Contemporary Relevance of the Du Boisean Duality Construct

In his classic study, The Souls of Black Folk William E. B. Du Bois described the Black American as someone tormented by consciousness of his, "twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body." With this poignant observation, Du Bois underscored both the central problematic, and the nuances of Black American identity and experience, representing the duality as an inherently contradictory and conflicted construct. In other words, the black American inhered two identities American and Negroid locked in a state of almost perpetual struggles 3 . As expected of any conflict, the war of the conflicting ideals held the possibility of one eventually upstaging the other. But Du Bois cautioned against this possibility. Neither identity should assume dominance, since each possessed intrinsic essence and validity. As he argued, the Negro "wishes neither the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanness, for he knows the Negro blood has a message for the world" 3-4 . This perspective, or the duality, as it is commonly known, shaped popular and scholarly discourses on black identity for decades to come. The conception of the black American as the product of a dual conflicted heritage became widely acknowledged. More recently, however, this duality has been challenged by many who are driven by conflicting reactions to the realities and experiences of post civil rights America. Certain critical questions beg for consideration: Are the conflicting ideals reconcilable? Is coexistence possible, or is segregation the ultimate end? These are the questions at the root of contemporary discourses on the identity of black Americans. This paper examines these discourses and their implications for Du Bois’s duality construct.