Canaan is a biblical reference, as the land of Canaan was a gift from God—a promised land. As noted in volume two of The Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament,

“Yahweh [Hebrew for “God”] promises Abraham or his descendants the gift of the land of

Canaan” (262). Here, Du Bois equates knowledge or “book-learning” as the means with which to reach the land given by God. In this case, Canaan represents a land of equality in which the

African-American is equal to the “white man.” Hence, according to Du Bois, with blacks having acquired knowledge, the land of social and political equality was within sight. This reveals a privileging of knowledge as a means of ascension and elevation, not only of social status but of spiritual status, for Du Bois declares, “The training of the schools we need to-day more than ever,— [is] the training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and above all the broader, deeper, higher culture of gifted minds and pure hearts” (8), equating a gifted mind with innocence and purity. To be pure of heart and soul is generally considered to be somehow closer to divinity.

Considering that the minds African-Americans are already “gifted” with second sight, it follows, by Du Bois’ reckoning, that they are already purer in heart as well, and thus closer to the divine. Dabbs 19

Therefore, as Du Bois uses religious language to privilege knowledge as bringing one closer to

God, second sight, as a type of knowledge, is also privileged.

After privileging knowledge as divine, Du Bois further notes that knowledge gained through education, i.e., learning, leads to knowledge of the self and of self identity, or double consciousness. Du Bois writes:

It [the metaphorical journey to the Canaan] changed the child of Emancipation to the youth

with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-respect. In those sombre forests of

his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself,—darkly as through a veil;

and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission. . . . For the

first time he sought to analyze the burden he bore upon his back, that dead- weight of

social degradation partially masked behind a half-named Negro problem. (6)

Here, Du Bois equates “book-learning” to a new kind of knowledge—a knowledge of the self

and of a self identity that is necessarily racialized. To be specific, he first writes that blacks had a

“new vision,” that of “book-learning,” i.e., education. However, according to Du Bois, as

education is gained, so is knowledge of the self; of “self-consciousness, self-realization, [and]

self respect” (6). This self consciousness, along with consciousness of the “burden he [the black

man] bore” is double consciousness (6). Du Bois then further equates this knowledge of the self

with vision, claiming that the African-American “saw” himself as a result of this new

consciousness (6). Here enters the significance of the metaphor of second sight as a racialized

knowledge.

Du Bois uses the imagery of vision to describe the result of having a particular

knowledge, that being knowledge of one’s self identity, i.e., experiencing double consciousness.

Double consciousness is thus a “situated knowledge” (Haraway 370), a knowledge born of a Dabbs 20

particular positioning or locus. Hence, the “gift” of second sight is actually a learned knowledge,

but it can only be learned by those who are born with a veil. Consequently, while every black

person is “born” with this veil, and while every black person thus has the potential to use the gift

of second sight, the actual recognition and use of the ability is learned (Du Bois 3). As such, Du

Bois’s second sight is a “racialized” knowledge because it is knowledge that is the exclusive

property of the black race.

To clarify, Du Bois’s articulation of the concept of double consciousness reveals a belief

that blacks are somehow fundamentally and inherently different from whites, because, unlike

whites, every black person is “born” with a veil and thus born with the potential for second sight

(3). This supports an understanding of race that sees race as fixed and corporeal. However, Du

Bois articulation asserts that the recognition and use of second sight is still the result of the

cultural experience of being black in America. To be specific, African-Americans wield second

sight as the result of experiencing the internal bifurcation necessitated by the American cultural

politics that equated white with American, seeing a black identity as incompatible with an

American identity. Hence, while all blacks are fundamentally different from whites, because they

are all born with the veil—born different—second sight is still the sole gift and property of the

African-American because only they, through their experience with double-consciousness,

recognize the ability in themselves and have learned to use it. Second sight was thus privileged as a “gift” because it allows the African-American to see in himself “some faint revelation of his power” as it is a worldview that cannot be accessed by those who do not dwell behind the veil

(Du Bois 6). Namely, having second sight can be an advantage over those who do not have it. Du

Bois, who famously noted, “all art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists . . . I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda,” recognizes the Dabbs 21 power in being conscious of the operations of power (“Criteria”). As such, he articulates second sight as an ideology to counterbalance white dominance. Therefore, as the gift of second sight is still racialized as the property of blacks in America, Du Bois’s second sight is still a signifier for double-consciousness in the African-American, despite the underlying message that all blacks, everywhere, are inherently different from whites.

Du Bois articulation and redefining of second sight as a racialized knowledge represents a political stratagem, crafted through literature. The political impetus behind the metaphor—the rhetoric of assimilation from Washington and others, the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson, and an overall theory of race that saw blackness as inherently inferior—gives ground to the otherwise ahistorical claim that blacks possess second sight. A tool of propaganda created to raise self-esteem among blacks and to combat an ideology that saw white as right, Du

Bois’s metaphor of second sight was racialized, and privileged as the benefit of the African-

American. Thus, Du Bois’s second sight works primarily as a signifier of double-consciousness, an ability crafted from the duality experienced by one who is both black and American.

However, while Du Bois articulates that second sight is the sole privilege of the African-

American, resulting from “twoness,” Du Bois’s contemporary, Pauline Hopkins, following the same political impetus, appropriated the metaphor to be a power born, not from duality, but from blackness itself—not African-American, but African (Du Bois 6). She redefines second sight as a biological trait found exclusively in black blood, from African ancestry trickled down into

African-Americans, demonstrating a belief that black blood itself is privileged. Her usage of the ability operates as a signifier, not only of double consciousness, but as a signifier of blackness itself and her usage of mixed-blood characters possessing this trait declares that blacks are, if not superior, then at least equal to whites. Dabbs 22

This usage of second sight to signify blackness appears in STNG as well, as the ability manages to race the otherwise non-raced Geordi La Forge, becoming indicative of his blackness.

However, STNG demonstrates a belief that while blacks are privy to second sight, and while the ability is beneficial, it is adapted out of a clear inferiority, and the ability, while admirable, is not desirable. The following chapter will delve into Hopkins’s novel, Of One Blood, in order to examine the ways in which her usage of second sight transforms the signifier. The second chapter will then examine the STNG character, Geordi La Forge, and the ways in which he operates as a contemporary example of Du Bois’ concepts, demonstrating the nearly naturalized state Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness managed to achieve by the end of the twentieth century despite a changing racial discourse that views race as a social construction.

Dabbs 23

CHAPTER I. SECOND SIGHT IN PAULINE HOPKINS’S OF ONE BLOOD

Like Du Bois, Pauline Hopkins did not wish to abandon race thinking altogether. As

Deborah E. McDowell notes, “As a devotee of W. E. B. Du Bois, Hopkins was rather more inclined to devise a usable conception of race” and Hopkins was thus determined to use a new conception of race to uplift the black community, hence her careful reiteration and appropriation of Du Bois’ concepts, with the end goal of such an appropriation being to heal a “damaged collective African-American consciousness” (xv). As such, Hopkins believed it to be her duty to expose the history of the black race, a history that was largely ignored by early twentieth-century

(white) American society, asserting “We must ourselves develop the men and women who will faithfully portray the inmost thought and feelings of the Negro with all the fire and romance which lie dormant in our history, and as yet unrecognized by writers of the Anglo-Saxon Race”

(qtd. in McDowell viii, emphasis in text).

