Black Skin By Frantz Fanon Analysis

Summary and Reflection Paper on “Black Skin, White Masks, of Frantz Fanon”

Submitted to: Professor Dr. Samuel Pang Submitted by: Zam Ngaih Lun

Global Institute of Theology

Yonsei University Date: 22. 11. 2017

Frantz Omar Fanon was born in 20th July, 1925 at Martinique, and he was died in 6th December 1961- Mary land (U.S). He was Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist, philosopher, and the French writer, his works are prominent in the study of post-colonial studies and Marxism. In this book Black skin, white mask is a sociological study of psychology of racism and dehumanization inherent to colonial domination. Fanon describes that the black people experience in the white world, and in partly he also mentions

The language of colonizer is superior that the language of the colonized people. Their language was as inferior. Colonizers language was recognized as intelligent language, language of power. The writers mentions a theory that “Negros are thought to be evolving from monkey into man.”

Consequently in France, Negros who lived all their life in the country side is treated as a demigod and those coming from the city are deified. On the other hand the black man evolved in France for a while obtains radical transformation but the natives of France in the metropolitan still expect to hear the natives communicate in Creole to the Negros. They thought that ‘the art of mastering in French language making the Negros of Antilles whiter than their real appearance thus obtaining higher status’

They want to become a lover of white man. Because of their blackness they feel inferior for example they said “I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia”. The dominant colonial culture, he argued that the black skin of Negro was identified as impurity. The colonial women shown up their identities with their whiteness and attempting to avoid black men and to get close to the white men. Fanon uses psychoanalytic theory to explain the feeling of interdependency and unfitness that black people experienced in white world. That they divided self-perception of the black woman and man has lost their native cultural origin. It is because of black woman feels inferior that she aspires to gain their entry into white world.

For Fanon, it is important to recognize that Black people do not indeed feel they are inferior. But, this feeling is created by racism of the superior of the white people. When Black people take on their oppression as a personal failure, this is when an inferiority complex arises. It is also continually boosted in daily life in racist societies, because Black people are constantly reminded they are Black first and people second. In other words, people are reduced to their race, instead of seen as unique human