Mask Essays: Emerging Voices And Social Change

Emerging Voices and Social Change The voices used are ones that have made social change through writing. W.E.B DuBois has written many books, one of them being The Souls of Black Folks. In this book Dubois is explaining the hardships of being and African American in white America post abolishment of slavery. Another book was one written by John Neihardt called Black Elk Speaks, Which gives the story of a Native American man. Other sources is a poem, We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The poem feeds at the same idea DuBois was writing about in his book, African Americans felt as if they were wearing masks or a veil to almost hide themselves. The last thing is a poem by Lina Hogan called “trail of Tears:Our Removal” DuBois and

DuBois writes a fair amount about feeling separated from white people and the metaphor of a veil, black people wear which separates the two cultures. DuBois writes that freedom isn't as the black man expected, and although they have emancipation there souls are still captive. “The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land...the shadow of a deep disappointment rests the negro people.” ( DuBois 7). This kind of thinking can push somebody to creating social change which is DuBois intentions creating this book. Neihardt writes a book to show the story of an old powerful Native American, and with that comes the stories of white men. “I could see that the wasichus did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe we're starving.”(Neihardt 135). This shows how selfish the white men were. This quote reminds me of the events that took place involving the Native Americans, and how they were displaced. Black elk speaks sees the true selfish white man and can't stand for the way they act. He doesn't want him or his people to become the next selfish thing the white man wants but doesn't need.W.E.B

Dubois shows desire for social change across the entire book “ It is then the strife of all honorable men and women of the twentieth century to see that in the future competition of races the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true; that we may be able to preserve for future civilization all that is really fine and noble and strong, and not continue to put a premium on greed and imprudence and cruelty.” (DuBois 119). He believes the Black Man works much harder for the thing he wants. In the future DuBois wants success to be based upon your hard work and persistence rather than your skin color. We need to keep putting in an effort to make this change for future generations to come.The idea of a veil or a mask is described throughout many black writers, because it is such a shared and common feeling among them. In Paul Dunbar's poem “We Wear the Masks” he explains how black people wear masks that hides their true feeling “We wear the mask that grins and lies,...With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And a mouth with myriad subtleties...We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries. To thee from tortured souls arise.” (Dunbar) Dunbar uses the mask as a metaphor for the fake faces black people put on for white people. They can't show their real feeling around them. It depicts the racial indifference represented through the