Accordingly, the novel, Of One Blood, published serially in The Colored American

Magazine from 1902-1903, features Reuel, a university student who consciously passes as white and who has the gift of second sight. On the heels of a vision in which she appears, Reuel meets and marries Dianthe Lusk, a mulatta who has amnesia. Reuel allows Dianthe to believe she is white, while Reuel’s white friend, Aubrey Livingston, aware of Dianthe’s racial status, has fallen in love with her. Betrothed to a rich woman named Molly Vance, Aubrey encourages Reuel to go to an expedition to Africa, and then kills Molly, marries Dianthe, and plots to murder Reuel.

Through spiritual visits from Reuel’s deceased mother, a slave named Mira, both Dianthe and

Reuel come to learn of Aubrey’s treachery. Through various avenues they also discover that they, along with Aubrey, are in fact siblings. That is, Hannah, their grandmother, as a slave, was forced to sleep with the first Mr. Livingston and gave birth to Mira. The slave, Mira, was then Dabbs 24

forced to sleep with her half-brother and master, Dr. Aubrey Livingston, son of Mr. Livingston

and his wife. Mira’s union with her brother produced first Reuel, then Dianthe, and finally

Aubrey. Hannah then secretly replaced the still-born Livingston heir with her grandson, Aubrey, and he was thus raised as the true heir, never knowing his mixed-race status. Upon receiving these revelations, Dianthe, finding herself to be an incestuous bigamist through Aubrey’s machinations, attempts to poison Aubrey, only to be poisoned in turn. Thus, Reuel, who has recently discovered that he is a prince in the (fictional) African city of Telassar, returns to

America once more to seek revenge on Aubrey before ultimately remaining in Africa to continue his rule.

Of One Blood’s plot thus transgresses social boundaries with its mixed-blood characters who both consciously and unconsciously pass as white. Moreover, in addition to crossing social boundaries, the text, beginning as a work in social realism, transgresses genre boundaries as well.

Consequently, Of One Blood is an audacious novel, “intermingling traditions such as historical romance, realism, allegory, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery” (Horvitz qtd. in Japtok 403).

As the novel is one that “trafficked in fantasy and the paranormal,” Hopkins’s usage of second sight differs from Du Bois’ articulation of the metaphor (McDowell xx). Namely, second sight is used as a physical trait carried through black blood, from African ancestry to African-

Americans, becoming a literary device signifying blackness rather than remaining an abstract metaphor. From Du Bois, Hopkins takes the notion of a privileged and racialized knowledge and expands upon the idea to move beyond an articulation of double-consciousness and the experience of the early twentieth century African-American, to encompass the black race in its entirety, thereby giving history to an otherwise ahistorical claim. Furthermore, the inclusion of mixed-race characters who possess second sight emphasizes the inherited quality of the ability, Dabbs 25

making blackness the biological prerequisite for second sight, while maintaining that most white

Americans have black blood, serving to reveal the arbitrariness of such political rhetoric as the

separate but equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson.

The most apparent difference between Hopkin’s usage of second sight and Du Bois’s is

that Hopkins’ usage of the metaphor in the realm of fiction allows second sight to function as a

physical ability. In her novel, Reuel actually sees and hears prophetic visions through time and

space. For instance, while Reuel possesses second sight, his ability is not actually termed

“second sight” until chapter fifteen (Hopkins 141). Prior to this single mention of second sight,

Reuel’s ability is referred to as him possessing “spiritual eyes” (89), “inner vision” (90),

“foresight” (91), and “remarkable powers” (135). These aforementioned monikers hint at seventeenth century definitions of second sight as being an ability linked to clairvoyance.

Furthermore, Reuel is named a “seer” (89), and the language surrounding his visionary encounters serves to function as occurrences which demark early literary understandings of second sight. For example, Reuel’s first vision of Dianthe is accompanied by his falling into “a dreamy state” and he finds himself unable to move, being “powerless” (5).

Such a depiction of second sight closely resembles second sight as philosopher Martin describes it. Martin notes, “the Vision makes such a lively impression upon the Seer, that they

[sic] neither see nor think of anything else, except the Vision as long as it continues;” (qtd. in

Jemielity 417). Martin’s explanation of second sight indicates that the seer falls into a sort of trance and Hopkins’s description of Reuel in this moment indicates a trance as well.

Additionally, Reuel’s vision of Dianthe comes before he actually sees her in person, indicating that Reuel has indeed received a vision of the future. Thus, Hopkins’s usage of second sight in the novel follows older understandings of the phenomenon as being an involuntary ability that Dabbs 26

allows the seer to see visions of the future, a definition which in no way resembles Du Bois’ usage of second sight. How then, can one determine that Hopkins usage of second sight is in any way connected to Du Bois’s understanding of the concept?

There is, in fact, a duality in Hopkins’ usage of second sight which conflates seventeenth century understandings of second sight with Du Bois’s usage of the metaphor. Hopkins’s text uses the traditional literary understandings of second sight in Scottish folklore/fantasy to signify

Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness by racializing the ability and making it the specific privilege of the black race. To be precise, in her text, Hopkins shares with Du Bois a privileging of second sight that is unheard of in the seventeenth century understandings of the ability. As

Johnson notes, “By Pretension to Second Sight . . . no profit was ever sought or gained. It is an involuntary affection, in which neither hope nor fear are known to have any part. Those who profess to feel it, do not boast of it as a privilege, nor are considered by others as advantageously distinguished” (qtd. in Jemielity 406). Johnson’s statement demonstrates that, in his studies and observations of the Highlands, second sight was not considered a privileged ability by anyone— it just existed—whereas, Hopkins and Du Bois are very certain to privilege the ability, with Du

Bois naming it a “gift” specific to the Negro, and with Hopkins creating a mixed-blood character whose ability is named as being the specific legacy of his black blood.

The privileging of Reuel’s second sight as a gift is demonstrated when his power becomes his saving grace; it is his psychic abilities that make him a desirable and viable king.

For instance, when Reuel and his company are faced with a lion, Reuel uses his “wonderful and powerful eyes” to stop the lion and force it away (135). Hopkins writes, “His admirable intrepidity, and the remarkable powers which were his birthright, had preserved him and his companions,” a statement that names Reuel’s powers to be a benefit and a gift, as his powers Dabbs 27 save him and the rest of the expedition from being attacked (135). Furthermore, his display of psychic power causes the Ethiopians to be awed and to further accept him as their king (135). In this case, his powers are part of what give him validation as king in the glorious city of Telassar.

In fact, when Reuel’s “power of second sight” returns after having been silenced for a time in

Ethiopia, he speaks to Ai and Ai’s responds, claiming, “of a truth thou art a legitimate son of

Ethiopia” (141). Ai thus validates Reuel’s second sight as being proof that he is indeed a

“legitimate son” of their country, racializing the ability as being inherited through his African ancestry as opposed to that of his white father. Second sight is then racialized in the novel as being particular to the black race and hereditary through black blood. To be specific, only the characters with “black blood” in the text have second sight.

