Re: Krupskaya

Konopak (jkonopak who-is-at ou.edu)
Wed, 14 Apr 1999 14:50:03 -0500

At 10:45 AM 4/14/99 -0600, you wrote:
>On Tue, 13 Apr 1999, Phillip White wrote
>>
>> it is almost as if whites define themselves as whites through
>>negation - they are not black.
>
>Perhaps whites (or any other arbitrary group or individual) don't define
>themselves as anything other the "norm" (which varies according to an
>individual's/group's sociocultural history), and so they define others as
>not "white," not part of the "norm," and not a member of their group.
>
>Charles Nelson
>c.nelson who-is-at mail.utexas.edu

i think it almost inevitable that, under the regime of current material
conditions, folks who do NOT apprehend themselves as "white" create
self-definitions which operate in a negative/oppositional field. DuBois'
formulation of double consciousness may be appropriate to cite here, and
i'd quote it if i could find it, but my copy of the book in which he makes
the claim, Souls of the Balck folk, is in another place and a quick search
of the web didn't reveal it easily, though you can access the whole text
through columbia: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/dubois/

instead, one last search provides the following

"It is a peculiar sensation this double consciousness, the sense of
always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring
one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt
and pity."

quoted in a sig i saw recently, but it is in "Souls..." and in the first
couple of chapters, mebbe in the essay that begins with du Bois' assertion
that the defining problem for the US in the 20th century is the "color
line." wish i could be more help, but there you are...

cheers, chers
konopak