Paula Tyler

Clash of Identities: The Effects of Double Consciousness Due to Colonization

            I must admit, in the beginning of this class I felt at a disadvantage. I felt like many of my classmates were experts in history and here I was, an English teacher that had never heard of many of the dates, concepts and historical events that were rattled off by others. I knew I had a perspective, although a different one, but I was still intimidated by the vast amount of things I really didn’t know. As time passed, I began to feel more comfortable, even though I still didn’t felt like I knew nearly enough history, compared to my other classmates. Therefore, for my research project I really wanted to learn more about the idea of duality that I was introduced to through Derek Walcott’s poetry. More specifically, I wanted to delve into the historic side of the concept of a dual identity, and how this double consciousness might have affected other writers as well. This idea of duality is something that faces millions of people, not just ones who were directly affected or influenced by colonization, but those are sometimes the most recognizable. I have always been very interested in the idea of “identity” and how people choose to identify themselves. There are so many different things that people choose to identify themselves by, race, culture, ethnicity, even simple genetics, but my question is, what happens when a person has a clash of identities?

            The biggest problem I faced was that I was unable to find any information that covered exactly what I was looking for. I started printing out articles that surrounded the authors and historians I wanted to focus on: Derek Walcott, Jean Toomer, Claude McKay and Marcus Garvey, in hopes of finding answers to my question within them. However, I was slightly disappointed. While I found a vast amount of information about the men’s lives and their accomplishments and controversies, I did not find a vast amount of information on the duality idea itself, or how it affected the men individually. After hours of reading, I began to wander if I had out-did myself. I thought about changing my research plan, but did not want to give up on something that I was very interested in, not to mention had invested so much time in. I wanted to focus mainly on the Harlem Renaissance, but recognized the movement itself did not deal specifically with colonization. Although many of the artists in the movement were directly affected by colonization, they had radically different views on it. This was when I decided to turn my research to focus more on the individual and their perceptions of identity as the result of colonization and upbringing.

I hope to create this research journal with review of the articles I read and how they related to one another while analyzing what it all means in post-colonial literature. I will begin by reviewing reoccurring ideas and themes I found throughout my research such as, hybridity, negritude, nationalism, and ethnocentrism. I will continue with discussion on each of the four before named authors and analyze their ideas of those reoccurring themes, the effects of identity and colonization as they view them, and their resulting actions due to their stance. In conclusion, I will analyze research done on race and identity, wrap up what I believe this analysis means and where I would like to continue my research from here.

Hybridity is quite possibly the best term used to describe the dual identity concept I wanted to conduct my research on. The term itself in the most simple sense means a mixture, but from such a simple definition comes a complexity of ideas. Originating from biology, hybridity began to be used in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Almost every single person in this world is some type of hybrid, but the term began to be read as full of negative connotation when races that were viewed as inferior began interbreeding with the white race. There was a massive fear “that the offspring of racial interbreeding would result in the dilution of the European race. Hybrids were seen as an aberration, worse than the inferior races, a weak and diseased mutation” (“Hybridity”). The Europeans who colonized African nations did so because they believed they were superior. When Africans were brought as slaves to America, Americans also believed they were superior and refused to accept such hybridity. If it were not for the cultural imperialism created by white Europeans and Americans, this focus on the effects of mixture on identity and culture might not have ever existed. Homi Bhabha analyzes “hybridity as a paradigm of colonial anxiety. His key argument is that colonial hybridity, as a cultural form, produced ambivalence in the colonial masters and as such, altered the authority of power” (“Hybridity”). It was the colonists who made such a big deal about mixing races. The mixing of races was the norm in the Caribbean islands where a few of the authors discussed are from. Hybridity meant challenging the norm and any idea that challenged the majority caused controversy. As time progressed, the term began to be applied to “sociological theories of identity, multiculturalism, and racism” (“Hybridity”). This mixture of races becomes very important in ones identity and many times causes conflict when one sees both the self and the other within themselves.

Out of all of the negativity of hybridity and racism came negritude, nationalism and ethnocentrism. Negritude was first used in 1935 and was influenced by the Harlem Renaissance. “The negritude writers found solidarity in common black identity as a rejection of colonial racism” (“Negritude”). Black people were portrayed in such a negative light in the United States that they wanted to reclaim their identity and place it in a positive light. Black Nationalism took the “black is beautiful” theory to the extreme. Nationalism is defined as “a tendency to define one’s group by descent, race or culture and regarding one’s own group as homogenous and being derogatory about the other group” (Nationalism”). This theory obviously causes controversy in counties such as the United States because that which defines someone also divides them. In a country so culturally diverse as the U.S., the duality debate continues when someone finds themselves caught between “us and them” when they happen to be both the “us” and “them.” National origins were imposed on the colonized countries, but one must think about those who were born into the nation after the origins were assigned. The same problem arises when ethnocentrism occurs. European colonizers believed they were more powerful and centrally important and wanted to impose their culture and values on colonized countries, but African Americans wanted to again reclaim their own identity and found it in Afro centrism. While being proud of oneself is a positive thing, what happens when someone is forced to choose between the multiple identities found within them? Maybe one should coin a new term, multi centrism, but that in itself would go against the definition of nationalism or ethnocentrism.

