The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois. History Essay

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Applicability of ‘Twoness’ As described by W.E.B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk to Americans and Black Americans
Du Bois coined the word twoness of the black identity referring to the fact that all black American are forced to live a double life. They are forced to perceive and articulate issues first as blacks and again as Americans. However, when Du Bois was authoring his book The Souls of Black Folk, things were bad for the black Americans. It was the era of Jim Crow which was torn down nearly half a century later and blacks in America were still treated as second class citizens. Thus, though black Americans were emancipated, things were not easy for them and they continued to be treated as second class citizensCITATION DuB07 \p 64 \l 1033 (Du Bois 64). They also attempted to see and find ways to live the American dream of prosperity. Today, many Americans seem to be living a similar life of twoness.
First, many Americans understand that they live in the most powerful country on earth. It also has the largest economy and its currency is the global reserve currency. From the face of it, many people especially non-Americans may assume that life is great for everyone. However, if you ask many folks, life is largely different from what it seems from the outside for all of them. There are frequent mass shootings in the country which makes it very unsafe to most Americans. Some other things like healthcare is not affordable to all people like in many other developed countries. Minimum wage is still very low and most corporations have come together to continue lobbying elected officials to maintain the status quo while the average American is still grappling with the adverse effects of their inaction. The education system seems to favor only the rich and most young people in the country grapple with loan repayment which is at an all-time high. The American society has come to be divided into the haves and have-notsCITATION Fon17 \p 1081 \l 1033 (Foner 1081). The average American is a have-not whose voice has been stifled by the rich and big corporations to advance their agenda at their expense of the majority Americans. Nearly all Americans are striving to achieve an objective that they have been structurally denied just like blacks in the Jim Crow era. For example, ...