Black Skin, White Masks 
by 

Frantz Fanon

 

A Psychology of Disalienation

Nominally a psychiatrist’s assessment of racial hatred from the point of view of the colonial residents of the island of Martinique, Black Skins, White Masks is actually a phenomenology of racism as relevant today as it was when it was published more than 70 years ago. What starts as an analysis of the effects of racism on its victims, blossoms into a poetic expression of being black, including the psychological progression through the various stages of escape from the numerous traps of self-image created by a racist society.

What holds the book together is a crucial recognition, namely that the source of racism and its operational mechanism is language. There is no question but that, as the author says, “White civilization and European culture have imposed an existential deviation on the black man.” But his analysis does not begin with a history of colonialism or slavery or their physical horrors. Rather language is his primary focus as the existential ‘operator’: “We attach a fundamental importance to the phenomenon of language and consequently consider the study of language essential for providing us with one element in understanding the black man’s dimension of being-for-others, it being understood that to speak is to exist absolutely for the other.”

It is the imposition of European languages on colonised people which establishes the abiding ground rules of racism. Inability to speak these languages is a mark of inferiority, even among those upon whom they are imposed: “the more the black Antillean assimilates the French language, the whiter he gets—i.e., the closer he comes to becoming a true human being.” This is the hook which will never break free. Those colonials who do manage to master the master-language will even then be identified as the ‘remarkable black man who can speak French like a Parisian.’ 

Such success also has the additional advantage of fragmenting the colonial community into a hierarchy. Since there is obviously “mutual supports between language and the community,” the differential language skills within the colonised community provoke mutual antagonisms beneficial to the colonisers.

Fanon points out the generality of this phenomenon. It is not restricted to colonial empire: “Colonial racism is no different from other racisms.” The racism of America uses precisely the same linguistic tactics as that of France in Algeria and Madagascar and the Boers in South Africa.

Control of language gives the racist power over reason itself. This has the effect of alienating its victims in a particularly subtle but profoundly cruel way. The victim may be made to feel inferior physically, but he still has his mind. Nevertheless, “for a man armed solely with reason, there is nothing more neurotic than contact with the irrational.” 

So the more the victim of racism recognises the irrationality of his environment, the more likely he is to become mentally unstable. Fanon captures the feeling rather dramatically: “The white man is all around me; up above the sky is tearing at its navel; the earth crunches under my feet and sings white, white. All this whiteness burns me to a cinder.”

Fanon also recognises the role of religion, particularly the Christian religion, in promoting racism. He gives a personal anecdote to make the point: “Recently, one of these good French folks declared on a train where I was sitting: ‘May the truly French values live on and the race will be safeguarded! At the present time we need a national union. No more internal strife! A united front against the foreigners [and turning to me] whoever they may be.’” Values, our values, our traditional values are coded terms. They allow the racist to blame the victim for the racist abuse they suffer. After all, don’t they have an essential moral and spiritual defect? And isn’t this shown by their inability to profess religion properly?

Fanon’s summary of the psychological ‘system’ of racism could have been written by Janes Baldwin: “The black man wants to be white. The white man is desperately trying to achieve the rank of man.”