African Americans in the Modern World

Their modernism upheld traditional values and carried the past forward." This is generally why most African American inventions or modernistic ideas are from males. Males have gotten a major head start on their female counterparts. Claire Oberon Garcia of the International Journal of Francophone Studies stated, "The presence of this middle-aged black woman in this venerable public arena was itself a living challenge or negation of contemporary constructions of race and gender in that it instantiated a black woman's determination to inscribe her own historical agency." African American women have had the most to overcome. Yet, the resentment of African American ideology overall is not keeping American modernism as pure as some conservative white Americans may believe. According to Ravenscroft, "Where once modernism was celebrated for carrying the past forward, it now tends to be seen as writing against the narratives of Western history; where once modernism upheld the value of traditions, now it critiques Western phallocentrism for refusing raced and gendered differences." American modernism is becoming more known for its antipathy rather than its innovative ideas that show how great of a country America can be. Until white America can release their grip on the past and accept African American ideas, American modernism will not flourish.
             This psychological attack on the modernistic minds of African Americans has helped to support W.E.B. Du Bois' double consciousness theory. Du Bois' double consciousness theory is viewing oneself through the eyes of others. Du Bois claims that this theory associates precisely with African Americans. He specifically focuses on the challenging injustice in America on African Americans. In his book Du Bois says, "A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal imprisons and lowers But say to a people: "The one virtue is to be white," and the people rush to the inevitable conclusion, "Kill the 'nigger'!(20)" Double Consciousness has been suppressing the minds of African Americans, slowing down the American modernism movement.