The Harlem Renaissance, while not specifically colonial or postcolonial, but rather encompassing the effects both, allowed African Americans from both Africa and the Mediterranean to redefine and find themselves. “The New Negro Movement” was centered in Harlem, a neighborhood of New York City, but it impacted black people’s perception of self and identity all over the United States. Even though the movement itself was founded in the U.S., “Afro-Caribbean artists and intellectuals from the British West Indies, who had migrated to New York in number, were part of the movement. Moreover, many French-speaking black writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris were also influences by the Harlem Renaissance” (“Harlem Renaissance”). The Harlem Renaissance celebrated the black race and gave African Americans a reason to be proud of their ancestry, celebrating black culture. Three of the four authors discussed have some type of impact on the Harlem Renaissance, whether it be positively or negatively interpreted. While some viewed the Harlem Renaissance as a promotion of racial pride, integration, and equality, uniting racial identity, others criticized that history and culture is inescapable and could not be recreated by simply defining it differently through a new identity. Being a person of mixed race would pose a problem to any movement that promoted racial pride, but this was no problem for one amazing man, Jean Toomer.

Jean Toomer was a man of mixed race and ethnicity, but instead of taking on the values of the oppressed or oppressor, he surpassed the ideas of nationalism and ethnocentrism and resisted racial classifications, describing himself as simply, American. While Toomer is most often classified as an African-American author, he never classified himself as such. And even though he is perceived as being a huge influence on the Harlem Renaissance, the piece that introduced him into the movement was published without his knowledge or permission. Toomer refused to be known as black or white, but rather wanted to “rise above the divisions, be neither white nor colored, be both white and colored, achieve a synthesis in something new” (Byrd 313). His racial position was one he began claiming early in his life and one in which he never waivered. He did not expect everyone to accept his position and he really didn’t care. Toomer wrote a lot about African American life, but just because he wrote from that position did not mean he claimed to be African American himself. Even though Toomer was very much aware of his racial duality and identity, he did not let it concern him. It almost seemed as if other around him were more concerned with classifying him into some type of box than he was. Toomer is perhaps the perfect example of how to positively see oneself as being multiracial and not choosing sides. He was neither race and yet he was both. He was neither the self nor the other and yet he was comfortably both.

Quite the opposite, Marcus Garvey was a leading intellectual during the Harlem Renaissance who held strongly to his racial pride, so much so that Garveyism was created, “a Pan-African philosophy to inspire a global mass movement focusing on Africa. The intention of the movement was for those of African ancestry to redeem Africa and for the European colonial powers to leave it” (“Marcus Garvey”). “The Garvey movement did not show the dualism found in earlier nationalist sentiment. It was a philosophy that fully embraced blackness and vigorously rejected whiteness” (Blake 19). Garvey was born in Jamaica, but left to live in London at the age of 25. Four years later, in 1916, Garvey moved to New York, but was later charged with fraud and was deported back to Jamaica where he was regarded as a national hero. Throughout his lifetime, Garvey had a profound affect on both black and white people alike. “Garvey was both hated and feared by whites and Negro intelligentsia” (Fein 446) because of his radical views. Even though Garvey never actually visited Africa in his lifetime, he believed it had attained unscaled peaks before the rapacious Europeans destroyed and plundered it” (Fein 447). Garvey felt that historical writing was subjective as it was written by white colonists trying to maintain domination over blacks and wanted historical research that would actually reveal the African’s heritage. He felt black allowed themselves to be exploited through lack of organization and resistance, but also criticized whites for not allowing the blacks to have a chance to succeed. Garvey “calls for organization and unity of all black men as key factors in their return to power” (Fein 448). Garveyism very quickly became a threat to colonial powers of Europe in Africa. He believed in the impossible and through propaganda and impactful public speaking he came very close to achieving it. Garvey wanted to lead his people back to Africa where he dreamed it would be returned to people of African descent and the white colonists would be run evacuated. Garvey never saw his dream become a reality, but his radical stance said a lot about his view on race consciousness. Similarly to Toomer, Garvey never acknowledged any duality in his race or culture. However, Garvey was from Jamaica, a country riddled with people of mixed heritage. Who’s place is it to say what is worse, a man who does not acknowledge his race, or a man who defines and divides himself by it?

