Frantz Fanon Racism And Culture Analysis

Racism is a facet of human society, and an obvious one at that, as Frantz Fanon argues in his piece Racism and Culture. Fanon argues that racism is not something that can be ignored or written off, as it is quite dominant in the culture of any society that enforces it. Racism, Fanon states, is not a character of an individual who feeds into racist beliefs, and is not something to be justified or excused of. It is an unexcusable social construct, created when a group of individuals feels they are in some way superior to another, a feeling frequently brought out by a technological development or advancement of some sort. Racism is also usually preceded by an economical oppression or differentiation of the group of people to be singled out. When

Haney López in his piece The Social Construction of Race. López also argues that race is socially constructed, formed in a process he refers to as “racial fabrication.” López explains that racial groups are constructed in relationship to each other, that racial groups result from varying interactions and beliefs, interactions and beliefs that result in prejudices and, ultimately, in racial boundaries and constructs. Similar to Fanon, López believes that race has a lot of power in a society, power that Fanon believes shapes and alters a culture, and power that López believes is enforced and further shaped by the government and various law enforcement groups. López further creates an argument that aligns with Fanon’s, stating that race helps to create other relations aside from racial ones, which points to López agreeing that race infiltrates and affects not only the people within the immediate society, but the cultural legacies that a society creates. López also asserts that race cannot be excused, just as Fanon does, as a humanistic trait or as something naturally occurring, as López argues that “humans rather than abstract social forces produce races.” This line sound eerily similar to Fanon’s assertion that race cannot be excused as a “quirk,” and that race is not an “accidental discovery.” However, while Fanon and López seem largely in agreement about the origins and

He forms the idea that racism can be overcome when society learns to come together and accept variants of culture and expression, when the constructs that the society has set are broken. He believes that this must begin with the oppressed group rising up to regain their culture and beliefs, fighting against the constructed racial groups. Fanon believes that this action would make racist arguments and beliefs seem less plausible as the oppressed emphasize the problems of racial boundaries and the necessity to create a unified society. In contrast, López fears that an uprising against these racial structures may cause the boundaries to only become more defined and strengthen the division. He ponders potential success of resistance, but ultimately admonishes an attempt to resist the constructs placed by society, saying that the uprising of the oppressed and the reignition of their culture could potentially lead to stalled progress, or even a move in the other direction, more apparent racial divides. In this way, Fanon and López differ greatly, as Fanon’s main goal is to define racism’s origins and role in society’s culture, and then create a call to action by concluding his piece with the idea that society can and should be unified, and that the oppressed should make a point of working to remove the racial boundaries in place. López begins his piece much the same way, attempting to define the origin of racism