Du Bois Terms

-Du Bois centers the subject in his writing
-race is not something that can be understood through cold, disassociated stance of the researcher
-Du Bois uses his own life to explain African-American struggles in America

-encompasses a way of knowing that sees lived experiences as important to creating knowledge & crafting group-based political strategies
-a form of political resistance where an oppressed group rejects its devalued status
-focuses on lived experience: what it is like to exist as a specific type of person
-creates its own forms of political resistance
-insists on the cultural space to exist & practice a culture without interference or judgment from others

-centers the subject in the work & uses various means to get the point across: poetry, lines of music, allusions to song & religious text (the Bible), etc.

-reference to clairvoyant/prophetic vision; spiritual language
-African-American see themselves not simply as they are in themselves: they see their position from the perspective of the other world
-but the white, privileged American cannot do this -they are not oppressed, they can't see themselves from African-American viewpoint
-they see certain truths about the social system that others miss

-the voice of the oppressed world that critiques the system & the social stratification, the structural oppression, the cultural suppression
-it is the voice of those with a second-sight

-characteristic of modern society where nation-states provide all-encompassing stories about history & national identity in order to provide a Durkhemian rallying point for social solidarity
-solidarity necessary for large-scale programs such as war & colonization
-the problem is that the grand narrative hides inequities

-necessary for the oppression of a social group
-involves exclusion from history, specific kinds of symbolic representations, & the use of stereotypes & their cultural logic of default assumptions
-results in double-consciousness of the disenfranchised where they see themselves from 2 contradictory points of view

-history plays an important part of legitimating our social structures

-kind of ideological history written from a politicized point of view which entails blindness to contributions of a certain social group & their place in society
-In Du Bois' example, the African-American & women ignored in ideological history of America

-images & objects by themselves don't mean anything
-meaning must be constructed & we use representational systems of concepts & ideas
-the symbolic practice through which meaning is given to the world around us
-involves the production & consumption of cultural items & is a major site of conflict, negotiation, & potential oppression

-implies that the predominantly white media do not truly represent people of colour
-effect: cultural & psychological-the disenfranchised read the representations & may become ashamed of their own image

-the experience of one's identity being fragmented into two contradictory facets
-facets war at & negate one another so that the disenfranchised is left with no true consciousness

-a figurative veil has been cast over the African-American in America, a veil that splits the African-American from the rest of society; from birth African Americans are split from society, due to their skin colour
-they have been disenfranchised, oppressed, and it has given them a privileged viewpoint with which they can truly see the system and its problems; people who benefit from the system cannot truly see the system-they cannot see the effects of active social oppression-the veil can only be seen through one way. The African-American can see through the veil to the side of the white American, but the white American cannot see through the veil to the African-American

-economic system is vitally important to society & understanding history
-capitalism is inherently expansive/global capitalism is inevitable->exploitation can be exported
-increasing levels of education, political power, & increased knowledge of the technique & meaning of the industrial process->expansion & exportation of exploitation

-seeking of a workforce ready for exploitation->exploitation of developing nations->Du Bois sees it as nations of colour being exploited
-race as a tool of capitalism