According to Dubois, the Negro problem in America’s south leaves African American slaves with a split conscience. While the black male worked out in the field, he was quiet and served his master dutifully, but in his mind he was rebellious. The constant hiding of true emotions made them constant liars, leaving their soul split. A conscience and a soul, I feel, are closely related, because if you have a stronger conscience, your soul is pure, and unmarred by guilt. Those with weaker consciences are more susceptible to committing some sin, and as one becomes more comfortable with the sin or action, the soul is altered or damaged.
Dubois explains that the constant need to hide ones emotions puts up a barrier between the one hiding their emotions and the one being lied to. A veil is placed between them, and this constant lie that Negroes were forced to tell each day slowly damaged and altered their souls. Where the average person would fight back at acts committed regularly by white masters, the Negroes were forced to check their anger.
The thing is, not every soul is the same, and thus, different people would inevitably be affected in different ways. Some may become hopeless, falling into a dull schedule laid out for them by their masters, whereas others would do the work given to them, but rebel in their minds. Some may build up hatred in their hearts towards their white masters, twisting their soul into a knot of scheming anger, rather then what a normal soul should be like.
Either the Negroes’ spirit was “broken” and their soul left in the middle, or the soul was contorted into the loathing that they kept off their faces.