This racializing of second sight in Hopkins’s text as hereditary through black blood quite drastically differs from earlier understandings of the ability in literature. Namely, unlike Hopkins and Du Bois, seventeenth century understandings of second sight firmly believed that humans were not born with the ability; hence, it could not be inherited. Hopkins not only demonstrates that this ability is held by those with black blood, but privileges the ability as one that is hereditary and inherited specifically through black blood as demonstrated by the fact that all the children of Mira have second sight, Reuel most obviously, but Dianthe and Aubrey, Reuel’s siblings, also display the ability.

For instance, Dianthe, a mulatta and daughter of Mira, displays second sight early on in the text. In chapter five, Reuel enters Dianthe’s hospital room to find her locked in a trance. She states, “I know much but as yet have not the power to express it: I see much clearly, much dimly, of the powers and influences behind the Veil, and yet cannot name them. Some time the full power will be mine; and mine shall be thine. In seven months the sick will be restored—she will Dabbs 28

awake to worldly cares once more” (40). Through this scene, it is quite clear that Dianthe has the

power of second sight in that she is in a trance and is predicting the future. Moreover, she

particularly names “powers and influences behind the Veil,” a specific reference to Du Bois.

Combining seventeenth century characteristics of second sight with a reference to the veil,

Dianthe’s clairvoyance is indeed a modified example of Du Bois’s second sight.

Likewise, even Aubrey, a mulatto who is wholly unaware of his black blood possesses the ability. In fact, it is Aubrey’s second sight that saves him from being poisoned by Dianthe.

Aubrey wakes in the middle of the night from a deep sleep and is unaware of why he has suddenly wakened (180). He then has a vision:

He could not distinguish the actual contact of any substance, and yet he could not rid

himself of the feeling that a strong arm was holding him forcibly down, and a heavy hand

was on his lips. He saw nothing, though the moon’s rays shone full into the room. He felt

nothing sensuously, but everything sensationally; and thus it was with eyes half-closed,

and seemingly fixed as by an iron vice, he beheld the door of his dressing-room—the

private means of communication with Dianthe’s rooms—very cautiously opened, and

Dianthe herself, in a loose robe, crept into the room, and stealthily as a spirit glide to the

side of his bed.

Arrested by the same trance-like yet conscious power that bound his form but left

perception free, Aubrey neither spoke nor moved. (180)

From this passage it is easy to see that Aubrey was awakened by the sense of being poisoned by

Dianthe before she could actually poison him. He is in a trance when this happens, which, as aforementioned, is a characteristic of second sight in early literature. Moreover, he has a vision Dabbs 29 of Dianthe walking with the deceased Molly Vance, and is later informed that Dianthe has died

(190). Experiencing visions of the future, Aubrey meets the criteria for having second sight.

However, that Aubrey has the ability emphasizes the notion that second sight is in fact hereditary, through black blood. While Du Bois made a correlation between gifted minds and pure hearts, Aubrey is undoubtedly the villain of Hopkins’s tale, suggesting that in Hopkins’s world, the ability of second sight is not dependent upon, nor does it correlate to innocence or purity of soul. Aubrey has the ability because he is a son of Mira, a grandson of Hannah, and thus a descendent of the Ethiopians and Africans who have always possessed this ability. To be precise, Aubrey has the ability of second sight because he was indeed born with it. In that

Aubrey has inherited the ability by means of his biological makeup, Hopkins’s text reveals a claim that blackness is the necessary prerequisite for second sight.

This biological prerequisite of blackness, and the fact that the ability of second sight is hereditary through black blood, is further emphasized throughout the novel. Hopkins writes:

It was a tradition among those who had known him in childhood that he was descended

from a race of African kings. He remembered his mother well. From her [Mira] he had

inherited his mysticism and his occult powers. The nature of the mystic within him was,

then, but a dreamlike devotion to the spirit that had swayed his ancestors; it was the

shadow of Ethiopia’s power. (126)

The above passage demonstrates that Reuel is conscious of the fact that his powers of second sight are inherited from his blood relationship with Mira and her relationship with the

Ethiopians. In this, Hopkins displays a racializing of second sight that is reminiscent of Du Bois.

Second sight has been privileged as being an ability that blacks alone possess; Reuel, Dianthe, and Aubrey were born with this gift, inherited from Mira who inherited it from Hannah, and Dabbs 30

directly descended from their African ancestors rather than from their white ancestry. Hopkins’s emphasis on the fact that the Ethiopians also had psychic abilities reveals a clear intent to racialize second sight.

Furthermore, Hopkins uses this African lineage to connect the ability through kin. For instance, Reuel’s grandmother, Hannah, as well as his mother Mira, and all of the Ethiopians also have the ability. In fact, it is revealed early on that Mira has the power of second sight when

Aubrey describes his father’s encounter with the slave Mira, who imparts a vision of the coming

Civil War (50). It is also apparent that Mira’s ability was well known by her master and brother

Dr. Aubrey Livingston, who often called her to perform “tricks of mind-reading for the amusement of visitors and many wonderful things” (50). Similarly, Mira’s mother, Hannah, also displays the ability of second sight as she mentions to a dying Dianthe, “yer granny knows de whole circumstance. I seed it all las’ night in my dreams” (185). Likewise, the Ethiopians can look into the future, as well as into the past. Ai remarks, “In this disk I can show thee what thou wilt of the past. In the water of the font we see the future . . . this is an old secret, known to

Ethiopia, Egypt and Arabia centuries ago” (145). Ai specifically names three places in Africa as having knowledge of this “secret,” naming the ability as being specifically African. That the entire family has the ability, regardless of how and where they were raised, suggests a preoccupation with blood and kinship over culture, nature, or nurture, further suggesting that, to

Hopkins, blacks everywhere, regardless of nation and upbringing, are somehow connected through way of their black blood.

By expanding Du Bois’s second sight beyond America to a global blood kinship,

Hopkin’s usage of second sight loses the American cultural ties it acquired in Du Bois’s articulation of the concept. Du Bois’s second sight signifies the shared black American Dabbs 31

experience of double consciousness, but Hopkins’s expansion throws away the national ties and

the American culture that goes with it, and in doing so, loses the cultural bond created when Du

Bois claimed second sight to be the unique privilege of the African-American. However, in

expanding upon the ability, Hopkins reclaims the proud African heritage that many African-

Americans nearly lost in their constant battle for an unhyphenated American identity.

Additionally, in claiming a kinship amongst all those with black blood, Hopkins’s second sight gains the potential to create a cultural bond with white Americans who possess black ancestry. In this way, Hopkins’s second sight is more inclusive than Du Bois, in that anyone with black blood can possess second sight, as opposed to Du Bois’s articulation that claims only African-

Americans who experience double consciousness are afforded second sight. To be precise,

Hopkins’s second sight is not the sole privilege of the African-American, but of blacks everywhere. This suggests that Hopkins’s second sight is not the result of negotiating a black identity with an American identity, but of negotiating a black existence in a white world. Hence,

Hopkins’s second sight is a trait of black blood, found in African ancestry and trickled down to various descendants; a tell-tale sign of blackness present even when all other physical signs are absent. Thus, Hopkins transforms Du Bois’s second sight from a racialized signifier of a cultural experience, to a racialized signifier of a race itself.

