Specifically, I enjoyed the section on African-American culture and the work of Du Bois.

“We see this beginning to happen in the work of W.E.B. Du Bois who, in 1903, put forward the idea of ‘double consciousness.’ This was a provocative idea, one that emphasized not only a consciousness of racial difference but also a sense of radical internal division, a sense of ‘two-ness’ that Du Bois understood in terms of a doubling of the soul, of the struggle to be human in America” (35).

I first became familiar with Du Bois and Double Consciousness during my freshman year of college. I was in an African-American Literature course and we read The Souls of Black Folk. It was the first book of that kind that I have ever read (I can admit that my secondary education was extremely white-washed). I was blown away by the honesty in the text- which was such an incredible risk at the time and in current times. Fast forwarding, I then chose to complete my senior thesis on the way that Du Bois’ concept of Double Consciousness has been played out in the white Evangelical Church in the past and today. All of that being said, I ate, slept, and drank researching this topic for quite a while.

It is so important that we all understand the concept of double consciousness and the veil. What identities are we forcing in and out of other people? What are we forcing people to change? What are we forcing people to get rid of? What are our expectations of an “American?”

These questions can apply to our broader course as a whole. As we look at concepts of gender and sexuality, what assumptions are we bringing to the table? Are we ourselves looking at these concepts through the veil?

Since Du Bois’ publication, there have been many spin-offs of double consciousness. Triple consciousness refers to African-American women. It has also been applied to different races and genders.

The one that caught my attention was the mirror. I thought that it was fascinating.

“Lacan’s theory of the ‘mirror stage’ of childhood development… [argues] that children (typically in their second year) think they see themselves as an entire being, fully present before themselves (as in a mirror), disconnected from the oceanic unity of the maternal body” (184).

Until reading this article, I had never heard of the mirror stage. Without knowing that term, however, I feel like the concept makes complete sense. 

When you think of a two-year-old, they live life in their own little bubble. When they are hungry, they get fed. When they make a mess, they get cleaned. When they need to go somewhere, they are taken there. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that they are children, I would almost say that they are selfish. Their world really only revolves around them and their needs. They don’t yet have the complex emotions to understand empathy or sacrifice.

Now, looking at in with regard to the mirror stage, it makes sense that this would be the time that the children begin to distance themselves from the mother. It is a form of rebirth, of defining oneself. Although this is not always realistic, it is what we do.

I feel as though we are constantly on a search for independence (but at the same time, trying to avoid loneliness). We want our own world separate from what got us there and, sometimes, that is to our own detriment. 

After I finished reading the poem, I wanted to know a little bit more about the author and why they wrote this poem, so I looked up the article that is attached above. Fascinatingly enough, it seems as though Day purposely made this poem difficult to pin down in terms of concrete meaning:

“Meg Day, whose 2014 book Last Psalm at Sea Level won the prestigious Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize, is a poet whose work is difficult to pin down in terms of style or subject. In fact, that might be the point: a self-identified member of the LGBTQ community, Day often focuses on the interstitial nature of bodies and identity,” the article says. 

I love the thought of Day intentionally writing their poems with a lack of clarity in their writing. They are writing in the in between space, not needing labels or concrete definitions. 

Furthermore, in regards to audio and silence, the article quotes Day’s explanation:

“‘[It] came out of my frustration with closed captioning, and the way that closed captioning is evidence of sound—but oftentimes it’s evidence of sound that people can’t hear, the irony of which is hilarious to me,” she said, referring to captions that deem something “inaudible.’” 

I have never thought about how ironic the idea of closed captioning is. They are a representation of a silent sound.

So, what does it mean to be a silent sound in society? Personally, I don’t think that it means that you have no impact. Actually, I think it means the opposite. I think that it means that you are a powerful force that is working in small spaces, making changes that affect one person at a time. At least, that is my interpretation of the poem. Others’ may be different, but I guess that is Day’s goal.

As I was reading, I felt as though I was in the middle of a panic attack. I have never had a true panic attack before, but reading this felt similar to things that I have heard about panic attacks. Thoughts were scattered, everything was happening extremely fast, it felt panicked, and everything was of utmost importance. Emotions were definitely at a height.

It was interesting to see the author jump from topic to topic but letting it all seem connected. The way that they wrote also changed as the panic heightened. 

I think this form of emotional writing helped to convey the importance of the topics being discussed. Also, writing in a less formal manner made it more familiar and easy to connect to. 

The following line really caught my attention:

“can you make a sovereign nation a national park how condescending

instead just tell them to honor the treaty”

I teach a Social Justice Literature class, and we often talk about actions that matter. Sometimes, it appears as though people want surface-level fixes. For examples, as Brolaski states, they make sacred ground into a national park, memorializing it. Sure, that’s a nice gesture (I guess?)

But, instead of doing a nice, public gesture to gain attention, can’t they simply listen to what the native people to that land are asking them to do?

