Members of a subordinated group see themselves both from within and through the eyes of a society that devalues them, and must hold both at once.
Du Bois's 1903 formulation in The Souls of Black Folk. The two views cannot be merged and cannot be dropped, which is the burden he was describing rather than a stage to be passed through.
In practice
- A professional is praised for being "articulate" and hears both the compliment and what it assumed.
- An employee reads their own performance review through their manager's eyes and their own, and cannot make the two accounts into one.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change