the double burden of double consiousness

In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B Du Bois famously writes that Black Americans possess a “two-ness” or “double consciousness.” Du Bois frames double consciousness as a gift of “second sight,” for it allows Black Americans have to power to see themselves and the world through their own eyes and through the eyes of white people.

Sometimes this “gift” feels more like a burden. White people know of our second sight and use it to their advantage. They make us feel sorry for them. In Patricia Williams’s The Alchemy of Race and Rights, she writes about a scenario in which Able (Black) calls Cain (white) out when he deems a Black town “tough turf” without ever having been there, “Able’s feelings get deflected in deference to Cain’s; and Abel bears the double burden of raising his issue correctly and of being responsible for its impact on Cain should Cain take it wrong” (64). Able feels the pain of witnessing and experiencing racism, while he also also has to do the work of consoling Cain who feels bad that he may have done something racist.

In her poem in For Colored Girls, Shange offers a solution. While people ask us to forgive, to relieve guilt, to pity, we don’t have to: “i’m not even sorry about you bein sorry/ you can carry all the guilt and grime ya wanna/ just dont give it to me/  i cant use another sorry” (54). This extra burden is useless and harmful to us, we don’t want to feel your guilt, and we won’t give you pity because you feel bad about the harm you caused.

Abusing my power of “second sight,” white people have always made me the Black to white translator. In high school, white peers came to me with all of their guilt and wrongdoings and then expected me to explain to them (with respect and civility) why what they did was wrong and accept their apologies for ignorance and misunderstanding, relieving them of their guilt (or making me “carry” it).

Just last week (in this post Seat At The Table world) I was yelled at for confronting a white man about touching my hair and also asked to explain why he shouldn’t do so. He made me suffer through the double burden of experiencing racism and doing the work of relieving guilt. Shange gives me validation and confidence in during these grimy situations: instead of apologizing for asking not to be touched “i’m not even sorry about you been sorry.”

“Diana Ross Finishing a Rib in Alabama, 1990s” visually and poetically encapsulates this unapologetic feeling for me: the photo and poem are shameless. Morgan Parker writes: “Since I thought I’d be dead/ by now everything/ I do is fucking perfect”