题目内容
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.
Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the passage?
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