The beginning of what was to become the
United States was characterized by inconsistencies in the values and behavior of
its population, inconsistencies that were reflected by its spokesmen, who took
conflicting stances in many areas; but on the subject of race, the conflicts
were particularly vivid. The idea that the Caucasian (白种人) race and European
civilization were superior was well entrenched in the culture of the colonists
at the very time that the "egalitarian" (主张平等的) republic was founded. Voluminous
historical evidence indicates that, in the mind of the average colonist, the
African was a heathen, he was black, and he was different in crucial
philosophical ways. As time progressed, he was also increasingly captive, adding
to the conception of deviance. The African, therefore, could be justifiably (and
even philanthropically) treated as property according to the reasoning of slave
trader and slave-holders.
Although slaves were treated as
objects, bountiful evidence suggests that they did not view themselves
similarly. There are many published autobiographies of salves; Afro-American
scholars are beginning to know enough about West African culture to appreciate
the existential climate in which the early captives were raised and which
therefore could not be totally destroyed by the enslavement experience. This was
a climate that defined individuality in collective terms. Individuals were
members of a tribe, within which they had prescribed roles determined by the
history of their family within the tribe. Individuals were inherently a part of
the natural elements on which they depended, and they were actively related to
those tribal members who once lived and to those not yet born.
The colonial plantation system, which was established and into which
Africans were thrust did virtually eliminate tribal affiliations. Individuals
were separated from kin: interrelationships among kin kept together were often
transient because of sales. A new identification with those slaves working and
living together in a given place could satisfy what was undoubtedly a natural
tendency to be a member of a group. New family units became the most important
attachments of individual slaves. Thus, as the system of slavery was gradually
institutionalized, West African affiliation tendencies adapted to it.
This exceedingly complex dual influence is still reflected in black
community life, and the double consciousness of black Americans is the major
characteristic of Afro-American mentality. DuBois articulated this divided
consciousness as follows:
The history the American Negro
is the history of this strife-this longing to attain self-conscious
manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this
merging, he wishes neither of
the older selves to be
best...
Several black political movements have looked upon
this duality as destructively conflictual and have variously urged its
reconciliation. Thus, the integrationists and the black nationalists, to be
crudely general, have both been Concerned with resolving the conflict, but in
opposite directions. |
