Black Skin White Masks - Frantz Fanon

Hello Readers,

Postcolonial literature is one of the widely discussed and studied discourse in humanities. It covers not only the nuances of postcolonialism, but also touches other disciplines such as sociology, political science, psychoanalysis, foreign affairs and many others.

In this blog we shall see how the idea of color, idea of belongingness of nativity is looked at.

There is also a documentary with the same title.

Frantz Fanon was a French psychiatrist and postcolonial thinker. His famous works are Wretched of the Earth, Black Skin, White Masks. Much of his works has non-fiction genre.

Fanon, in Black Skin White Masks, has brought out the utmost juxtaposition of human mindset. Desire of being white, desire of being superior and upfront. It is the question of race, desire and identity. The subjugation of blacks by European thought.

Language dynamics plays a significant role in colonial studies. A colonizer needs access to language of the colonized in order to rule of establish the clan. Similarly, any colonized subject would acquire the language of the colonizer to liberate the subject from post-coloniality. English, for example, was widely spoken language in British India. Britishers were the colonizers and Indians were the colonized subject. M.K. Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel and many leaders went to England and learned the English language first. After qualifying in the Bar of Law exam, they came back to India and raised voice against the colonizers.

Creole is the dialect which was spoken by Martinicans, as Fanon mentions as follows,

The middle class in the Antilles never speak Creole except to their servants. In school the children of Martinique are taught to scorn the dialect. One avoids Creolisms. Some families completely forbid the use of Creole, and mothers ridicule their children for speaking it. (Fanon, 10)

Fanon sees the subject of desire as a central to the universal attribute to mankind.

Marrying a white woman was a desire of black men. Marrying a white man was a desire of black women. This attraction towards whiteness is questioned by Fanon. Blacks were having inferiority complex among the whites.

O my body, always make me a man who questions ! (Fanon, 220)

This prayer has significance of asking question to the foundations of colonialism and raising voice against racism.

Reference:

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. PDF, Pluto Press, 1986.

Lee, Christopher J. "CHRISTOPHER J. LEE - Fanon's Project Remains Unfinished—and Still Relevant Today | The Elephant." The Elephant, 16 May 2020, www.theelephant.info/op-eds/2020/05/15/fanons-project-remains-unfinished-and-still-relevant-today/.