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. (pp. 8-9)

Evocative here is the constraint of prejudice that denigrates the target into a victim and that exacerbates the surface malice of prejudice by humiliating the victim and having the potential to make him actualize his or her labeling. In a spiral of self-prophecy, the target of prejudice frequently actualizes perceptions of the offender and indeed Du Bois goes on to observe that: "the history of the American Negro is the history of this strife -- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self" (p.9)

The last words -- "better and truer self" -- are echoes of the epochal theme that Du...
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