However, Hopkins’s usage of second sight is not wholly independent of Du Bois’s double consciousness. Namely, there is a correlation between the awareness of one’s duality as both black and American and the strength of the ability in the mixed-blood American characters,

Reuel, Dianthe, and Aubrey, suggesting that Hopkins’s articulation of second sight still manages to operate as a signifier for Du Bois’s double consciousness. For example, unlike the other two,

Reuel consciously passes as white, and in the beginning of the text, Reuel seems quite Dabbs 32 determined to ignore his black identity while similarly holding it in disdain. For instance, when asked for his opinion on the “Negro Problem,” Reuel states, “I have a horror of discussing the woes of unfortunates, tramps, stray dogs, and Negroes—probably because I am an unfortunate myself” (9). Somewhat prior to this statement, following a discussion that barely hints at Reuel’s mulatto status, Reuel has what appears to be his very first encounter with second sight. He has the aforementioned vision of Dianthe, however, Reuel is later shocked to actually meet Dianthe.

His vision of her comes to him involuntarily and seems to be the first of its kind as he notes it as a “strange experience” and attempts to dismiss the vision as “the effect of the imagination” (5).

He later explains to Aubrey that he believed himself to be having “hallucinations” (42). His surprise and confusion surrounding the events suggests that he is unfamiliar with such visions.

This unfamiliarity correlates with his ignorance concerning his African heritage as well as with his attempts to ignore his duality.

However, upon visiting Africa and learning more of its people, Reuel begins to experience second sight more often and Reuel’s increased control over his ability correlates with his increased knowledge of his heritage and increased acknowledgement of his dual identity. For instance, following a conversation with Professor Stone, the leader of the expedition, who argues

“that black was the original color of man” (88), which Reuel dismisses, he has his first vision of

Mira. His vision of Mira is far more detailed than his vision of Dianthe whose countenance

“grew dimmer and farther off, floating gradually out of sight” (5). In contrast, his vision of Mira is encountered with “no fear” and “no surprise,” unlike his vision of Dianthe which appears to surprise him (89). Immediately following his vision of Mira, he twice has a vision of a traitor plotting to kill him (89). Later, after meeting Ai, and thus learning even more of his black heritage, and admitting to himself that “he had carefully hidden his Ethiopian extraction from the Dabbs 33

knowledge of the world” (125), he recalls that his abilities are from his mother, and he actually uses his powers to save the Ethiopians from a lion, revealing an increase in Reuel’s control over his abilities (125-35). Thus, as Reuel learns more about his black heritage, he begins to exhibit more command over the ability that first appeared to be quite involuntary and infrequent. This correlation between knowledge of the self and second sight is reminiscent of Du Bois who privileged knowledge and linked increased knowledge/education with increased knowledge of the self, i.e., double-consciousness.

The correlation between an increased awareness of one’s dual identity and an increased

control of second sight is further emphasized through Dianthe. As Dianthe learns of her dual

identity, she comes into her power. However, her power is weaker than Reuel’s. For instance,

while suffering from amnesia, and thus unaware of her dual identity, Dianthe has a moment of

second sight in which she falls into a trance and explains to Reuel that she is aware of her powers

and will come into them eventually (40). However, she later has no recollection of this moment,

unlike Reuel who always recalls his visions. After regaining her knowledge of her dual identity,

Dianthe has two more visions of Mira, one which she explains to Aubrey in order to receive

confirmation that the vision was true and another which occurs as she learns of Aubrey’s deceit

(168-9). Excepting the first instance in which the amnesiac Dianthe, rather than having an actual

vision, merely explains to Reuel that she knows about the veil and her power, her later visions,

occurring after she is once again aware of her black blood, are actual detailed sightings of Mira

who interacts with her and performs actions, such as writing her name in the Bible (73). The

correlation suggests that, without full awareness of her dual identity, Dianthe, though equipped

with second sight, has less control over her power than the fully (and doubly) conscious Reuel, Dabbs 34 further suggesting that her second sight increases with her increased awareness of her double consciousness.

Furthermore, Aubrey’s second sight is weaker than both Reuel and Dianthe’s, which correlates to his ignorance concerning his black blood. Aubrey encounters his second sight with a sense of wonder, suggesting that he is unfamiliar with the ability. For example, when Aubrey’s second sight wakes him from his sleep, Aubrey attributes this wakefulness to the ticking of his clock, and his entire encounter is described in terms of what is absent, indicating his confusion and wonder at the absence (180). He claims he “could not distinguish the actual contact of any substance” and he “saw nothing” and he “felt nothing sensuously,” all of which indicate his expecting to distinguish, see, and feel something and this first encounter is a nameless feeling rather than a detailed vision, such as Reuel experienced in his first encounter (180).

Likewise, Aubrey only ever has two encounters with second sight total, the second being when he later sees Dianthe’s spirit walking with the spirit of Molly Vance before learning of

Dianthe’s death (190). In addition, he never has a vision of Mira, despite the fact that she is his mother as well. Hence, while it is clear that Aubrey does indeed have second sight, Aubrey’s second sight is weaker than Dianthe and Reuel’s. Considering the ways in which the ability seems to correlate with knowledge of the self, an explanation for Aubrey’s weaker power is that he is unaware of his black heritage. Since the degree to which second sight “manifests” correlates with the degree to which Reuel, Dianthe, and Aubrey are conscious of their black heritage, and by extension the degree to which they experience double consciousness, second sight still operates in the novel as a signifier of Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness.

However, that Aubrey’s second sight appears without him ever being conscious of his dual identity once again suggests that, unlike Du Bois, Hopkins’s second sight is not dependent Dabbs 35

upon experiencing double consciousness. While Du Bois makes it clear that second sight occurs

as a result of a warring bifurcation, Aubrey’s second sight is instinctive and is only made

possible due to his black blood even though he is unaware of that blood. This suggests that black blood will somehow “out” itself. Additionally, as Aubrey’s second sight is the only characteristic to reveal his black heritage, his second sight thus signifies his blackness as well. Likewise,

Dianthe’s second sight makes itself known even as she has amnesia, and consequently, the ability reveals her black blood even as she lay unaware of it. Accordingly, Hopkins’s novel

suggests that it is the biological category of blackness, rather than the social construction of race

or the enforcement of the color line that is the prerequisite for possessing second sight.

Therefore, in Hopkins’s text, all of those with black heritage have the potential to wield second

sight—it’s in the blood and blood will out.

