Claim Your 1 Million Guaranteed Real Visitors!

The Synonym for a New Twoness

Ever wonder why the world do not see you as you do? It can be easily explained with two words- reflection and projection. The image in the mirror is a reflection of yourself and you perceive you true individuality, on the other hand, the world’s perception of you is characterized by the projection of the personality that you project to them. This projection by the public relates back to the Harlem Renaissance when W.E.B Dubois published, Of Our Spiritual Strivings. “This double-consciousness, this sense of always looking one’s self through the eyes of one’s self” is his idea of twoness. Yesterday’s twoness has deviated from its original racial identity and brought forth the word persona to add a more positive connotation to engulf us all through a combination to today’s social standards.

Persona, the personality a person projects in the public, is of the same meaning as Twoness back in 1920s (Shepherd). We all play personas; we act our best in the eyes’ of the church, and we don’t talk the same way to our friends as we do to our mother and father. This natural phenomenal came thorough the distinction of accepted activities and custom by the public. This has given roots to three discrete realms of modern society: the place of religion, and the public and private sector. These realms create distinct personas, forming a feeling of double-consciousness which in fact, the same as twoness of the Harlem Renaissance. This is why, President Obama, can not welcome Dick Cheney with an informal welcome. This would be an incorrect manner by the president which is supposed to be representing the country. However, society does not force this change upon us, it is our true self.

We grow up being told that being yourself, the unique and different you, more favorable than being something your not to fit in. Though the commercials in between Disney shows to the fortune cookie beside the chow mien in the box, but is the truly the truth in society or is this a simple technique of reverse psychology implemented to teach us that being yourselves is useless over fitting in to become the more favorable person in society? Job promotions or being hired, and eligibilities through interviews are among the few pleasures that are gifted for those who are willing to fit into society and meet the society standards best. Will Smith character, in the movie The Pursuit of Happiness, wore the same suit everyday to meet the visual standard that is needed to fit society’s projection of a business man. Also, he tentatively gave up is last five dollars in order to please his boss, knowing that its purpose was to but him and his son some food while they dwelled in the homeless shelters and the streets of Los Angles. This was an example of twoness colliding inside of Smith’s character- his as a business man and a poor person in the streets- and his business man persona won out. The twoness exemplifies how twoness exists to the common people residing on earth; however, your financial status does not exclude you from the feeling of twoness.

We, as viewers of televisions, represent the eye of the public, too. Actors often play roles in movies, yet their off stage character is limited by the confinement of data encoded onto the film and projected to viewers. Our projections of them on screen, especially new actors, lead to them having to act unlike themselves off stage, forcing them to resort to their on screen character. Referring to Mike Epps and Katt Williams as Dada and Money Mike, Katt Williams as the pimp of Friday, and Mike Epps as Craig cousin off of Friday is examples of how we unintentionally influence twoness on actors from an on screen persona. This is still twoness; twoness remains today, over the rich and the poor, and the famous and unknown, but has it really shifted back towards its roots, the Harlem Renaissance.

With the end of segregation and the pushes by Affirmative Action, the public no longer see in black and white. With the new colors that have entered into the public, the public does not see in dark and the absence of darkness as it was during the Harlem Renaissance, but has alter the new perception of differences between people- minorities and the majority. Yes, blacks along with others can now sit at the table and eat, however the man still makes all of the decisions about the food we eat. Since the man has been at the table, he takes control of those who had not been here, the minorities . We, to sing America, but the majority hold us back with serotypes and other methods preventing us from taking roots (Hugh. This is why our numbers grow outside of box where the positive things lay, but instead the jail houses and prisons, the people dependent of welfare, and the number of high school dropouts so the could make us a statistic inhibiting us from rooting our foundations. Stereotypes and other methods introduce the society’s perception negatively over minorities. Today, barriers due to the color and still make us feel an idea of twoness; am I my minority, or am I American.

Twoness, which is merely a synonymy for the word known today as persona, is used by us all under the public’s eye whether you are rich or poor, renown or anonymity, or a minority or the majority. We all claim that the visual in mirror is indeed our true self, but the world only sees on the other side. Dubois feeling of twoness is as evident as it was in the past, so how can we say the twoness died with the Harlem Renaissance, yet we still find ourselves changing personas?