Black Skin, White Masks
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Black Skin, White Masks'' () is a 1952 book by philosopher-psychiatrist
Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the ...
. The book is written in the style of
autoethnography Autoethnography is a form of ethnographic research in which a researcher connects personal experiences to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. It is considered a form of qualitative and arts-based research. Autoeth ...
, with Fanon sharing his own experiences while presenting a historical critique of the effects of
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
and
dehumanization upright=1.2, link=Warsaw Ghetto boy, In his report on the suppression of the Nazi camps as "bandits". file:Abu Ghraib 68.jpg, Lynndie England pulling a leash attached to the neck of a prisoner in Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, Abu Ghr ...
, inherent in situations of colonial domination, on the human psyche. The violent overtones in Fanon can be broken down into two categories: The violence of the
colonizer 475px, Map of the year each country achieved List of sovereign states by date of formation, independence. Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples f ...
through annihilation of body, psyche, culture, along with the demarcation of space, and secondly, the violence of the
colonized 475px, Map of the year each country achieved List of sovereign states by date of formation, independence. Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples f ...
as an attempt to retrieve dignity, sense of self, and history through anti-colonial struggle.


Summary

''Black Skin, White Masks'' applies a historical critique on the complex ways in which identity, particularly Blackness, is constructed and produced. Fanon confronts complex formations of colonized psychic constructions of Blackness. He applies
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...
to explain the feelings of dependency and inadequacy that black people experience. Fanon portrays white people as having a deep-seated fear of educated blacks. He argues that, no matter how assimilated to white norms a black person may become, whites will always exercise a sense of 'inferiority.' This way of thinking was designed to keep 'Blacks' stuck in an "inferior status within a colonial order." The divided self-perception of a Black Subject who has lost his native cultural origin, and embraced the culture of the Mother Country, produces an inferior sense of self in the "Black Man." The Black Man will try to appropriate and imitate the culture of the
colonizer 475px, Map of the year each country achieved List of sovereign states by date of formation, independence. Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples f ...
—donning the "white masks" of the book's title. Such behavior is more readily evident in upwardly mobile and educated Black people who can afford to acquire
status symbol A status symbol is a visible, external symbol of one's social position, an indicator of Wealth, economic or social status. Many luxury goods are often considered status symbols. ''Status symbol'' is also a Sociology, sociological term – as part ...
s within the world of the colonial
ecumene In ancient Greece, the term ''oecumene'' ( UK) or ''ecumene'' ( US; ) denoted the known, inhabited, or habitable world. In Greek antiquity, it referred to the portions of the world known to Hellenic geographers, subdivided into three continents ...
, such as an education abroad and mastery of the language of the colonizer. Based upon, and derived from, the concepts of the
collective unconscious In psychology, the collective unconsciousness () is a term coined by Carl Jung, which is the belief that the unconscious mind comprises the instincts of Jungian archetypes—innate symbols understood from birth in all humans. Jung considered th ...
and collective catharsis, the sixth chapter, "The Negro and Psychopathology", presents brief, deep psychoanalyses of colonized black people, and thus proposes the inability of black people to fit into the norms (social, cultural, racial) established by white society (the colonizer). That "a normal Negro child, having grown up in a normal Negro family, will become abnormal on the slightest contact of the white world." That, in a white society, such an extreme psychological response originates from the unconscious and unnatural training of black people, from early childhood, to associate "blackness" with "wrongness". That such unconscious mental training of black children is effected with
comic books A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...
and
cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...
, which are cultural media that instil and affix, in the mind of the white child, the society's cultural representations of black people as villains. Moreover, when black children are exposed to such images of villainous black people, the children will experience a psychopathology (psychological trauma), which mental wound becomes inherent to their individual, behavioral make-up: a part of the child's personality. That the early-life suffering of said psychopathology – black skin associated with villainy – creates a collective nature among the men and women who were reduced to colonized populations. In ''Black Skin, White Masks,'' Fanon speaks about Mayotte Capécia and Abdoulaye Sadji, writers contemporary with him. Fanon describes '' I Am a Martinican Woman'' and '' Nini, mulâtresse du Sénégal'' as examples of some of the cultural damage of colonization. Capécia, a black woman, wants to marry a white man despite the social and cultural boundaries in place. Fanon believes Capécia is desperate for white approval. The colonial culture has left an impression on black Martinican women to believe that "whiteness is virtue and beauty" and that they can in turn "save their race by making themselves whiter." In section B of chapter seven, on "The Black Man and Hegel", Fanon examines the dialectics of the philosopher and conveys his suspicions of the black man being under the rubric of a philosophy modeled after whiteness. According to Fanon there is a conflict that takes form internally as self-deprecation because of this white philosophical affirmation.


