The Veil In W. E. B. Du Bois The Soul Of Black Folk

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A ceaseless idea that kept repeating in W.E.B. Du Bois' novel, The Soul of Black Folk, is the concept of a “veil”. What this concept meant to me is that Negroes cannot truly identify how they view themselves because they have to be viewed and accepted by the White people around them. “ I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil ” (Du Bois p.8). By being categorized as different, their role in society was minimum. With minimum to no education, absolutely no political power, no economic opportunity and no type of equality or justice Negroes were forced to label themselves as outcasts, a dispensable slave. What gave Whites the power to humiliate and break down

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