SOC 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Double Consciousness, Clairvoyance, White Privilege
Document Summary
After world war i, du bois stepped up his demands for emancipation and his work acquired a more aggressive tone. African americans coming home from battle in europe were incensed to find that despite their wartime contributions, they were treated, at best, as second- class citizens. First, du bois suggests that white privilege, ironically, is invisible to whites. Du bois contends that while african americans have a double consciousness, whites have to racial consciousness at all. Unbeknownst to whites, african americans can see what it means to be white. Blacks clairvoyance comes from their servile position. Most important, what blacks see is that whites typically practice the very opposite of what they preach. Du bois condemns whites not only for their hypocrisy, but also for their delusion. Du bois declares white christianity a miserable failure because the number of whites who actually practice the democracy and unselfishness of jesus christ is so small as to be farcical.
