Throughout the years one can see that the construction of black identity has changed due to white political and social conditions. It is true that white racism has had great influence on the identity of blacks through especially through segregation. Blacks have used this development of identity to resist, defend, and adapt to the ways of the white political and social conditions. Malcolm X is great example of a person who has helped educate blacks of this identity. One can see these developments of identity in books, magazines and films such as, Malcolm X, The Souls of Black Folk, Race Matters, American Apartheid, and "Boyz in the Hood-.
When looking at Malcolm X some of the things that he points out parallels the major point that W.E.B. DuBois (Author of Souls of Black Folk) wanted blacks to see. That point was to see the veil that was put in front of their eyes and has blinded them for so long. With the veil, as he explained, came the notion of "double consciousness."" DuBois stated that, "The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, ¾a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this 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."" DuBois means that through this double-consciousness and viewing the world through this veil, blacks are blind to what is going on around them as if they were stupid. By stupi!.
d I mean that blacks were accepting the fact that everything that was happening around them, such as racism, was all right. DuBois wanted blacks to stand up for themselves, to take off that veil of looking for white approval and defend themselves. This is similar to what Malcolm X thinks according to Cornell West in the book Race Matters.
