Black Skin White Masks

 Thinking Activity

Hello Readers !

  Welcome to my blog, here i am going refer about one book "Black Skin White Masks" by Frantz Fanon ,this is also a part of  our M.A. Syllabus of Postcolonial Literature, and for more understanding we have an expert lecture of Pro.Balaji Rangnathan From Gandhinagar. so here i would like to mention some key points or my understanding about this book.

# Frantz Fanon

 

   Frantz Omar Fanon , also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a Frencg West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher from the French colony of martinique. His works have become influencial in the fields of post-colonial studies of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism.

# Black Skin, White Masks :

     Black Skin, White Masks is a 1952 book by Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist and intellectual from Martinique. The book is written in the style of auto-theory, in which Fanon shares his own experiences while presenting a historical critique of the effects of racism and dehumanization, on the human psyche. There isa double process that is economic and internalized through the epidermalization of inferiority. The violent overtones in Fanon can be broken down into two categories: The violence of the colonizer through annihilation of body, psyche, culture, along with the demarcation of space. And secondly the violence of the colonized as an attempt to retrieve dignity, sense of self, and history through anti-colonial struggle.

 This book is divided into eight chapter:

Chapter 1 : “The Black Man and Language”

Chapter 2 : “The Woman of Colour and the White Man”

Chapter 3 : “The Man of Colour and the White Woman”

Chapter 4 : “The So-Called Dependency Complex of the Colonized”

Chapter 5 : “The Lived Experience of the Black Man”

Chapter 6 : “The Black Man and Psychopathology”

Chapter 7 : “The Black Man and Recognition”

Chapter 8 : “By Way of Conclusion”

Fanon grew up in Martinque, an island in the Caribbean ruled by France. The capital of France, Paris, was the metropole, the centre of the empire. They all spoke in perfect French, But most black people in Martinique did not: they spoke creole,a dialect of French noted for its swallowed's. here they saw french.

we can see that how this white and Black are portrayed in literature in different ways. we can find out the controversy of Black and White. here christianity- Whiteness portrays as googness, while Jew - Black portrayed as Evil. here reader can find out the conflict between christian v/s Jew. At some extent writer has described christianity as a superior and dark side of christianity has been presented. He portrayed Jew in a negative connotation.

Black Skin White Mask is a sociological study of the psychology of racism and dehumanizatin inherent to colonial domination. Fanon describes that Black people experience in the White world Fanon tails about, self-perception of the Black Subject who has lost his native cultural origin, and embraced the culture of the Mother Country. He also talks about the inferiority complex in the mind of the Black subject.

The very first chapter deals with the language of White people is in centre, and Language of Black people is in periphery. Black people have to learn the language of White people. Language construct the idea of Civilized or uncivilized. If you do not learn the white man's language perfectly, you are unintelligent. Yet if you do learn it perfectly, you have washed your brain in their universe of racist ideas. That if a black person does not learn the White man's language perfectly, he is unintelligent. Yet if he does tern it perfectly, he has washed his brain in the world of racial Ideology. It shows that language of White people is in power position and language of Black people has lesser importance.

In the second chapter has show the idea of blackness, the mind set of people is like this " I loved him because he had blue eyes, blond hair, and a light skin", The Mulato, a kind of a race which is not black and white.

The effect of white people also touched to the society. Black Woman also wished the White Skin which White woman has. How desire of "WHITENESS" is more in the Black woman. The colonized women look down on their own. Race and deep down want to be white.

In the third chapter Fanon talks about the condition of Block men. He says that these men want to be white too. That people of color have a deep desire for white rule, so those who oppose it to do not have a secure sense of self that they have a chip on their shoulder.

In the forth chapter writer argues against Fanon's view that people of color have a deep desire for white rule, that those who oppose it to do not have a secure sense of self that they have a chip on their shoulder. From this chapter, here it's clearly shows that, Uppity Negroes and white saviors all come from the need of white people to feel that their power in society is good and not racist.

In the fifth chapter, Fanon argues about his own fact of Blackness and his struggle he endured such the psychologically alientaly effects of colonialism and racism. Fanon was a Martinican psychiatrist but in the White society, " He is seen not as Dr. Fanon but as Black Fanon man" . In this racist society, Fanon argues, Black people "experience being through others".

In sixth chapter writer ask question to reader that, Why should peoplefear black? Question asked here. Part it has to do with white men's pepressed homosexuality and their strange hang-ups about black men's penises. more generally, black men are viewed as a body, which makes them seem like mindless, violent sexual, animal beings. Add to that all the bad meanings that the word "black" had even before Europeans set foot in black Africa.

In the very last of his work, Fanon applies Hegel's Master- slave dialectic. The 'Hegelian dialectic' offers, Fanon argues, an explanation of what distinguishes "human reality" from "natural reality".

Thank you.....