Sociology

In the book The Double Consciousness in Black America 2003, John M. McWhorter argues that certain races or ethnic groups living in the United States possess double consciousness phenomenon. For example, Black Americans are caught between a self conception as Native Americans as people of African roots. The Black ever feels his two-ness i.e. as an American or Black two souls, two thoughts, two parallel strivings etc. Double consciousness is claimed to describe black Americans living in the United States due to the constant resistance they receive from the whites in the American fabric.

In this context, double consciousness is a state whereby a particular raceethnic group is caught in psychological mystification, cultural estrangement, and emotional aggravation. Double consciousness has been experienced mostly in America due to the resistance that minor races or ethnic groups face from the whites. The most affected group is Black Americans, who today are permeated by a new-fangled twofold consciousness. Currently, the black person can only exercises or emphasizes personal initiatives and capabilities in private but submissively takes on the cloak of victimhood to the general public.

Other the blacks, Asian Americans, Latin Americans and the American Negros are also expected to experience the state (McWhorter, 203, p.1).

Due to resistance, the affected groups reflect on their lives and how others perceive them. Double consciousness has manifested itself in the power of white stereotypes and the black life and the way of thinking, and this has led to black misrepresentation while having the knowledge of reflexive truth. Due to their visibly stigmatized status, the groups have been excluded from the mainstream of society.
The minority groups must occupy visibly an ascribed master status. The treatment and the resistance they receive from the masters i.e. the dominant group makes the minority view themselves to have different physical appearance and cultural features. Those who experienced double consciousness occupy highly discernible marked stigmatized status because of differential power, group awareness, derogatory treatment and group awareness. Visibly stigmatized status takes into account race and ethnicity, subsume sexgender, religion, disability among others (McWhorter 2003, p.6).

Causal linkages between double consciousness and raceethnic identity
Double consciousness is not ploy for favor or power but it is a victimhood characterized by deep stain on the consciousness of ethnicity or race. It explains various events to do with race that floats across national and international media. Residual racism is an inconvenience that should be surmounted so as to establish standards that put all ethnic groups in the same social class or status. Failure to sentence this has the effect of social stratification in the society as noticed in the United States, thus leading to unequivocal moral cowardice which manifests itself to double consciousness (McWhorter 2003, 15).

Double consciousness is a feature of deep pain among the victims. Legalized segregation and differences in the cultural climate are agents of repression, a characteristic of humane and sophisticated relationship between the blacks and the whites in the American fabric. The brand of thought strongly exonerates the victims from fulfilling expected responsibilities hence becoming susceptible to double consciousness canard.

Double consciousness is bad for the affected victims because it restrict them from making choices thus undermining their desired satisfactions. It promulgates principles about the affected ethnic groups are like i.e. double consciousness promotes normative claims about what the blacks are supposed to be. The symptomatic of the fact that American is a thicker identity than the other ethnic groups makes them more outstanding. Double consciousness has the effect of making the minority groups to view themselves as inferior thus defining the whites as thick identity. In the real situation, double consciousness makes race identity salient and thicker, and this leads to dissatisfaction of the affected individuals because they are not rationally considered in as important in the society (McWhorter 2003, 15).

Double Consciousness and Relevant Quotations
As Feagin claims, the struggle to deal with the democracy in America is a real problem due to cultural diversity which has manifests itself in the society. The minority groups were not allowed to be part of the political systems because they were considered unintelligent. Majority of the Americans are against open borders and the representative democracy does not support the opinions and the ideas of the black American hence different self-promoting interests in the political systems (Feagin,  Sikes 2006, p.135).
Lack of totalitarian democracy has also put the blacks into state of double consciousness. In an attempt to eradicate political discrimination, the black Americans in the United States struggle to eradicate the hierarchy of racialized power. For example, the struggle to deal with the Nazi Holocaust led to Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and this stipulated that All human beings are born free and are equal in dignity and rights.  Racial discrimination led to the fight between Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton (1942-1973) and he never thought of losing the battle. He argued that all people are same and everyone is obliged to do the right thing.

I am America. I am the part you wont recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky my name, not yours my religion, not yours my goals, my own get used to me. (Feagin,  Sikes 2006, p.138).

These examples explicitly illustrate double consciousness among the personalities. The first statement written on the Universal Declaration confirms that the strugglers had viewed the lives from the perspectives of the whites and they wondered why they were not regarded indifferent.