ESPN First Take (Bengals - Steelers)

[BURROWorBUST]

I understand the "double consciousness" that W.E.B. DuBois talked about (see below), but here's my problem with Stephen A.

He's quick to call out Marvin Lewis, quick to call out Tez and Pacman, but nowhere and at no time does he bring up Joey Porter and WTF he was doing on that field. Why isn't Joey Porter an embarrassment to black people? Neither does he mention Munchak pulling out Reggie's dreds, and having his fine/suspension revoked by NFL offices. This is just Stephen A. piling on remarks he's made over the past couple of years calling for Marvin's head. If he was that concerned with the success of black coaches, why does he fail to mention that Marvin is tied with Dennis Green as the second winningest black head coach in the history of the game behind Tony Dungy?

If he's a Steeler fan and just wants to hate on the Bengals, so be it. But then he should just say so. His comments on Marvin aren't racist, they're just stupid.

Quote:The term originated from an Atlantic Monthly article of Du Bois's titled "Strivings of the Negro People." It was later republished and slightly edited under the title "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" in his book, The Souls of Black Folk. Du Bois describes double consciousness as follows:

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. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

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. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn't bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.”[2]