Reception

First published in French in Paris, ''Black Skin, White Masks'' (1952) did not attract much mainstream attention in English-speaking countries. It explored the effects of colonialism and imposing a servile psychology upon the colonized man, woman, and child. The adverse effects were assessed as part of the post-colonial cultural
legacy Legacy or Legacies may refer to: Arts and entertainment Comics * " Batman: Legacy", a 1996 Batman storyline * '' DC Universe: Legacies'', a comic book series from DC Comics * ''Legacy'', a 1999 quarterly series from Antarctic Press * ''Legacy ...
of the Mother Country to former imperial subjects. The book was translated into English by Charles L. Markmann, and published by Grove Press in 1967. In 2008 Grove published a new translation of the book, by Richard Philcox, which, it claims, "updates its language for a new generation of readers" (although opinions are mixed as to which translation is preferable). Together with Fanon's ''The Wretched of the Earth'', it received wider attention during cultural upheavals starting in the 1960s, in the United States as well as former colonial countries in the Caribbean and Africa. It is considered an important
anti-colonial Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholars of decolon ...
,
anti-racist Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and delibera ...
, and Afro-pessimist work in Anglophone countries. But in Francophone countries, the book is ranked as a relatively minor Fanon work in comparison to his later, more radical works. The topic is explicitly connected culturally to the societies of the ethnic African and other peoples of color living within the
French Colonial Empire The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas Colony, colonies, protectorates, and League of Nations mandate, mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "Firs ...
(1534–1980). The psychological and psychiatric insights remain valid, especially as applied by peoples of diverse colonial and imperial histories, such as the
Palestinians Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenou ...
and
Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...
in the Middle East, the
Tamils The Tamils ( ), also known by their endonym Tamilar, are a Dravidian peoples, Dravidian ethnic group who natively speak the Tamil language and trace their ancestry mainly to the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Tamil language is o ...
in Sri Lanka, the
African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
in the US, and
Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans (), most commonly known as Puerto Rico#Etymology, Boricuas, but also occasionally referred to as '':es:Anexo:Gentilicios de Puerto Rico#Lista general, Borinqueños'', '':es:Anexo:Gentilicios de Puerto Rico#Lista general, Borincan ...
, in their contemporary struggles for cultural and political autonomy. Contemporary theorists of
nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...
and of anti-colonialism, of liberation theology and of
cultural studies Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...
, have preferred Frantz Fanon's later culturally and politically
revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...
ary works, such as ''
The Wretched of the Earth ''The Wretched of the Earth'' () is a 1961 book by the philosopher Frantz Fanon, in which the author provides a psychoanalysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation, and discusses the broader social, cul ...
'' (1962). Nevertheless, ''Black Skin, White Masks'' continues to generate debate. In 2015, leading African studies scholar Lewis R. Gordon published a book titled ''What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought.'' Anthony Elliott writes that ''Black Skin, White Masks'' is a seminal work.


Freedom and Blackness

''Freedom and Blackness'', according to Sidney Mintz, is not a culture deliberately set upon breaking "cultural rules and norms"; instead, its focus is to be free. Free to express themselves in a way that is authentic to the Caribbean culture, and free to be able to live free from those who were once called master. A culture separate from that of their European colonizers yet still be recognized on an equal level. This movement of freedom and blackness requires knowledge on multiple interdisciplinary studies, such as politics for emancipation, racial inequalities and post-emancipation, all within the context of a post-colonial world. Colonization, instead of helping countries, has destroyed culture all over the world. Colonization has enforced the thought process of "
white supremacy White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...
" and has suppressed/eradicated cultures all over the Caribbean. An example of this, according to Fanon, is the Malagasy culture. He explains that the Malagasy culture has been colonized so much that if they were to be liberated, they would be left with nothing. Fanon regulates imagination of Blackness by his willingness to merely "envisage" through a rubric of epidermalization, which is yet another form of enclosure.


