The poet Paul Laurence Dunbar alluded to this false self when he wrote that “we wear the mask that grins and lies.” All too often, though, the false self black folks donned to make it in the public white-dominated world was not easily shed when they reentered all-black private settings. The reliance on lies, subterfuge, and manipulation used to get by in the world outside the home often became the standard of behavior in the home. Importantly, many of the survival strategies black people learned which enabled them to cope with life in a racist culture were not positive skills when applied to
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