HONR 293 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Karen Armstrong, Secular Ethics
Document Summary
Like du bois, ta-nehisi coates argues that the white american dream narrative creates a barrier or veil that obscures this historical truth from most americans and, as such, requires black people to adopt a double-consciousness. White america can"t praise the goodness of their collective narrative and its. progress if they have to admit that it is, at least in part, built upon the oppression of people of color. To understand your own reality as a black man and realize your own dreams and ambitions, you have to factor in how white america sees you. To do otherwise is to make your body vulnerable to those in positions of power. You have been cast into a race in which the wind is always at your face and the hounds always at your heels and you don t have the privilege of living in ignorance of that essential fact.