Body Schema

Fanon reworks phenomenologist
Maurice Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. ( ; ; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interes ...
's concept of the "body schema" in the fifth chapter of ''Black Skin, White Masks''. For Merleau-Ponty, the body schema refers to the set of tendencies or habits a body acquires in its interaction with the world, typically operating at a preconscious or nonconscious level. He famously claims that "acquiring a habit sthe reworking and renewal of the body schema." However, Fanon challenges this understanding by arguing that the body schema is not simply shaped by habitual bodily action but by an "implicit knowledge" of the world that is inherently social and racialized. For Fanon, the formation of one's bodily awareness is from the outset marked by sociogenesis, that is, by social and historical forces. On this basis, Fanon introduces the concept of the ''historical racial schema'', emphasizing that Black individuals acquire their body schema under the white gaze within a white-dominated world. The racist discourses and practices that saturate this world shape how Black bodies are perceived and lived. This schema offers an account of how the lived experience of Blackness, always positioned as inferior and cast as a phobic or hated object—is inseparable from the long history of
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
,
slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
, and colonialism. These historical processes are woven into the very conditions of Black being-in-the-world, such that the experience of Black existence is haunted by a structural and inescapable alienation. From this, Fanon develops a third schema: the ''epidermal racial schema''. This concept articulates the lived experience of self-alienation specific to Black existence. In this schema, the Black subject is forced to adopt the white
gaze In critical theory, philosophy, sociology, and psychoanalysis, the gaze (French: ''le regard''), in the figurative sense, is an individual's (or a group's) awareness and perception of other individuals, other groups, or oneself. Since the 20th ...
, perceiving themselves as the object constructed by racist stereotypes. As Fanon writes, "disoriented, incapable of confronting the Other, … I transported myself on that particular day far, very far, from myself and gave myself up as an object" (92). By focusing on the
epidermis The epidermis is the outermost of the three layers that comprise the skin, the inner layers being the dermis and Subcutaneous tissue, hypodermis. The epidermal layer provides a barrier to infection from environmental pathogens and regulates the ...
, the surface of the skin, Fanon highlights how racism is not only discursive but deeply embodied. He implies that any critique of racism that overlooks its phenomenological and
affective Affect, in psychology, is the underlying experience of feeling, emotion, attachment, or mood. It encompasses a wide range of emotional states and can be positive (e.g., happiness, joy, excitement) or negative (e.g., sadness, anger, fear, dis ...
dimensions is ultimately insufficient. Fanon's theorization of the body schema, historical racial schema, and epidermal racial schema has deeply influenced later thinkers in
Black Studies Black studies or Africana studies (with nationally specific terms, such as African American studies and Black Canadian studies), is an interdisciplinary academic field that primarily focuses on the study of the history, culture, and politics of ...
and
critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic field focused on the relationships between Social constructionism, social conceptions of Race and ethnicity in the United States census, race and ethnicity, Law in the United States, social and political ...
. Scholars such as Hortense Spillers,
Fred Moten Fred Moten (born 1962) is an American Culture theory, cultural theorist, poet, and scholar whose work explores critical theory, black studies, and performance studies. Moten is Professor of Performance Studies at New York University and Distingui ...
, Calvin Warren, and Rizvana Bradley have taken up his emphasis on the visceral experience of racial objectification and the body as a site where racism is enacted. The notion of the "epidermal" also inspires Simone Browne's concept of ''digital epidermalization'', which explores how the mechanisms Fanon described continue to operate in contemporary digital surveillance technologies.


Phobogenesis

Phobogenesis is a term derived from
psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior. ...
and psychoanalysis, and is specifically obtained from the concept of the phobic object. This is a thing or person that elicits "irrational feelings of dread, fear, and hate" in a subject, and whose threat is often exaggerated. In the context of race, Fanon postulates that the black person is a phobogenic object, sparking anxiety in the eyes of white subjects. Fanon's definition of phobia is based on that of French psychologist Angelo Hesnard, who defined phobia as a "neurosis characterized by the anxious fear of an object (in the broadest sense of anything outside the individual) or, by extension, of a situation". Thus, black people as a phobogenic object elicit insecurity in white people. Fanon follows Hesnard's definition to assert that this insecurity causes both fear and hatred of the phobogenic object at the same time. Therefore, in Fanon's theory, the white subject finds the black person both revolting and threatening simultaneously. The reaction induced by the phobogenic object is extremely irrational and exaggerated, as is the danger posed by it. The object is attributed "evil intentions and … a malefic power", giving excessive weight to its threat to the white subject. This reaction prioritizes emotion and affect in a manner that "defies all rational thinking", Fanon's words, highlighting that the psychiatric aspect of racial hatred is not clearly or rationally explicable.Fanon, Frantz. Peau Noire, Masques Blancs. Éditions Points, 2015, 235. As described by Fanon,the whole ideology sticks to one principle of perspective (the picture or illusion in one's mind) about something to convey a feeling or attitude.


See also

* Afro-pessimism *
Cultural studies Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...
* Inversion in post-colonial theory *
Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism is a nationalist movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atla ...
*
Post-colonial literature Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries, originating from all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the colonization and subsequent dec ...
*
Post-colonialism Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and thei ...
* '' The Colonizer and the Colonized'' (1965), by
Albert Memmi Albert Memmi (; 15 December 1920 – 22 May 2020) was a French-Tunisian writer and essayist of Tunisian Jewish origins. A prominent intellectual, his nonfiction books and novels explored his complex identity as an anti-imperialist, deeply re ...
* ''
The Wretched of the Earth ''The Wretched of the Earth'' () is a 1961 book by the philosopher Frantz Fanon, in which the author provides a psychoanalysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation, and discusses the broader social, cul ...
'' (1961), by Frantz Fanon * Culture of Martinique


References

{{Authority control 1952 non-fiction books Books by Frantz Fanon Éditions du Seuil books French non-fiction books Sociology books