Black Skin, White Masks

An essential analysis of the psychosocial nature of blackness in the context of colonialism. Fanon is perhaps only hampered by his reliance on case studies representing the extremes of psychological conditions to explain and justify his more universal arguments about reactions to blackness. However, the phenomenological nature of the book allows for narrative to lend powerful support to the central thesis of double consciousness and tension that exists in the world he inhabits. It is impossible to ignore the lived experience of the Antillean as presented by Fanon. It calls us to challenge our perceptions, recognize our failings, and most importantly to allow a dialectical process to reimagine our relation to the other.

This is a classic book I had never read until now.
As a cultural work, I was compelled and what I found inside was a mixed bag. Clearly, some of the content, the psychology, the philosophy, certain particular examples came across as pretty dated and of its time. Oh, and there is plenty of misogany and overgeneralizations BUT what resonated with me was the way he articulates the feelings and subjective experiences of black people and/or the colonized.
The trauma. It all seems sadly relevant...still.
And this was written in 1952.

Its not just about black people either.
Anyone who feels like an outsider of one kind or another can tap into these feelings and find them inspiring. To say nothing of Fanon himself, who had a very interesting life.

I really enjoyed Fanon’s psychoanalytical take on racism and postcolonialism, even though it did sometimes delve into the problematic. One shocking passage was when Fanon shares how contemporaneous scientific theory postulated that “the black man is inherently inferior…[because he is] the missing link between ape and man” (13). I had forgotten how emerging Darwinian science attempted to justify white superiority and authority by using evolution to explain racial differences (and conveniently always elevating the White to the superior evolutionary pedestal). In spite of Fanon’s problematic moments, which we can perhaps forgive/understand him for due to his historical time period’s beliefs, Fanon’s analysis of how Black show more people have internalized racism as a defense mechanism is an interesting psychological approach to racism. In addition to the external suffering racism causes, we often forget how racism becomes internalized by both Whites and Blacks, and while White people can successfully navigate a society biased toward their skin color, Black people must navigate both the explicit and implicit racial bias and their mind’s desire to put on a “white mask” and thus allow that racist society’s structure to continue (4). I think this is why Kehinde Andrews in his book "Back to Black" so strongly urges for a complete revolutionary response to Western imperialist systems: not only will a revolutionary change of Western societies stop racist systems, but it will also to protect the physical and mental health of Blacks in the Diaspora, especially since the system not only attacks Black bodies (i.e. police brutality) but also Black minds (i.e. through internalizing racism).

I've often heard that Black Americans feel that they have to “act white” around White people in business settings so that they will be more respected (i.e. respected in a white-dominated community that views “whiteness” as respectability). This line of thinking connects to Fanon’s point that the fracturing of black identity “is a direct consequence of the colonial undertaking” (1) and that we must “liberate the black man from himself” (xii). I think this liberation involves “endlessly creating yourself” as Fanon concludes (204). He desires that “the subjugation of man by man—that is to say, of me by another—cease. May I be allowed to discover and desire man wherever he may be” (206). I think, for Fanon, if Black people “endlessly create” themselves, they are actively fighting the racist society that attempts to conform them into whiteness and force Black people to wear a white mask. Fanon explains, “It is through self-consciousness and renunciation, through a permanent tension of his freedom, that man can create the ideal conditions of existence” (206). I think Fanon advocates for self-actualization, and this self-actualization involves Black people embracing (and perhaps even celebrating, as Aimé Césaire does in the Négritude movement) their blackness and seeing it as a part of their identities, while also developing all other aspects of their identities. I agree with Fanon that the first step in resisting a racist society is freeing one’s self from society’s racist shackles through self-realization, which I interpret to be “endlessly creating yourself.” However, I think Andrews corrects and extends Fanon’s argument: while Fanon does not explicitly advocate for a revolutionary change in Western systems, Andrews underscores that one must radically overthrow a racist society if that society’s foundations are also racist…there is no way to resuscitate this broken system. show less

Fanon flayed me. His rich and concise prose, arguments, have considerable breadth for such a slim volume. His points about the culpability of all in a society for the atrocities those in power inflict, is moving, damning, and necessary.

---

Returning to Black Skin, White Masks during 2020 only underscored my earlier points. I appreciated Fanon's rhetorical experimentation more this go around, his attempt (as writing is always an attempt) at rendering the phenomenological experience as a Black man in text was confounding and provocative.

Fanon is probably a better and more likeable human being than many of his French existentialist contemporaries, with whom he is associated (I am thinking of Sartre specifically). However, the fact this book was written, published, and remains lauded and in print, and that its author went on to such enduring prominence, is a potent expression of what befell the Western world after the disastrous wars of the first half of the twentieth century. Granted that Fanon might have been an okay person, this is a muddled book that for the most part offers either conceits or platitudes. If it has any discernible central thesis at all, Fanon wants a complete break with the past so that a new reciprocally validating humanity can be built by "always show more asking questions". Implicit throughout is an explicitly denied prejudice that it would be effortless for the white man to do this, and that he is morally obliged to. show less

Black Skin, White Masks offers an acute analysis of the formation of black identity in a white world. The central phenomenon Fanon attempts to scrutinise is: how the Martiniquan society (and by extension every colonised peoples) has come to abhor anything relating to its identity (e.g. skin color and language) as a result of the hegemony embodied by the 'western values' that demonised the 'other', i.e the colonised. In this regard, while "white" would be equivalent to morality, rationality, goodness and civilisation, "black" would symbolise evil, nature, savagery and the supernatural.

在非洲，可以輕易地在膚色上，去判斷出統治階層與被統治階層，是兩種不同的族群（或種族）。但若是統治階層與被統治階層，無論是膚色、外貌，甚至生活習慣，都相當類似的時候呢？我們會說這不是殖民主義？或者會說，這需要不同的後殖民理論？