Claude McKay was also involved in the Harlem Renaissance like Toomer and Garvey, and was even from the same native Jamaica, but he differs in that he was not as radical in his thinking of race and the affect of its divisions, or lack there of. McKay was a Jamaican writer who moved to the United States at the age of 23, in 1912. He was appalled by the racism that met him when he arrived in South Carolina and ended up moving to New York in 1914. McKay emerged as “one of the first and most militant voices of the Harlem Renaissance. The tone of many of his works has been described as race-conscious and revolutionary. He was an advocate for full civil liberties and racial solidarity” (“Claude McKay”). Some of McKay’s poetry reveals the idea of “living best when closest to home and to nature” (Hansell 125). This peasant that McKay reveals in his poetry is accepting of whatever circumstances come to him, revealing that even when life hands out a burden, there is a always a choice of how to deal with it. This freedom to determine one’s own fate proves that McKay does not see race relations as choosing between dueling sides, but instead, offers a neutral perspective. “McKay does not call much attention, on the whole, to the conflict between native and colonial values” (Hansell 129). McKay himself found it hard to conform to any type of rule, delving in both communist and socialist politics. McKay was “an outspoken critic of Garvey’s black-to-Africa movement” and believed that “assimilation into Western society has been a positive gain for blacks” and “also clearly believed interracial understanding and love were possible” (Hansell 131-32). McKay actually admired England and took pride in being English and believed it was beneficial for Jamaicans to be educated in the English manner. “McKay felt Negros should not lose sight of their own uniqueness and the value of their own creations while taking what was valuable from the larger European civilization” (Cooper 303). Like Garvey, McKay was very aware of his color-conscious society, being dark-skinned in an educated economic minority, but unlike Garvey, McKay found a way to find the positives in colonization. McKay took the proverbial lemons and made lemonade, while Garvey remained bitter and Toomer oblivious.

Finally, Derek Walcott was of mixed racial heritage like Toomer, and was from the Caribbean like both Garvey and McKay, but even though he was not a part of the Harlem Renaissance like the three men, was perhaps most ethnically conscious due to having both racial and cultural duality. Even though Walcott was from a younger generation than the previously discussed authors, he still felt the sting of trying to find himself both within the self and the other. This is most recognized in Walcott’s poem, A Far Cry from Africa, when he asks the rhetorical questions, “How choose between this Africa and the English tongue I love? Betray them both, or give back what they give? How can I turn from Africa and live?” Walcott recognizes this battle within himself. He can not recognize his European self without denying the African other and he can not rescue his African self without denying his European other. Is he the conqueror or the victim? Is he the exploiter or the exploited? Can he be both? How is he to define himself if the answer is both yes and no? He proposes that he “remember our experience of different empires, absorbing those experiences” (Walcott 4). Instead of being bitter of the colonial experience like Garvey, Walcott argues that one can not be bitter towards something found within oneself. Walcott recognizes that creatures in the natural world “adapt and then blend into their habitats, whether they possess these environments by forced migration or by instinct” (Walcott 10). One can either be full of guilt or revenge, neither of which fixes anything in the long run. However, to not stake claim as either black or white caused both Walcott and Toomer to be criticized for denying their “blackness” or “whiteness.” It was harder for people to accept their refusal to choose than to appreciate what that actually meant, to surpass the idea of race as an identity and to refuse to become the self or the other, but to just be.

These multiple views on race and identity prove that not all peoples of colonized countries adapt to their colonization in the same ways, but differentiating opinions shed light on what duality means to each individual and how that helps to shape the multiple facets of one’s identity, not just racial. Many minorities still feel that even “though they are in this country, they are not a part of this country” (Blake 25) because they are still cast as outsiders by both themselves and others. People born into colonized countries, or who were alive during colonization were raped of their culture and were forced to assimilate or be ostracized. Many had to carry out a duel role by living in a country of constant change; either become a part of the change and make it their own, or refuse and be killed. Generations later, W.E.B. Du Bois points out, “it is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness…one ever feels his twoness…”

