Du Bois and Diasporic Identity: The Veil and the Unveiling Project

Abstract

Positioning Du Bois's arguments in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) within social theory enhances our understanding of the phenomenological dimensions of racial oppression and of how oppressed groups build on members' differences, as well as on what they share, to construct a cosmopolitan and richly textured community. Du Bois wrote Souls just at the beginning of the Great Migration but indicated that geographical dispersion would deepen racial solidarity, enhance the meaningfulness of community, and emancipate individual group members through participation in mainstream society while maintaining their black identity. Du Bois's writings have powerful implications for understanding how to promote racial justice, and contemporary readers might consider that they have implications for social justice more generally. An analysis of black newspapers that were published during the period of 1900 to 1935 illustrates how Du Bois's conceptions were woven into discourse and everyday practices.

Legacies of American Slavery: Status Attainment among Southern Blacks after Emancipation

“…DuBois ([1903] 1965) recognized benefits of migration for developing a pan-African American identity (see also Blau & Brown 2001). The aims of migrants themselves -and of migrant aid societies in the North and West who assisted them -were far more concrete.…”

A Socio-Historical Overview of Black Youth Development in the United States for Leisure Studies

“…Perhaps through the exposure of diverse audiences to the depths of oppression, racism could be transcended (Blau and Brown 2001).…”

Sociology and the Theory of Double Consciousness

“…The racialized have no choice but to see themselves through the eyes of the racializing as reflected on the veil. This situation allows them to, at least partially, suspend the optics of the veil and see other possibilities for organizing the world (Blau and Brown, 2001; Smith 2004). In his analysis of the lived experience of African Americans, Du Bois points to different ways in which this ability may emerge and develop.…”

“…Second sight provides a sober look at the racialized world and, by extension, at the world of Whites. Whereas the racialized is invisible for the racializing, the former can develop an understanding of the latter, one that is less encumbered than the one that the racializing subject has of himself (Blau and Brown, 2001). In Dusk , Du Bois dedicates a full chapter to the study of the natural attitude of Whites.…”

“…The theory has long been part of debates among scholars of African American studies (Gilroy 1993; Gooding-Williams 2010; Gordon 2000; Rabaka 2010; Rampersad 1976; Reed 1997; Smith 2004; Zamir 2008). Its sociological importance, however, is barely acknowledged (Blau and Brown, 2001; Lemert 1994; Rawls 2000). Yet, as Charles Lemert argues:Du Bois’s double self concept deserved a prominent place in the lineage of self theorists which, from James and Baldwin through Cooley to Mead to the symbolic interactionists, has been one of Sociology’s proudest traditions (1994, p. 389).…”