Hopkins’s usage of second sight is indeed a signifier of Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness in that the ability is racialized as the specific privilege of black blood, and

increasingly understood through knowledge of that black blood, i.e., awareness of one’s double

consciousness. Her usage of second sight also indicates that she too promotes the belief that

blacks are somehow biologically engineered to allow for this ability, rather than depicting the

ability as dependent upon a social construction of race that forces segregated individuals to adopt

a unique worldview. In addition, in her privileging of second sight as black, the ability operates

as a signifier of blackness itself. To be precise, in a world where whites are unaware of their

black heritage, where blacks pass as white, and where physical characteristics such as skin color

are not enough to determine the Negro from the white man, characters that exhibit second sight

in the text are revealed as having black blood or a black heritage. Second sight is thus coded in Dabbs 36

the text as signifying blackness, even as it operates as a metaphor signifying double

consciousness.

However, Hopkins’s racializing of second sight is problematic in many ways, in that her racializing of the ability runs counter to her overall message that whites and blacks are equal and of one blood; she privileges black blood over white blood. As Martin Japtok, notes, “In challenging racist evolutionary science then, Hopkins gets caught in the meshes of its Darwinist hierarchical logic” (411). Hopkins attempted to challenge logic of the time that claimed blacks were biologically inferior to whites by demonstrating how whites and blacks were so irrevocably mixed that attempts at quantifying blood were arbitrary. However, in her depiction of mixed blood characters whose very existence disproves the intractability of the color line, she privileged black blood over white blood by racializing second sight as a biological ability

descended from black blood, rather than making the ability the sole privilege of the mixed blood

characters. Hopkins thus manages, in her attempt to combat the dominant U. S. cultural “fantasy of whiteness” which insists on the existence of pure (white) blood and privileges white as

normative, to promote an idea of blackness that privileges the African-American as having second sight by way of their (black) blood (McDowell xx).

Hopkins’s privileging of black blood over white is in keeping with her political agenda and beliefs as a “race woman” and follows the tradition of her contemporary, Du Bois, in their attempts to demonstrate the value in “racial difference” and the particular value in being a Negro

(McDowell xv). However, her privileging of second sight as being particular to black blood works against her intent to demonstrate the equality of black and white blood. While the text demonstrates a message of “doubleness,” in that all of her characters are both one thing and another, constantly negotiating their place in the world, reflecting, if nothing else, the Dabbs 37

arbitrariness of trying to classify black from white, it still reflects an underlying concept of race

that claims black is inherently and fundamentally different from white; that race is corporeal, concrete, and fixed.

As Hopkins faced the same political rhetoric of assimilation and the “separate but equal” doctrine that Du Bois took issue with, it is understandable that Hopkins wished to privilege black blood by promoting second sight as the benefit of being black. However, by the late twentieth century, second sight as a uniquely black privilege was reflected even in white representations of blackness, such as in the character Geordi La Forge of STNG. As such, making their start at the very beginning of the twentieth century, Du Bois and Hopkins managed to articulate a concept of blackness that came to inform both black and white conceptions of what it is to be African-

American.

Dabbs 38

CHAPTER II. SECOND SIGHT IN STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION

Eighty years beyond the era of Du Bois and Hopkins, second sight makes an appearance in the popular television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation (STNG), which debuted in 1987.

The series, the second of the Star Trek franchise, features a crew diverse in gender, species, and race aboard a spaceship: the Enterprise. Similar to Hopkins and Du Bois, Star Trek creator, Gene

Rodenberry, attempted to use STNG as a platform to address social ills of the decade. As Brian

L. Ott and Eric Aoki observe, “In the early stages of STNG’s production, creator Gene

Rodenberry assured audiences that, like the original Star Trek, the new series would address contemporary social issues. Describing his vision, Rodenberry proclaimed, ‘Unless we shock and irritate people, we’re not doing our jobs’” (396). As indicated, Rodenberry not only desired to impart social messages in his work, he deemed it his responsibility to use the show to discuss social politics. Thus, various storylines of STNG were consciously crafted to address social ills with such themes as tolerance, charity, and forbearance.

The series was so successful at crafting messages of peace and tolerance that STNG was hailed as depicting a utopian society in which humankind had overcome race. One critic notes,

“On the Enterprise, black and white, male and female, human and humanoid live and work together in peace—each and all ready to fly to one another’s rescue. . . . The show’s appeal lies in our longing for community—community utterly responsive and supportive of all its members.

The Enterprise is Utopia” (Mason qtd. in Ott and Aoki 397). Since the show’s primary concern, beyond entertainment, was to take issue with social ills of its time, it is clear that the 1980s envisioned utopia as a world in which differences of race, sex, religion, ethnicity, nationality, and even species are no impediment to equality. STNG attempted to envision a future in which race is insignificant and was thus widely popular with audiences of all colors. Dabbs 39

Accordingly, as a feature of a television series, the depiction of second sight in STNG is quite corporeal. Similar to Hopkins, second sight works as a physical ability in STNG. In the show, the Du Boisian metaphor makes itself known through the headgear of the character Geordi

La Forge. La Forge, chief engineer aboard the Enterprise, and member of the “African

Federation,” was born blind (“La Forge, Geordi”). In order to overcome his blindness, doctors

equipped him with headgear that allows him to see “the entire electromagnetic spectrum by

means of a prosthetic device placed over his eyes called a VISOR” (Shepherd 5). As such, La

Forge’s vision, made possible by his VISOR, differs from normal human vision. In addition, the

VISOR can be removed at anytime, however, the technology of the VISOR is unique, and thus

La Forge’s particular vision is rare.

La Forge’s VISOR operates as the physical symbol of Du Boisian second sight in that it is visual imagery symbolizing a learned knowledge born of experiencing double consciousness, subsequently racialized as an ability particular to the black race. To be specific, La Forge’s

VISOR is a literal manifestation of the veil, in that the headpiece covers his eyes completely, masking much of his expression to outsiders. This veiling of his eyes in particular highlights his vision a being different from others. La Forge’s veil is thus indicative of this differing sight, i.e., it is a physical sign of his second sight. However, contrary to Du Bois, second sight in STNG, while depicted as beneficial, is also depicted as an undesirable ability adapted out of a disability.

Additionally, contrary to Hopkins, while second sight is still racialized in the show, it is not portrayed as the biological inheritance of blackness; rather, second sight is the result of the removable tool given to La Forge after his birth. Furthermore, La Forge is African, however, his cultural/behavioral markers are non-existent in the show, suggesting that double-consciousness, and by extension, second sight is not necessarily the property of the African-American cultural Dabbs 40 experience, but of all socially inferior people. Nevertheless, second sight in STNG is still coded as black and the signifier becomes indicative of blackness itself. However, it is necessary to take a moment to examine the world of STNG in order to unpack these claims and understand how the

VISOR operates as sign of La Forge’s double consciousness.

A notable characteristic of the world of STNG is that cultural differences among humans are non-existent. For example, nothing about Geordi La Forge, who is from the African

Federation, reads as being connected to Africa. Likewise, other series in the franchise depict characters of color whose cultural ties have been erased as well. For instance, the character

Uhuru, who is also from Africa, and the characters Sulu and Harry Kim, who are both from Asia, exhibit the behaviors/customs of Euro-American culture (coded as white), despite the lack of an

American identity.

