fanon black white mask

7/25/2019 Fanon Black White Mask

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Fanon’s theories of race, culture and identity, which arecentral to the book as a whole, produce a theoreticalframework which serves to deal with a visionaryarchitecture and its relation to dominant versus therepressed (African) forms of architectural expression.

Black kin, !hite "asks o#ers an accommodatin$ entryinto %uestions of African postcolonial identity. &hecomplex power dynamics that characteri'ed the processof lookin$, perceivin$, and evaluatin$ in an unfavourablemanner , and thus creatin$ the ima$e of an ther*,arepertinently articulated throu$hout

Black kin, !hite "asks. !hen describin$ thepsycholo$ical relationship between Blacks and !hites,Fanon writes+

!hen the e$ro makes contact with the white world, acertain sensiti'in$ action takes place. -f his psychicstructure is weak, one observes a collapse of the e$o. &heblack man stops behavin$ as an actional person. &he$oal of his behavior will be &he ther (in the $uise of thewhite man), for &he ther alone can $ive him worth*

( /0). &hus we witness a mechanism of 0 internali'ationof what Fanon names the inferiority complex* of thecoloni'ed, adevice of social alienation which is bothpersonal and historical. 1e continues, -n the collectiveunconscious, black 2 u$liness, sin, darkness, immorality.

-n other words, he is e$ro who is immoral. -f - order mylife like that of a moral man, - simply am not a e$ro*( 34). &herefore, the !hite mask serves as a liberatin$option for conformity in the total mental stasis of theracist stereotype, and $ives Black people the opportunity



to move from a condition of collective absence to one of individual presence. Fanon attempts to illustrate thestructure of the colonial order, characteri'ed by theconfrontation of two sub5ectivities, the colonianist and thecolonised, white civili'ation and black sava$ery, whitescience and black animality, white mastery and blackslavery, and fundamentally the whites and the thers*.

&he words skin*and mask* presented in the book aremetaphors utili'ed to unpack the complexities of thesesocial confrontations. For Fanon, 5ust like for aid, it is notnature that de6nes a man’s skin, but it is rather the

imperial encounter of white set a$ainst black whichconstructs our perception of the naturali'ed essence of the skin. &he moment of encounter between white andblack, establishes a new awareness and a newcate$ori'ation of cultural otherness. &hus, for Fanon,black versus white is not a natural division which isrelated to the colour of the skin but it is rather a culturaland political structure established at the intersection of black and white society which results in an ima$inaryther*.

&herefore, Fanon implies that the process of otherin$* isbein$ done by means of race.

Black is an identi6cation re%uired not by nature but by anact of political will. As Fanon states+

&he presence of the e$roes besides the whites is aninsurance policy on humanness ( 43). Additionally, inBlack kin, !hite "asks Frant' Fanon provides us with akey to understandin$ some of the dynamics of lan$ua$eas an e7cient mode to understand the malicious e#ectsof colonialism and racism on society.



"oreover, Fanon concentrated on racism8s e#ect on thepsyche of the coloni'ed people, hi$hli$htin$ that the

colonial context ereased the prospect of bein$ a normallyfunctionin$, 9well:ad5usted9 individual, and thus forcedBlacks accept the ima$ed that was bein$ served to them,the ima$e of the ther*. Additionally, for Fanon theprocess of constructin$ the ther * happens throu$h themobili'ation process.

&he ther* is fully aware that they can only move to

certain places but the coloni'er is able to move anywherehe want

fanon black white mask

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