Sublime

A very simple illustration is the operation of Jim Crow travel in trains in the southern part of the United States. On such a train the porter, when he is not in line of duty, may ride only in the Jim Crow coach—for the train porter is a Negro. But the members of the train crew who are not Negroes—the conductor, brakeman, baggageman—when they are

the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of

“If We Must Die,” in which he exhorted Blacks to “face the murderous, cowardly pack, pressed to the wall,

the harsh era defined by Plessy v. Ferguson’s doctrine of “separate but equal,” these images of deracinated, stupid, lazy, and clownish Negroes played a critical role. The ubiquitous racist caricatures justified Jim Crow by graphically illustrating why the separation of the races was necessary and turned the idea of racial equality into a joke.

know several writers who have this glyph taped above their writing desks. I know one who carries it folded up inside her shoe. It is from a poem by Charles Simic and it is the ultimate instruction to us all: “He who cannot howl, will not find his pack.”23