By having the black and Asian characters sans an American identity, the franchise maintains the ideology of the early twentieth century that privileged whiteness as American, and thus saw any raced identity as incompatible with an American identity. In this case, La Forge,

Uhuru, Sulu and Harry Kim’s racial difference is tolerated only by way of the removal of any cultural/behavioral markers of difference. The franchise thus declares that the way to solve the bifurcation that occurs as a result of being both American and raced is by erasing one of those identities. Ott and Aoki note:

In the twenty-fourth century world of Star Trek, racial and ethnic prejudices have

supposedly been eliminated within the Federation. Racial minorities hold positions of

authority and persons of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds live and work together in

harmony. Moreover, the fact that racial differences are never mentioned aboard the

Enterprise would seem to suggest that race is simply unimportant . . . [However] Since the Dabbs 41

Enterprise crew is comprised almost entirely of humans, who are played predominantly by

White actors and whose culture (customs, habits, food, attire) is eminently European,

humanity (the dominant culture) is coded principally as White. In turn the minority actors

who play humans on STNG are stripped of their cultured identities and absorbed into the

dominant (White) culture. There is no race consciousness of the Enterprise, then, because

there is effectively no racial difference among humans. Yet, even as the representation of

“whiteness” is invisible to itself, it is the norm by which everything else is measured. (399)

To clarify, race is not a problem in the future world of STNG, because everyone has assimilated

to the normative racial and cultural identity of “whiteness.” As such, STNG is less a promotion of

multiculturalism so much as the celebration and dominance of uni-culturalism. Hence, despite

the best of intentions, the series largely depicts assimilation and an erasure of cultural practices

that deviate from the “norm.”

With every human having assimilated into a single culture, race consciousness is non- existent aboard the Enterprise. In a world in which race is meaningless, it is necessary to determine how La Forge can have second sight, particularly when his cultural identity is lost.

What double consciousness is La Forge experiencing? The answer lies in a scene between La

Forge and Lt. Tasha in the third episode of the first season, “The Naked Now.” In this episode,

La Forge is the first crew member to become infected with an unknown “contaminant” which causes symptoms of intoxication, similar to alcohol, though much more potent. Those under the influence of this contaminant reveal their innermost thoughts and desires. La Forge reveals his yearning for normal sight in the following discussion:

LA FORGE. Help me to see like you do.

TASHA. But you already see better than I can. Dabbs 42

LA FORGE. I see more. [Removes VISOR] But more isn’t better.

TASHA. Geordi, please put these back—

LA FORGE. I want to see in shallow, dim, beautiful human ways. (Emphasis in dialogue)

A close reading of the discussion reveals that La Forge’s duality has not been erased; rather La

Forge’s duality has been displaced, from a clash of racial and national identities, to a clash of human and machine. His claim that he wishes to see in “human ways” and his privileging of this sight as “beautiful” despite his never having known such sight (at this particular point in time), reveals an idealizing of normativity, as well as a self-inflicted othering. La Forge does not see himself as fully human and he attempts to negotiate his machine-enhanced vision with his human identity. His desire to have human vision reflects a desire to assimilate into normative humanity.

Therefore, even without the consideration of race and culture, La Forge is still “othered” as being different from normative humanity. In addition, this humanity is unconsciously coded as white.

Hence, despite the fact that La Forge is exempt from the shared African-American cultural experience that breeds double consciousness, La Forge still experiences said double- consciousness, not only as part-machine in a human world, but as black in a world coded as white. Therefore, double-consciousness, the necessary prerequisite for second sight, is indeed present in Geordi La Forge.

Having established that La Forge experiences double-consciousness, it is necessary to examine how the VISOR and La Forge’s vision is akin to second sight. This is best explained by a scene featured in the twentieth episode of the first season, entitled “Heart of Glory.” In this episode, La Forge uses a “visual acuity transmitter” to allow the other crew members to see the world as he sees it through his VISOR. A close reading of the discussion reveals that La Forge’s Dabbs 43

vision is a learned knowledge born of experience. The following conversation takes place between Captain Picard and La Forge:

PICARD. Extraordinary. Now I’m beginning to understand him. Geordi, what’s that?

Over to the left?

LA FORGE. What?

PICARD. Yes, that. No, no back. Yes that right there. What is that?

LA FORGE. That’s Commander Riker

PICARD. Ah. To me it’s just a . . . an unidentified form standing at a . . . in a visual

frenzy. Can you . . . can you filter out the extraneous information?

LA FORGE. No. I uh, I get it all simultaneously.

PICARD. But it’s just a jumble. How can you make head or tail of that?

LA FORGE. I select what I want and then disregard the rest.

PICARD. But how is that possible?

LA FORGE. Well how, when in a noisy room, can you select one specific voice or sound?

PICARD. Of course. Something you learn.

LA FORGE. Exactly. Something I’ve learned. Does that make it more clear?

PICARD. Look over at Data . . . There’s an aura around him.

LA FORGE. Well of course, he’s an android.

PICARD. But you say that as if you think that’s what we all see.

LA FORGE. Don’t you?

The conversation is then interrupted by an impatient Commander Riker and shortly after, the

transmission between the VISOR and Picard is lost. What is not lost however, is Picard’s

wonderment upon seeing through La Forge’s eyes. Despite now having access to La Forge’s Dabbs 44 unique perspective, Picard is unable to understand what he is seeing. As La Forge makes clear, being able to see as he “sees” and interpret his vision as he interprets it is a learned experience; similar to Du Bois, a learned knowledge is expressed through the imagery of vision.

To simplify, imagine for a moment that La Forge’s VISOR were merely a device that helped to clarify his vision, such as glasses. Anyone could put them on and have some frame of reference for what they were seeing, no matter the actual prescription of said glasses.

Furthermore, if the prescription was strong enough to completely obscure the vision of an un- prescribed user, seeing clearly through those glasses would simply be impossible. However, La

Forge explains that his mode of seeing is learned, implying that it is a knowledge born of experience, which also implies that it can be learned by others should they experience it. Simply put, La Forge’s VISOR is more than a device that fixes his impaired vision; it is a specific way of seeing that must be learned by the user. La Forge’s mode of seeing, his unique vision and perspective, is thus a knowledge to be learned.

While this depiction of second sight as a learned knowledge is reflective of Du Bois, it differs in that this type vision can be learned by anyone. To be specific, while STNG demonstrates, as Du Bois articulates, that anyone possessing the VISOR (veil) has the potential for second sight, STNG also demonstrates that anyone can possess a VISOR. The VISOR is simply a mechanism that (presumably) any individual with the technology can acquire.

Therefore, STNG reveals a concurrence with Du Bois that only those with the veil have the potential for second sight. Moreover, STNG reveals a concurrence that second sight is gained as the result of experiencing double-consciousness, as La Forge’s unique vision is depicted as a learned ability. However, STNG, by making the VISOR a removable piece of equipment, insists that the veil can be acquired by anyone who needs to acquire it, rather than promoting the veil as Dabbs 45 being unique to blacks. Namely, the ability is not racialized as inherently black; La Forge was not born with a VISOR (veil), he was born disabled/disadvantaged. Upon acquiring a VISOR he learned to see through it and cultivate his unique perspective (second sight).

