Because I’ve Read Black Skin, White Masks

I’ve mentioned my history with book clubs more than once. But I’m trying one more time, with #BecauseWe’veRead, because their inaugural choice, Assata An Autobiography was on my TBR list for literally two decades and this was the push I needed to finally pick it up. Their second choice was a book I’d never heard of, Black Skin, White Masks. But I’m working to fill in the gaps in my reading created by Eurocentric Jesuit education, so I continued with the Because We’ve Read curriculum.

Frantz Fanon

Unfortunately, it was not the win that Assata was. Black Skin, White Masks was written in 1952 by Frantz Fanon, a Martinican with a French education in psychology who lived in Algiers and became involved in the independence movement there until his early death from cancer. This context is the most intriguing thing about the book. Writing from the perspective of a French colonial a full decade before the American civil rights movement, but actively engaged in African liberation, Fanon’s is a voice that modern Americans have never heard before.

The Set Up

The book purports to be an examination of the psychological impacts of colonialism on the oppressed, and to a lesser extent, the oppressor. I believe the central thesis is that the effect is one of self-loathing and an aspiration to become like the oppressor. His conclusion is that this effect is pathological, but there is no point in searching history for proof of value in African civilizations (despite their existence). Instead, Fanon says that we must ignore the past and move forward from the present with a demand for equality based on the inherent humanity of the people alive today. But I’m honestly not quite sure if that’s right, because Fanon’s writing is more lyrical than rational, and he often seems to contradict himself. Even though his logic is often hard to follow, there is no denying the emotional power of his imagery.

{Aside: If you are interested in the history of African civilizations, The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu is a great intro to Africa’s history of literary and scientific thought. Unlike Fanon, I am very interested in learning more about precolonial civilizations of Africa and beg anyone with the knowledge to suggest a reading pathway along those lines.}

The book is not structured as a series of claims that build upon each other, nor is it based on an actual academic study (although he does reference several systematic surveys that he undertook while in France). Instead, each chapter addresses a different aspect of race: language, sexual relations between the races, the dependency complex, the lived experience, and psychopathology. Each chapter reads like an essay, and each of the first few chapters is written in rebuttal to another author’s work – some novels, some nonfiction works of a psychological or sociological bent.

Psychology

Midtwentieth psychology was … not great. Fanon indulges in a lot of psychological hoo haw that doesn’t even make sense. He ascribes a great many behaviors to psychology that could be more simply attributed to social realities. Do black women prefer to partner with white men because they value “whiteness” or because white men have more money and power? Also, since the claim that black women prefer white men is based on a character in a novel (and one senses a few personal rejections of Fanon himself) I question the very premise.

Dealbreakers

The psychobabble also crosses into some deal-breaking territory for me. When Fanon writes:

Basically, isn’t this fear of rape precisely a call for rape?

I’m out. If I hadn’t just DNF’d another book in the same week, this sentence would have been the end of my experience of this book. But two DNF’s in one week would almost have doubled the number of books I’ve ever intentionally not finished. I plugged on, but there was no saving my opinion of this book after that. Pretty much all of Chapter 6 raises the question, “Why are so many headshrinkers such perverts?”

Bombshells

Fanon does occasionally drop some bombshells of earthy truth. These statements are the more powerful for the way they cut through his own BS and their continued timeliness.

The black experience is ambiguous for there is not one Negro – there are many black men.

So obvious, yet so often forgotten when we deal with an entire race of people as a monolithic block.

He also shuts down some of the lame arguments that whites still spout. Take this argument by Mannoni, which is still the defense Democrats use for their own failure to make change:

Racialism is the work of petty officials, small tradesmen and colonials who have toiled much without great success.

Fanon replies:

No. It is because the structure of South Africa is a racist structure.

Mic drop. People today still deny institutional racism, and Fanon was calling it out in 1952. It’s disheartening how little has changed. On the other hand, Fanon spends a lot of time rebutting the attitude that blacks are cannibals. So I guess some progress has been made.

Nearly Right

Despite the limitations of his 1950s vocabulary, Fanon also preaches intersectionality. It’s just too bad that he only includes Jews in his brotherhood while sneering at women and homosexuals.

‘When you hear someone insulting the Jews, pay attention. He is talking about you,’ [said Fanon’s philosophy teacher]. I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant was that the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe.

In Conclusion

Throughout the book, Fanon often cites Aime Cesaire, and these lines are often the best ones. I kind of wish the book club had picked something by Cesaire, instead of Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks was interesting because of the time and place of its creation. But I don’t feel like I really learned anything new from reading it.

I find myself one day in the world and I acknowledge one right for myself: the right to demand human behavior from the other.

And

Both [blacks and whites] have to move away from the inhuman voices of their respective ancestors so that a genuine communication can be born.

Both of these statements are true and profound. But unless you’re an academic, most people would be better served by reading something contemporary and actionable. I’d recommend Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race.

The Details

Title: Black Skin, White Masks

Author: Frantz Fanon (1952)

Translator: Richard Philcox (2008)

Publisher: Grove Press