Mail.(Letter to the Editor)(Correction Notice)

Mail

Natalie Portman Responds

I am writing to offer my most sincere apologies for not being as articulate as I could have been regarding my thoughts on W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folks ["Natalie Would," August]. My lack of eloquence, combined with my words being taken out of context, led to the printing of a statement of mine that I found personally offensive: "I'm not black, but I know what it feels like." If I had spoken more articulately, I might have conveyed what I truly feel: I could never know what it is like to be a black American. I could only imagine what it's like to be anything other than what my own experience has been. The "it" I was referring to when I said, "I know what it feels like," was not intended to signify that I know "how black people feel," but rather that I know what DuBois's concept of double-consciousness feels like, in variation. Had my quote included what I actually said preceding that statement, perhaps my meaning would have been clearer. DuBois writes about how black Americans often view the world simultaneously from other people's points of view (from the outside in), as well as from their own points of view (from the inside out), because they are so aware of how they are scrutinized by other people and prejudices others might have against them. Of course, the prejudices people might have against me are extremely different than those they might have against black people as a group, to say the least. There is absolutely no comparison in the content of the double-consciousness described by DuBois and the one that I, as an actress in the public eye, experience. I merely related to the overall framework of his idea -- what it feels like to always see yourself from within and from ...