W. E. B. Dubois Double Consciousness Summary

On Friday, February 16, 2018, I attended Nahum Dimitri Chandler’s lecture, in which he examined W.E.B. Du Bois’s idea of double consciousness. The lecture was split into three parts: first, Chandler provided a theoretical framing of double consciousness; second, he briefly summarized a text Du Bois wrote about double consciousness; and third, he expressed why he believes Du Bois’s ideas to be fascinating. While I thought that the lecture was interesting, I had an immense amount of difficulty understanding all of Chandler’s points. Chandler used extravagant language that I had trouble understanding, and I found myself googling some of the words he was using during the lecture so that I could fully understand what arguments he was attempting
Nonetheless, there is a racial hierarchy in the United States in which white is viewed as the norm. Some of the injustices that individuals of color, particularly Black people, face at disproportional rates are justified by widespread, false notions that assert that people of color exhibit intrinsic characteristics that make them prone to facing these injustices or less worthy of achieving certain feats. For example, I recently read a story about a Black teenager from California who gained admission into Harvard and posted the news on his Twitter account. An old, white male former educator from Texas then replied by asking if the teenager was admitted on the basis of merit or quota. There is a widespread notion that Black individuals only gain admission into certain colleges or receive certain job positions simply because of their race. The accomplishments of these individuals are reduced to the color of their skin, and the aforementioned widespread notion perpetuates the idea that Black people are inherently less intelligent than white people. The injustice (Black people’s accomplishments being reduced to their race) is justified by a widespread, falsified idea of what affirmative action actually