Many sociologists including an American sociologist, W.E.B. DuBois had written many books one of them is “strange meaning of being black” the title itself sings the summary of the book, the book highlights the discriminated life of the people with dull colour. He also explained and put forward a theory explaining the color line.
He had also written a book named “The Souls of Black Folk” (1903) he announced his preoccupation with the “strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century.”
“The strange meaning of being black in America” explained a concept which W.E.B. DuBois defined as the tendency of measuring one’s abilities with the scale of others, i.e. to neglect oneself, underestimate oneself as per the comments and view of others. He emphasized being self-dependent for analyzing and for concluding the remarks on one’s own ability and actions. The reason behind such effort is to make people aware about the fact that, “Only the captain knows the flaws of his ship”, i.e. an individual can only learn about his abilities and his flaws at a place where he gets a chance to analyze himself. There are no mark sheets, no numbers, no ratings which counts one’s progress or claims perfectness of an individual; neither of the five stars can claim the perfectness of an individual nor they can advocate bestness of an individual
Therefore this practice and mentality of always looking at self through the judging eyes of others or remarking one’s soul from the measuring tape scaled by the world are criticized by him. W. E. B. Du Bois had also introduced a new and interesting word, “Double Consciousness”, he also explained the theory and reason behind using and introducing such a word. He used it to describe the intra-group conflicting demands and expectations of a society, from an individual; these demands and expectations of beloved ones force an individual to divide his mentality.
Besides his great writings such as “strange meaning of being black” and such writings which highlights the intermixing of racial groups, he coined the term and also wrote about the term, ” colour line”; he explained the line as the limits of a dark coloured individual, such restrictions are considered as the respect of whites. These limits put no restrictions on the whites. He explained the barriers which are supported by customs. He highlights the un-noticed and abstract laws which separates nonwhites from whites; for example:- non-white shall either do not do any work or if they do, they shall have to make their contribution in laborious work; they will be paid for their hard work but traits of respect were null in complete payment also.
The color line was originated with the colonial expansion, in every part of the world. In India also traits of such lines were visible; first, the lines were light and thereafter gradually became darker with the time.
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