What Kai Davis and DuBois are arguing in their individual
pieces are practically the same topic.
As African Americans there are two cultures within one person that they
are trying to reconcile. The two
identities that make up one soul are sometimes at war between holding on to
their true heritage and assimilation with the American way. For instance, DuBois made the example of
slaves not too long ago from his time period needing to learn and understand
the English language and how to read and write it to better their chances of
surviving in this society that they were just recently released into. Some African Americans were against it
because they considered it the “white man’s language” and wanted no part in a
culture where they have seen nothing but hate from it. This is in fact still a problem just
expressed in a different way in Kai Davis’ argument. When a black person speaks properly or tries
to excel in their classes, they often receive negative backlash from their
African American peers. This is the
problem double consciousness describes. African
Americans do not want to conform but knowledge leads to freedom, but on the
other hand the knowledge they seek seems to be fed to them from a white person’s
perspective and there are no other options if you want to be successful. The two warring self-perceptions of an
African American are not only because of the race’s self-hate, oftentimes it appears
that the standards for white people and black people are not equal. While everyone can control their destiny to
an extent, it does appear that there are more opportunities made out for a
white person to succeed than for a black person. I was watching 30 Rock one time and Alec
Baldwin’s character said, “I’m a white American male with good hair, the sky’s
the limit for me!” Although I laughed at that, the other conscious of mine did
feel some way because I knew that there was some truth behind what he
said. With the double consciousness it
often feels like African Americans have to act one way around white people, and
act a different way around others. I
still get extremely nervous whenever I go to a white girl’s house and have to
meet her parents. I know that they have
no evil intentions at all, but for some reason I just can’t shake the
uncomfortableness of the whole situation.
Ultimately it boils down to what Kai Davis said. “I will never equate stupidity
to melanin.” African Americans as a
whole need to move towards progress together and attack each other less even though
they were a race formed by hatred. If
they can just free themselves from that aspect of their culture then they can
begin to take further ownership in their American culture and have a stronger
foothold in society.
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