Book Review Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks (Chapters 2 and 3, pages 41 - 82).

STUDENT NAME: ID NUMBER: COURSE NAME & CODE:

Karen A. Lloyd 607005279 Philosophical Foundations of Slavery and Anti-Slavery Resistance GT20M Department of Government Dr. Clinton Hutton

DEPARTMENT: LECTURER:

TUTORIAL DAY & TIME:

Wednesdays 1-2pm

Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks essentially deals with how colonisation affects the subjugated people and how it often causes them to idolize their oppressors while simultaneously distancing themselves from their own identity, roots and culture. That is, the subjugated peoples develop an inferiority complex that informs their identity. Fanon, writing in the 1960's in the context of Martinique and France, was breaking new ground and is quite insightful in dissecting how colonialism, racism and self-denial has psychologically affected colonised peoples. Fanon's aims of analysing and dissecting the state of black people is to find solutions. He asserts in the introduction that, "I believe that the fact of the juxtaposition of the white and black races has created a massive psychoexistential complex. I hope by analyzing it, to destroy it" (Fanon 1967: 12). Fanon is therefore not simply stating a problem, as many scholars do, but goes beyond this and actively sought to come with solutions and thereby effecting change. For the purposes of this paper, chapters 2 and 3 (page 41 - 82) will be analysed and discussed. These two chapters deal with how and why black women and men choose partners of the colonial class to mate with. That is, the relationships formed between black women and white men as well as those formed between black men and white women. These two chapters are important insofar as this issue has still not been resolved, more than fifty years after Fanon's writings on the matter.

Chapter 2, titled The Woman of Color and the White Man, deals specifically with the case of black women who choose white men (Europeans, specifically) as partners. Early in the chapter, Fanon sets out his aim to "ascertain to what extent authentic love will remain unattainable before one has purged oneself of that feeling of inferiority ... that overcompensation which seems to be the indices of the black Weltanschauung" (Fanon 1967: 42). Fanon is making a claim, therefore, that there is indeed a feeling of inferiority among black women and further to that, that authentic love is unachievable between black women and white men until these feelings of inferiority are resolved. This is to say that these women are not choosing these men purely (if at all) as a result of genuine affection for them and instead it is mired in their ascription of whiteness to goodness, beauty and ultimately to superiority. Fanon utilises a story about a woman, Mayotte Capecia, (and other women, less extensively) who in her biography speaks of her relationship with her white husband. He quotes from her work and analyses her claims in order to show the reader the psychological interpretations of these claims. Fanon argues that Mayotte loves this white man and submits to him in everything. He asserts that, He is her lord. She asks nothing, except a bit of whiteness in her life. When she tries to determine in her own mind whether the man is handsome or ugly, she writes, "All I know is that he had blue eyes, blond hair and a light skin, and that I loved him." It is not difficult to see that a rearrangement of these elements in their proper hierarchy would produce something of this order: "I loved him because he had blue eyes, blond hair, and a light skin." We who come from the Antilles know one thing too well: blue eyes, the people say, frighten the Negro. (Fanon 1967: 42 - 43)

Fanon, in the above quotation, restructures Mayotte's statement about her husband's physical features in order to place the emphasis where he deems it to be. That is, that she loved him because he is white. Fanon does not pull this claim out of thin air and provides evidence that support it. In an extensive quotation provided, Mayotte describes a situation in which she was not socially accepted by her husband's friends and colleagues and how she was treated at a function that she accompanied him to. It is evident that Mayotte is not happy but she stays with him and consistently laments that she loves him. This, for Fanon, is proof that she has psychologically internalized racism and as such will continue to latch onto whiteness as a way of countering her blackness and inferiority. His claims are spot on in that Mayotte clearly suffers from an inferiority complex and when she finds out that her maternal grandmother was. She asserts, "I found her prettier than ever, and cleverer, and more refined... I dreamed about this grandmother who I had never known and who had died because she had loved a colored Martinique. How could a Canadian woman have loved a man of Martinique? ... and I made up my mind that I could never love anyone but a white man, a blue-eyed blonde, a Frenchman." (qtd. in Fanon 1967: 47)

It is thus clear that Mayotte did indeed suffer from an inferiority complex. Her questioning of her grandmother's love for a 'man of Martinique' and her absolute pronouncement that she could never marry a man unless he is white shows the extent to which she is disillusioned with her own race.