By taking that public action, a check is placed on their to-do list. They can move on- the issue has been addressed. But, in reality, it has not been addressed. At least not in the way that those involved want it to be addressed. 

As always, voices are silenced and entire populations are left behind.

This theme began to catch my attention throughout chapter 3. I have grouped together some of the quotes from that chapter that stood out to me:

“You’re still trying to decide who to be. The self you’ve been lately doesn’t make sense anymore… So you decide not to wait for death to come. It is coming for you… You pause. Revise that thought to something that better befits the woman you’ve chosen to be… Stupid, stupid woman. Death was always here. Death is you” (42-60).

“Never forget what you are” (60). 

I love the agency that our main character takes with her identity throughout the novel. She is not a bystander in the fluidity of her identity. Instead, she is the one evoking the change and evolution of who she is. She is deciding who to be. She is experiencing the events and trauma that inform her identity. She makes active decisions. She has chosen her identity, but she never forgets who she was in the past or who she will be in the future.

I think about this in regards to the teenagers that I teach in high school. So many people teach teenagers that they are too young to make decisions for themselves. Now, there are a lot of times when I agree with that statement. But, teenagers have a lot more emotional intelligence than people give them credit for. Teenagers are actively searching for their identity, yet people tell them that they are too young to do that.

Just today, I was reading an NPR article about a high school getting sued for its policies on pronouns. The school provided the option for students to choose to go by a name and pronoun of their choice while in school without parental permission. The parents of a specific student claimed that this was not allowed for a minor and they chose to sue the school for providing students with this option. In part of the complaints, they said that it took away parental control.

Relating back to the novel, how do we provide space for students to comfortably explore their identities the way that our main character(s) did?

“I made a photograph of my name:

There was a shadow in a field

& I put my shadow in it. You 

can’t hear me, but I’m there.”

I have a couple of takeaways from this passage. One, I feel that it enforces the reality that there are way too many individuals who feel like they are unseen. Their voices are not heard, identities are not acknowledged, and our society suffers as a result of this lack of representation. Additionally, I found this passage powerful due to the image of a shadow. We can draw so many meanings from shadows, often understanding that shadows exist as dark places that mimic another. Day paints the image of a shadow within another shadow, reinforcing the idea of existing in an unseen space, hidden from view. This brings up an important point that just because our society does not adequately see or hear many voices that need to be heard, the existence and persistence of these voices is essential to improving upon our individual and shared identities.

One passage in particular stood out to me:

“there was a shooting in ohio today

the music made me feel a little anxious it was

hard thumping dance music a notch

upwards of 100 bpm notoriously the beat of life

the optimum tempo for cpr

I consider downloading a metronome real quick to test it to

tap it out but

I don’t want to be ‘anywhere near’ my phone

meaning it’s in my bag on the stool 2 feet from me”

I think that this was so striking to me because it creates a vivid picture of many things going on with the author all at once. It describes a horrible event that occurred, the anxiety that the author is experiencing, a thought process about making a decision, and the way that all of these things are interpreted and represented through music. As music continues to be woven throughout the poem, I continued to feel as though it represented a sort of soundtrack to the author’s life and the way that identities are influenced by both the internal and external.

I focused on one passage that seemed especially interesting:

“Like the symptom, the dream is an indirect or coded message, the interpretation of which holds the key to the meaning of the symptom. Dream interpretation is a complex process involving considerable skill on the part of the analysis; but Freud was confident that proper training would ensure reliable, scientific results” (179).

I think that there is so much that we have yet to find out about the psychology behind what makes us who we are, and this is just a small piece of it. However, it is incredible to think about dreams as a sort of “coded message” that should be read to understand more about who we are. If dream interpretation truly is reliable, could this information help us understand our identities better? Or maybe we already know enough about ourselves and our identities, and this seems unnecessary. If we were to connect this with one of the readings from this week, I think that it would pair well with “Stonewall to Standing Rock.” In my post about the poem, I discussed the way that the author seems to be impacted by both internal and external events. I think that it would be interesting to analyze the subconscious process that is occurring in the poem in addition to the conscious thought process that is presented to us as the reader. The same could be said for any text we have read, but this one in particular seems to connect well due to the flood of thoughts that are present.

One passage that stood out to me at the end of this chapter was:

“The tendency in these theories of culture, identity, sexuality, and historical revisionism is to rethink the possibilities of human agency in a way that refuses to foreclose participation of any group or individual on the basis of invidious stereotypes or categories of social and cultural exclusion” (39).

Lauren, you mentioned the idea of an identity crisis, which I think is very relevant to this discussion. We do struggle to find exactly which group to join that matches our identities, and then logically, we focus more on the differences that exist among all identities. I think that although this may continue to be a struggle for our global society, our thinking on difference could maybe function independently from the sense of belonging with our individual identities. How does everyone else feel about this? Can we question our identity, but continue moving forward in our progress toward inclusion? Or do both have to be present together for real progress to occur?