it is up to each individual to decide how societal norms and conditions will affect them, especially if they are faced with being a person of mixed heritage, being torn between two opposing forces. In the United States individualism is very important, but for a person of a mixed background, “it calls to renounce or ignore their cultural identity and collective memories” (Harris 790). If it is possible for race-consciousness to eventually become social-consciousness, then maybe the idea of race as an identity will not be so complicated. Alain Locke proposed that “the interaction of both black and white writes would produce a reciprocal gain, that their influence on each other would foster the growth of sociological objectivity” (Ochillo 177) but the idea of race as a cultural invention still remains. “Race emerged as the dominant form of identity in those societies where it functions to stratify the social system” (Smedley 690). In this way, the colonizers always had a way to make a stark distinction between the self and other. Therefore, to be multiethnic was to be a problem. Individuals were forced to transform themselves into a box in order to fit into a place the colonizers wanted them. To take away choice was to take away one more piece of self. Keeping the colonized at a greater distance from themselves, the colonizers were able to keep the power in their favor. “Race emereged as a social classification that reflected this greatly expanded sense of human separateness and differences” (Smedley 694). This gave the enslaved people an identity as the lowest status group in society; taking away their culture was to take away their humanity. Now, these low status races must make a positive identity for themselves after all of the negative connotation prescribed to them, hence, Black Nationalism, negritude and Garveyism. The problem for people of mixed race is that for so long there was no allowance for an identity of “mixed race.” What Toomer and Walcott have both come to recognize is that “humans learn cultural features from one another all the time because that has been one of the most profound experiences of human history” (Smedley 697). Since race is nothing more than a social invention, it is easy for Toomer to say he is simply American, and not claim any race, but this type of forward thinking is very hard for others to understand, even decades after he made this assertion.

In conclusion, at the end of all of my research, I came to realize that I am really interested in learning more about the concept of identity and the idea of race as being institutionally forced onto individuals as a way to further divide them and empower the colonizers. I feel like I have not even begun to scratch the surface of the different views of race and duality and double consciousness. At times I felt like I was trying to do too much, but I felt like I was trying to absorb everything I could find. Race and identifying one’s race has always been very intriguing to me and reading Toomer and Garvey side by side really made me realize how different individuals could define and give importance to the value of race. The most important thing I have learned is that the repercussions of colonization are never-ending and the topics involved with identity both before and after colonization are equally endless. One either creates their own identity or is created by an assigned one, but either way, the process of finding one’s one identity and place in life is very interesting, especially when there is a clash of identities.

Works Cited and Consulted

Blake, J. Herman. “Black Nationalism.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

            382 (1969): 15-25. Print.

Byrd, Rudolph P. “Jean Toomer and the Afro-American Literary Tradition.” Callaloo 24 (1985): 310-319.

            Print.

Clarke, John Henrik. “Marcus Garvey: The Harlem Years.” Transition 46 (1974): 14-19. Print.

Cooper, Wayne. “Claude McKay and the New Negro of the 1920’s.” Phylon 25.3 (1964): 297-306. Print.

Fein. Charlotte Phillips. “Marcus Garvey: His Opinions About Africa.” The Journal of Negro Education

            33.4 (1964): 446-449. Print.

Figueroa, John J. “Creole in Literature: Beyond Verisimilitude: Texture and Varieties: Derek Walcott”

            The Yearbook of English Studies 25 (1995): 156-162.Print.                                  

Golden, Lizzie Thomas. “Change and Duality: Black Poetry and the 1960s.” Journal of Black Studies 12.1

            (1981): 91-106. Print.

Hansell, William H. “Some Themes in the Jamaican Poetry of Claude McKay.” Phylon 40.2 (1979): 123-

            139. Print.

Harris, Daryl B. “The Duality Complex: An Unresolved Paradox in African American Politics.” Journal

            Of Black Studies 27.6 (1997): 783-799. Print.

Martin, Jonathan. “Review: Nightmare History: Derek Walcott’s Omeros.” The Kenyon Review 14.4

(1992): 197-204. Print.

McKay, Nellie. “Review: Claude McKay: His Life and Word.” Callaloo 34 (1988): 194-197. Print.

Ochillo, Yvonne. “The Race-Consciousness of Alain Locke.” Phylon 47.3 (1986): 173-181. Print.

Pabst, Naomi. “Blackness/Mixedness: Contestations over Crossing Signs.” Cultural Critique 54 (2003):

            178-212. Print.

Smedley, Audrey. “Race and the Construction of Human Identity.” American Anthropologist 100.3 (1998):

            690-702. Print.

Walcott, Derek. “The Caribbean: Culture of Mimicry?” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs

            16.1 (1974): 3-13. Print.

Wikipedia

African Diaspora, Claude McKay, Colonialism, Ethnocentrism, Jean Toomer, Harlem Renaissance, Hybridity, Marcus Garvey, Nationalism, Negritude