Fanon subsequently attributes this kind of thinking to women generally (in the Martinique context). He argues that what is occurring is a sort of 'lactification', in which the black race is lightened. He argues, "... the race must be whitened ; every woman in Martinique knows this, says it, repeats it" (Fanon 1967: 47). He goes on to assert that, "It is always essential to avoid falling back into the pit of niggerwood, and every women in the Antilles, whether in a casual flirtation or in a serious affair, is determined to select the least black of the men" (Fanon 1967: 47) It seems to be a sweeping generalization of sorts but I will return to this in my criticisms. This issue aside, Fanon is making some potent claims about the general female population of Martinique (which I could argue can be applied elsewhere, cautiously) in the time he was writing. Fanon, after successfully dissecting the psychology of these women's actions, concludes that these views behaviours are psychotic. He argues that, "The attitude of the black [wo]man toward the white, or toward his own race, often duplicates almost completely a constellation of delirium, frequently bordering on the region of the pathological" (Fanon 1967: 60). He then finishes the chapter by saying that the cases of Mayotte and Nini are two types of behaviour that brings us to thought and questions whether there are other possibilities and offers that "the poison must be eliminated once and for all" (Fanon 1967: 62). Chapter 2, titled The Man of Color and the White Woman, deals specifically with the case of black men who choose white women as partners. Again, Fanon uses a kind of case study in the story of Jean Veneuse. Veneuse is a black man, born in the Caribbean but who was now living in France. At the core of Veneuse's story is a man who is conflicted about his feelings when

a white woman tells him she loves him. He wants to be like and be on the level of his peers who are white and so he seeks authorization and affirmation. Fanon postulates that, "Above all, he wants to prove to others that he is a man, their equal. But let us not be misled: Jean Veneuse is the man who has to be convinced. It is the roots of his soul, as complicated as that European, that the doubt persists" (Fanon 1967: 66). This is despite being regarded highly among his peers, socially and intellectually. Veneuse's friend, Coulanges, convinces him that he is worthy of the white woman by affirming that he is white for all intents and purposes. "In fact you are like us - you are us. Your thoughts ours. You behave as we behave, as we would behave. You think of yourself - others think of you - as a Negro? Utterly mistaken! You merely look like one. As for everything else, you think as a European. Since European men only love European women, you can hardly marry anyone but a woman of the country where you have always lived, a woman of our good old France, your real and only country." (qtd. in Fanon 1967: 68)

It is evident that Veneuse is suffering from an inferiority complex, which his counterparts play into by suggesting that he is not really black for he has adopted and adapted to the European lifestyle and is now 'enlightened'. As Fanon puts it, "the white man agrees to give his sister to the black - but on one condition: You have nothing in common with real Negroes. You are not black, you are "extremely brown" " (Fanon 1967: 69) 'Real Negroes' in the above refers to the uncivilised and savage blacks in the Antilles. Veneuse is satisfied with this interpretation of his situation and this clearly indicates that he wishes to be the equals of white men to the extent that he perversely accepts that he is one. The fact that he needs validation and permission from white men indicates that he sees them as his superior.

Fanon concludes that black men who choose white women as partners simply do it in order to prove himself to the white man - that he is equal and worthy of a white woman. As far as criticisms go, Fanon has an effective writing style, however he can be verbose at times. This makes it occasionally hard for the reader to comprehend what he is saying and it often takes several reads to fully grasp it. The language can also be a bit tedious but one must take this with the proverbial 'grain of salt' as Fanon originally wrote this as his thesis so it was written for an audience familiar with psycholgical terms. By way of a comparison of the two chapters, Fanon deals with the case of the black woman differently than he does the black man. The women in chapter two, in my opinion, are treated more harshly than Veneuse even though they all essentially did the same thing, admittedly in different contexts. Had Fanon used a gendered perspective I believe more could have been garnered from the women's psychological states. Women were not only inferior to white men in this system but also to black men. The historical context of women is also important as they were concubines for white men and may now see these interracial marriages as a legitimising of a common type of relationship. Fanon generalizes his assertions and this, I find to be problematic. For example, he argues that "It is always essential to avoid falling back into the pit of niggerwood, and every women in the Antilles, whether in a casual flirtation or in a serious affair, is determined to select the least black of the men" (Fanon 1967: 47). This leaves unanswered questions such as: Do ALL women suffer from such a neurosis that there are no legitimate interracial marriages

where people have healthy ideas about themselves and their races and have legitimate affection for their partner? This is left to be seen in these two chapters of Fanon's work. Fanon, in my assessment, also overlooks the psychology of the white men and women in these relationships with black men and women. It would have been interesting to see how whites saw themselves and the blacks they were with. This would have provided more insight into the wholesome characters of these relationships. In my estimation, Black Skin, White Masks is an important text for blacks and whites alike. It exposes the negative and lasting impact of slavery and colonialism on the psyche of those who were involved, as well as the descendents of those who were physically enslaved. Fanon's work is still valid and relevant today in a world of globalisation, where interracial marriages and relationships are on the rise and where black inferiority, among blacks, is still an issue. It is a pioneering work in understanding these relationships and because Fanon deals with the issue in a direct way it is still an authority on this subject.

References Fanon, F. (1967). Black Skin, White Masks. United States of America: Grove Press, Inc.