Herein lays the fundamental difference between STNG’s articulation of second sight and

Du Bois’s. In STNG, La Forge’s sight, though celebrated as unique and enhanced, is largely indicative of his disability rather than a celebration of his unique ability. To be specific, STNG, privileges the technology of the VISOR in allowing La Forge to “overcome” his disability, rather than privileging his unique perspective (“La Forge, Geordi”). For instance, the profile for Geordi

La Forge, featured in the broadcasting station, CBS’s, official database for the Star Trek franchise, claims that “the outstanding characteristic La Forge shows is his longtime adaptability to and satisfaction with life symbolized by the fact that his birth-blindness . . . was overcome not by direct surgery but by the unique VISOR instrument” (“La Forge, Geordi”). The statement names La Forge’s “adaptability” and the fact that he is satisfied with his life as his most outstanding features, and one can easily see that the implied continuation of this is that he has

‘adapted’ and is ‘satisfied’ with life despite his disability. The statement even indicates that his outstanding characteristic is “symbolized” by his VISOR. This clearly indicates that the VISOR is viewed as a disadvantage, i.e., that his overcoming his disability with a VISOR somehow symbolizes his strength of character.

Moreover, the statement celebrates the technology of the VISOR as “unique,” because it has succeeded where direct surgery could not. All in all, it is clear that La Forge’s unique sight, by way of his VISOR, is interpreted as a being a serendipitous disability rather than privileged as a gift. Such a depiction which insists on seeing his unique sight as indicative of a striving despite a handicap is wholly different from Hopkins and Du Bois who depict a unique mode of seeing as Dabbs 46

a privilege. The tone invoked is thus one of patronization and of condescension—a “good for

you” and an accompanying pat on the head—rather than one of uplifting support.

This message of the La Forge’s second sight being an ability adapted to cope with a disability is echoed throughout the series. Namely, La Forge’s second sight, while hailed as unique and beneficial, is still depicted as largely undesirable. For instance, returning for a

moment to the discussion between Lt. Tasha and La Forge, La Forge, by his own admission,

asserts that his sight is not better, only different. He simply sees “more” and actually desires to

see less, to see in “shallow” ways. Hence, the moment it is even suggested that La Forge’s vision

may be superior to normal human vision, La Forge himself shoots it down. That fact that the

series clarified this distinction reveals that La Forge’s vision is not to be considered by the

audience as desirable.

As such, second sight is depicted in STNG as being painful, bearing resemblance to Du

Bois’s articulation of the ability. For instance, in the fifth episode of the second season, entitled

“Loud as a Whisper,” La Forge discusses his VISOR with a doctor. The doctor, who has explained that she may be able to replace his VISOR with “optical devices,” remarks, “Geordi it would eliminate the constant pain you are under.” Hence, the viewer is made aware that La

Forge’s enhanced sight comes with a high cost; his VISOR, and by extension his vision, is a constant burden. In fact, the pain he feels is not only physical, but emotional/spiritual as well.

For example, when speaking with a doctor in “The Naked Now,” La Forge laments his vision claiming, “It’s not fair Doc. I’ve never seen a rainbow, a sunset, sunrise. This [medicine] is going to help me? Help me see like you?” La Forge’s remarks reveal the pain his VISOR causes him; he desperately envies those possessed of an ordinary perspective. La Forge’s desire to have Dabbs 47

ordinary vision and his lamentation that “it’s not fair” finds echoes in Du Bois’ text which sees

the veil as being imprisoning (Du Bois 64).

What remains confusing, then, is that despite a desire for normativity, La Forge is hesitant to assimilate. In the aforementioned episode, “Loud as a Whisper,” the ship’s doctor explains that she can give La Forge optical devices that will have close to the same range of vision given by the VISOR, but informs La Forge that he would have a “twenty percent” reduction. She further explains that she could attempt to regenerate his optic nerve, so that he would have ordinary vision. When he hesitates, she is baffled, stating, “I’ve done it twice in situations somewhat similar to yours. Geordi, it would eliminate the constant pain you are under.

Why are you hesitating?” To which La Forge later replies “I don’t know. I’d be giving up a lot.”

This discourse seems to be at odds with La Forge’s desire for normativity. He explains that he

does not consider his own sight to be better than others, and in fact, considers it to be less

desirable than normal vision. However, he appears to find some benefit in the ability, for he is

not only hesitant to have ordinary sight or even a small reduction in the range of his sight, but his

decline of the offer is not the first time he has declined it.

For instance, in the tenth episode of the first season, “Hide and Q,” La Forge’s eyes are

magically healed and he is offered the chance to keep the “normal” vision. He declines the vision in favor of his VISOR because he does not wish to be indebted to the villainous Q, the magical alien being who makes the offer possible. Thus, despite his desire for normal vision, La Forge declines the offer twice. Furthermore, La Forge even defends his VISOR in “Loud as a

Whisper,” for, upon being asked whether he resents his disability and VISOR, La Forge remarks,

“Well, no, since they’re both part of me and I really like who I am, there’s no reason for me to resent either one.” To which the enquirer, a deaf man, replies through an interpreter, “It’s a Dabbs 48

blessing to understand that we are special, each in his own way.” La Forge’s defense of his

VISOR contrasts with his desire for normativity, for it follows that if La Forge were to have

normative vision, he would fully assimilate into normative humanity. But La Forge resists the

attempt to assimilate instead, indicating that La Forge sees his unique vision as an integral part of

his self identity.

However, in none of these positive affirmations of second sight is the ability hailed as

beneficial in its own right. La Forge’s vision is beneficial because it allows him to see when he

would otherwise be blind, but his vision is not desirable even in his own estimation, nor is it

superior to normative human vision, and in fact can be replaced quite easily with newer and less

painful technology. Hence, STNG portrays second sight as an ability adapted from a disability,

beneficial only in that it allows disabled persons to overcome their disadvantage. Consequently,

as La Forge has already dismissed the notion that his sight is better than normal vision, STNG

suggests that La Forge isn’t holding on to his sight because he considers it a benefit.

This differs greatly from Du Bois and Hopkins who celebrate second sight as the “gift” of

being different; rather, La Forge’s ability is less a celebration of a “gift” and more a mere tolerance and acceptance of his difference. La Forge recognizes that he is shaped by his unique vision and that it is irrevocably tied to his self-identity. He has thus accepted the fact that he is inherently different, in that he was born blind, and though he can acquire a type of vision through technology and machinery, it can never be a normal pair of eyes; La Forge will always be part machine. When reading STNG as including allegories for race, that La Forge was born

disabled and can never erase this disability suggests that one of the underlying racial messages of

STNG is that race is corporeal and fixed. Dabbs 49

However, STNG also suggests that the races are not inherently different from one

another. La Forge was not born with his VISOR, he was born with a disability, suggesting that

anyone born disadvantaged, while unable to erase their disability, can certainly craft the tools

necessary to overcome it. In this way, STNG suggests that second sight is not inherently black,

nor is it the sole privilege of the African-American shared cultural experience of “double-

consciousness,” it is merely a survival skill adapted to overcome the disadvantage of being

different. Thus STNG asserts that while race exists as a fixed condition, it is not race that imparts

a particularly useful social skill, but a culture that creates and enforces a “norm” and considers

deviance from this norm a disadvantage.

