Black Skin, White Masks
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In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon analyzes the black psyche in the midst of a white dominated culture. The book is half manifesto for overcoming racial expression and half psychological analysis as Fanon presents vignettes drawn from his personal experiences while attending school in France where he studied medicine and psychiatry. The episodes of the book are designed to show that a racist culture does not allow full psychological health to emerge in the culture it is oppressing, in this case the white colonizers and the black colonized. Fanon presents examples based on his personal experiences as well as discussing the theories of other psychologists in an effort to show that when a people are ripped away from their own natural identity (i.e., their own native culture) they suffer an inferiority complex when placed into the middle of the superior culture. Fanon believes that the black man basically must adopt a white mask in order to become a real human being to the oppressive culture. He believes the most powerful method for achieving this is to adopt the language of the oppressive culture, but one is not only adopting a different tongue in so doing, they are also adopting the culture and ideological norms of it, “To speak…means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization” (Fanon 17). However, as Fanon unravels his analysis and vignettes has makes us understand that black is not any more t
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ch makes him capable of loving others. Yet, it still provides a visual and external example that being a black man comes with added baggage compared to the conscious development of those who are not viewed as “inferior” in society.
Examples of popular culture and social interaction like the one given above demonstrate Fanon’s argument that language is often a tool of power, miscegenation and the objectification of the black identity. It is difficult to form one’s own identity when the language and cultural context in which one exists deprives unique or different individuals a language of their own that is accepted as a social or cultural norm. If it is accepted, traditionally it is viewed as inferior to that of the predominant cultural or social language. Thus, many blacks give up their own language and adopt the language of the “superior” culture they perceive around them. Of course, the resistant or willful identity can use language as a source of power as well when they refuse to give it up for the sake of social acceptance. In many instances this makes the black consciousness develop in a direction different than the white consciousness. If the black individual is unable to deal with the conflict created by such dualis
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Approximate Word count = 1322
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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