TEXT C The beginning of what was
to become the United States was characterized by inconsistencies in the values
and behavior of its population, inconsistencies that were reflected by its
spokesmen, who took conflicting stances in many areas; but on the subject of
race, the conflicts were particularly vivid. The idea that the Caucasian(白种人)
race and European civilization were superior was well entrenched in the culture
of the colonists at the very time that the "egalitarian" (主张平等的) republic was
founded. Voluminous historical evidence indicates that, in the mind of the
average colonist, the African was a heathen, he was black, and he was different
in crucial philosophical ways. As time progressed, he was also
increasingly captive, adding to the conception of deviance. The African,
therefore, could be justifiably (and even philanthropically) treated as property
according to the reasoning of slave trader and slave-holders.
Although slaves were treated as Objects, bountiful evidence suggests that
they did not view themselves similarly. There are many published autobiographies
of salves; Afro-American scholars are beginning to know enough about West
African culture to appreciate the existential climate in which the early
captives were raised and which therefore could not be totally destroyed by the
enslavement experience. This was a climate that defined individuality in
collective terms. Individuals were members of a tribe, within which they had
prescribed roles determined by the history of their family within the tribe.
Individuals were inherently a part of the natural elements on which they
depended, and they were actively related to those tribal members who once lived
and to those not yet born. The colonial plantation system, which
was established and into which Africans were thrust did virtually eliminate
tribal affiliations. Individuals were separated from kin: interrelationships
among kin kept together were often transient because of sales. A new
identification with those slaves working and living together in a given place
could satisfy what was undoubtedly a natural tendency to be a member of a group.
New family units became the most important attachments of individual slaves.
Thus, as the system of slavery was gradually institutionalized, West African
affiliation tendencies adapted to it. This exceedingly complex
dual influence is still reflected in black community life, and the double
consciousness of black Americans is the major characteristic of Afro-American
mentality. DuBois articulated this divided consciousness as follows:
The history the American Negro is the history of this strife--this longing
to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and
truer self. In this merging, he wishes neither of the older selves to be
best... Several black political movements have looked upon this
duality as destructively conflictual and have variously urged its
reconciliation. Thus, the integrationists and the black nationalists, to be
crudely general, have both been concerned with resolving the conflict, but in
opposite directions. The author’s argument logically depends upon which of the following assumptions
A．The duality that characterizes the consciousness of modern Black Americans is so deeply rooted that it cannot be eliminated by political action. B．African captives who were brought to North America had learned a basic orientation toward the world which remained with them. C．At the time of the beginning of the United States, white Americans were not aware of the contradiction between the notion of equality and the institution of slavery. D．The influence of the slavery experience on the West Africans was more powerful than the memory of West African attitudes.