Du Bois, double consciousness, and the “Jewish question”

Abstract

Velitchkova, and the three anonymous reviewers for Ethnic and Racial Studies. A version of this paper was presented at the 12th Social Theory Forum at the University of Massachusetts Boston and I am grateful for comments from attendees. I also want to thank Whitney Battle-Baptiste and Sander Gilman for their continued support and mentorship of the larger body of research to which this belongs.

Muslim American Double Consciousness

“…In Du Bois's eyes, the Veil both benefits and incapacitates the racializing and the racialized (Thomas 2020). For the racializing, the Veil offers them the power to create and project their constructions of the racialized on to the Veil, thereby determining their own privileged positions in the racial hierarchy.…”

“…While benefitting the racializing subjects with privilege and power, the Veil simultaneously incapacitates the racializing by forcing them to contend with the harsh reality that they support a discernable contradiction which emerges when they compare their vision of a true democracy to the version of democracy that contemporarily manifests in actuality. As James M. Thomas (2020) articulates, for the racializing, there is an "irreconcilable contradiction between what is (American racism) and what ought to be (American democracy), and [this] prevents the realization of a unified national 'spirit'" (p. 1348). Rather ironically, while incapacitating the racializing, it is primarily this contradiction of the Veil that privileges the racialized, offering them the insight and the opportunity to contend with the hypocrisy of the racializing.…”

A Study of Double Consciousness in Lauri Lemberg’sSt. Croix Avenueand Paula Ivaska Robbins’Below Rollstone Hill

“…working class.' 33 Based on this argument, residing and resorting to their comfort zone are means to avoid measuring themselves by the codes of the American society and to keep themselves immune from being looked down upon and despised.…”

Double Consciousness and Racial Status Beliefs

“…Scholars take DuBois’s conceptualization of double consciousness to refer to multiple phenomena, including the contradictions between the African and American consciousness (Bruce 1992) and the futile attempt for full Black citizenship in a racialized nation (Thomas 2020). Perhaps the clearest meaning, though, is the angst Black people experience through daily disrespect and misrecognition from those outside their group (Allen 2002; Rogers, Rosario, and Cielto 2020).…”

“…Coined by DuBois (1896DuBois ( [2015) in his Souls of Black Folks, this concept has continued relevance to studies of race. Although the racial landscape has shifted since DuBois first wrote, social conditions continue to create the alienation of ''twoness'' through remaining racial gaps in wealth, employment, and respect, among other areas (Thomas 2020).…”