Examples Of Double Consciousness Of African American

The Double Consciousness and Disconnect Felt by African Americans African Americans have not only experienced external conflict (Slavery, racism, and police brutality for example), but they experience internal conflict as well. The fiction piece “Kiswana Browne” by Gloria Naylor conveys African Americans' struggle to embrace their culture or conform to the current norms– often leaving them torn between two versions of themselves. While the poem, “Census” by Chanda Feldman shows the distrust African Americans had and currently have of the government through the stories of the author's ancestors in the 1930s. “Kiswana Browne” by Gloria Naylor conveys double consciousness in different ways, finding a balance or favoring one side over the other,

They are conflicted between their cultural background and that of the oppressors leaving them feeling like they have two identities. For African Americans, double consciousness would be one part of them feeling more African and the other feeling more American. Some may choose to force away one of the two identities, some are left torn between both, and some have found a healthy balance between the two– accepting themselves as both. Examples of these can be found in “Kiswana Browne.” Readers learn there is an issue when her mother calls her Melanie rather than Kiswana. Kiswana thinks, “This long string of questions told Kiswana that her mother had no intentions of beginning her visit with another argument about her new African name” (Naylor, 314). It’s clear the two have fought about Kiswana changing her name before. Kiswana later describes a statue in the living room, “There was a small reproduction of a Yoruba goddess with large protruding breasts on the coffee table” and that she was planning to “hang my Ashanti print over the couch” (Naylor, 317). Kiswana seems to be overcompensating for her African side of double consciousness. She got rid of her birth name for a more “African” name, and she has multiple pieces of cultural African decor. On top of that, she moved away from her family, who live in an upper-class neighborhood, to live in a more run-down

Her mother says “it’s downright selfish of you to be sitting over here with no phone [...] anything could happen–especially living among these people” (Naylor, 318). Kiswana is outraged by her description of the people living here, “What do you mean, these people? They’re my people and yours, too, mama–we’re all black. But maybe you’ve forgotten that over in Linden Hills” (Naylor, 318). She finds it offensive that her mother seemed to assume those black folk may be cruel or criminals because of their class. Her mother goes on to explain that’s not what she meant, and that she thinks Kiswana could have been better rather than living in this run-down neighborhood. Kiswana goes on to say, “My place was in the streets with my people, fighting for equality and a better community” (Naylor, 318). Kiswana’s name change, the African relics, and her distaste for living in the higher class neighborhood with white Americans like her mother, all add up to her fighting against her American identity in double consciousness. She hasn’t yet been able to find a healthy balance between the