However, the lofty ideals of STNG are challenged as, despite all, La Forge’s second sight

cannot escape being racialized. With STNG being, as Kwan describes, “a product of the

normative Whiteness that has become engrained in American and European culture” (60), La

Forge, as the major black human presence in a predominantly white crew (outside of the alien,

Worf) necessarily stands in as a representative of blackness, or a “token” as known in common

vernacular. As such he cannot avoid being raced, for while the fictional world of STNG

overlooks race, the majority of the contemporary audience of the 1980s did not. The racial

climate of the nineteen eighties is perhaps best explained by Gilbert Sewall who observes in The

Eighties: A Reader, “Americans of all races may have revered Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson and a number of black sports heroes. But white America’s guilt over past racial injustice mixed increasingly with resentment over race-hustling, a rising sense of victimhood, and spreading anti-

white feeling among blacks. Racial incidents were rising” (xiv). Hence, STNG appeared in the

midst of a decade in which race was highlighted for the purpose of increasing racial diversity in

popular culture, and which, consequently, bred increased racial tension. Therefore, despite the Dabbs 50

STNG’s attempt to transcend race, as the representative of blackness in the predominantly white crew, La Forge’s unique perspective, created by his VISOR, is racialized as being the property of his coded black identity.

Consequently, the character Geordi La Forge, as a white construction of blackness, is still informed by a culture of whiteness that sees his unique ability as overcoming a disability.

Meanwhile, La Forge’s second sight, as sign of his double consciousness, which Du Bois and

Hopkins articulate to be the particular characteristic of the Negro, is one of the few characteristics that manages to “race” La Forge in a society that overlooks race. Therefore, despite the best intentions, by further interpreting La Forge’s second sight as a sign of his blackness, STNG’s depiction of his sight as “overcoming a disability” is read as La Forge overcoming his (apparently crippling) blackness (“La Forge, Geordi”). Put simply, according to

STNG, La Forge manages to ‘adapt’ and be ‘satisfied’ with life despite his disadvantage of being black—hardly an uplifting celebration of diversity and multiculturalism. This conflicting message ultimately undermines the series’ attempt to articulate a world where race doesn’t matter.

In the end, the character of Geordi La Forge demonstrates the acceptance and integration of Du Bois’s concept of double-consciousness (as signified by second sight) by mainstream

(white) America. The overwhelming success of Du Bois’s agenda can be seen directly through

La Forge, a character created by a white male to represent blackness in predominantly white crew, who exemplifies, in every way, the new way of seeing the Negro that Du Bois and

Hopkins helped to cultivate: as striving on despite the weight of a double identity, and as having a unique perspective with which to see the world. Clearly, Du Bois’s concept of double- Dabbs 51

consciousness as being intrinsic to the African-American experience, and characterized by second sight, has been accepted as a near-truth in the world beyond the veil.

Dabbs 52

CHAPTER III. CONCLUSIONS

Even at the close of this project I remain astonished to have found so many correlations

between the VISOR depicted in STNG and Du Bois’s metaphor. To find second sight, a signifier

of a racially exclusive shared cultural experience, buried in the heart of popular science

fiction/fantasy television series is simply astounding; to jump from Du Bois to Gene Rodenberry

could not possibly be more bizarre. Yet, despite the seeming contradictions, second sight was

indeed found—altered and transformed, but found. Whether Rodenberry was aware of the

correlations between his VISOR and Du Bois’s text the world may never know. With

Rodenberry consciously using the show as a platform to address social ills, it is quite possible

that La Forge’s VISOR is a nod-and-a-wink to Du Bois’s work. Nevertheless, whether a

conscious decision or not, La Forge’s VISOR, as a signifier of double-consciousness in a black

individual, is indeed a contemporary reproduction of Du Bois’s concept.

As such, Du Bois, Hopkins, and Rodenberry managed, through their various usage of

second sight to articulate a shared belief that race exists and is utterly irreversible. Hopkins’s

portrayal of second sight as a biological trait indicates a belief in black blood—in race as biological and thus unalterable, rather than as a social construction. Similarly, when read as a code for race, Rodenberry’s depiction of La Forge as forever unable to assimilate (to humanity) because he was born different (blind) and will thus forever suffer a hyphenated existence (as part machine), agrees that race is fixed. Likewise, Du Bois’s metaphor of the veil and the diction that blacks are “born” with this veil, born different, also indicates that race is set (Du Bois 3).

However, Du Bois’s and Rodenberry’s articulations temper this claim by demonstrating that race is not the definitive determinant; rather it is the (cultural) experience of attempting to navigate a hyphenated existence that ultimately leads to second sight. Dabbs 53

To clarify, both Du Bois’s and Hopkins’s texts reveal an agreement that blacks everywhere have the potential for second sight, but while Hopkins, through her character

Aubrey, demonstrates the ability to be inevitable, suggesting that all blacks will someday experience/develop second sight, Du Bois, by articulating from the locus of “black in America” and thus keeping cultural/national ties to the concept, and Rodenberry, by depicting the ability as a technologically advanced tool, demonstrate that knowledge, experience, and culture are the keys to accessing second sight. As such, while Du Bois’s and Hopkins‘s texts reveal a concurrence that black is inherently different from white, Rodenberry’s work, by portraying second sight as something any disadvantaged individual can obtain, suggests that it is not race that makes the difference, but the social constructions that claim there to be an inherent difference.

Nevertheless, all three creators use second sight as the vehicle through which to articulate their ideas of race and all three creators manage to code second sight as black—Du Bois and

Hopkins’s deliberately, Rodenberry (perhaps) unintentionally. Whatever their motives, second sight is indeed depicted as a racialized knowledge, with Du Bois claiming it the “gift” of the

Negro, with Hopkins depicting it as inherited through black blood, and with Rodenberry casting a black man, Le Var Burton, as the VISOR wearing Geordi La Forge—as a token in a motley crew. Accordingly, despite the mythological connotations developed in the seventeenth century, by the end of the twentieth century second sight as a signifier of double consciousness was coded in American popular culture as principally black.

That an idea conceived in 1903 could be influential and relevant in 1987 demonstrates the myriad ways in which the smallest details of our popular culture reflect some of the largest social concepts of our respective generations. As such, the question remains as to how relevant second Dabbs 54 sight is to the twenty-first century, for having found second sight in the most unlikely of places, it behooves one to wonder where else it might be found and in what form: does second sight still operate as sign of double-consciousness? Is it still racialized as chiefly black? Is double- consciousness still relevant in an America that considers itself post-race? And how many citizens continue to experience double-consciousness and consequently develop a unique perspective?

Regardless of whether second sight is the true condition of a shared cultural experience, a biological trait, or a myth no more substantial than the sightings of the seventeenth century, second sight as a metaphor, as a signifier, and as a coded vehicle for the articulation of the

African-American experience lies buried in the very underbelly of our popular culture; it only needs to be found.

Dabbs 55

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