Th 10/14 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk; Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex; Recommended: Omi and Winant, “Racial Formation in the United States”

Topic: The nature of racial and sexual discrimination

1. According to Du Bois, what is the double consciousness that is experienced by African Americans, the sense of being born with a veil?

2. How does de Beauvoir criticize the essentialist definition of women through femininity and the nominalist claim that women don’t exist?

3. According to de Beauvoir, in what sense are women defined as other than men?

4. How does de Beauvoir explain the fact that historically women have been more submissive than other oppressed groups?

5. In Omi and Winant, what does the Phipps case illustrate about the role of the state in racial identification and the complexity of the concept of race?

6. How do Omi and Winant define race? What two concepts of race do they criticize and why?