The Growth of Black Intellectual and the School Education in A Quantum Life

This article attempts to examine the effects of Du Bois’ “Double-Consciousness” and American educational systems on African-American man by analyzing Hakeem Oluseyi’s A Quantum Life. Through this African-American physicist’s autobiography, we could specifically learn about life of poverty and the violence, along with dissolution of family which he had to go through. Racism in American society is ubiquitous and has detrimental effect on black people’s life. Du Bois has explained how African Americans suffer from “Double-Consciousness,” inward “twoness,” experienced by African-Americans in a white-dominated society. Considering that human’s identity forms at the junction of mutual interaction with others, Du Bois’ “Double-Consciousness” could be regarded as the condition of existence not only of African-Americans but of the humanity as a whole. However, African American’s “Double-Consciousness” is problematic in that the norms in their society have a deadly effect on them. The institutional education helped Hakeem to overcome self-loathing or sense of skepticism and become a physicist. The normative cultural assets passed down by white elites at his school provided Hakeem with the opportunity to work and study at the best physics educational institutions. Through Hakeem’s story, we can confirm that black people in the United States need special support, both tangible and intangible, to overcome the detrimental effect of racism on them.