Assimilation Vs Identity:A Study on Amiri Baraka’s (Leroi Jones) Dutchman

The modern myth of black assimilation has been practiced by many of the black middle class in America. It consists of adopting the values and norms of the oppressing society through white education. The black people continually strive to accomplish what can never be achieved-to be completely accepted into the white society. They are conscious of their positions and also the contradictions inherent in it. On the one hand, they try to accept America on white terms and on the other hand to accept their own identity. W.E.B. Dubois defined this problem most succinctly over three quarters of a century ago as the crisis of “double consciousness”.