Post- colonialism in the Black skin, white Mask.

Post- colonialism in the Black skin, white Mask.

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Name      : Bhaliya   Ravi

Roll no.     :24

M.A. Semester   : 3

Enrolment No.  :14101004

Email id      :ravibhaliya5@gmail.com

Year            : 2015-16

Paper no.     : 11 (The Post – Colonial Literature)

Submitted to: Smt. S.B Gardi Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji

Bhavnagar University

Abstract

“Black Skin, White Masks” (1952) is a book about the mind set or psychology of racism by Frantz Fanon, psychiatrist and black, post colonialist thinker. Fanon wrote Black Skin, White Masks when he was 27. it was his first and perhaps most enduring book. And it was ignored. Its significance was recognized only after the death of the author, particularly after the publication of the English translation a decade and a half later in 1967. Frantz Fanon had tremendous impact on the European anti-colonialist movement.

It is a very personal account of Fanon's experience being black as a man, an intellectual, and a part to a French education. It examines how colonialism is internalized by the colonized, how an inferiority complex is inculcated, and how, through the mechanism of racism, black people end up emulating their oppressors.

Key Words – ( Superiority , Blackman , Masks, Language , Race , Skin)

What is Post colonialism ?

     

A study of postcolonial literature must begin with the historical contexts of colonialism, contexts that are constantly and frighteningly shot through violence.  The violence of colonialism – cultural, economic, political and military - is so integral to the history of the ‘Third World’ nation  that no literature or critical approach has been able to ignore it.

Postcolonial literature seeks to address the ways in which non-European (Asian, African, South American and Settler colonies) literatures and cultures have been marginalized as an effect of colonial rule, and to find if possible, modes of resistance, retrieval, and reversal of their ‘own’ pre-colonial pasts.
It is a literature of resistance, anger, protest and hope.  It seeks to understand history so as to plan for the future.

Three central features of colonialism:

1. The governance of non-European places by European administrators  – through economic, political, and military modes.
2. The study of non-European cultures by European academics, scholars, and scientists( anthropology, literature, ‘area studies’).
3. The slow transformation of native societies (missionary work, European education system, bureaucracy)

Post colonialism in the Black skin white Mask. 

The book looks at what goes through the minds of blacks and whites under the conditions of white rule and the strange effects that has, especially on black people. His book Black Skin, White Masks explore the effects upon colonialism .

Thus the reflection of post colonialism is shown through the above points. The white man portraits as superior class and have the power of rule over the other country and the society. On the other sides the Black man or the people always live under the rule of white people. Even he doesn’t have any power to rule over the other people.

The book is divided in 8 chapters. In these eight chapters, Fanon talks about psychology of white colonizers and black people’s desire to be like white men. He talks about issue of language, marriage between white and black and psychology behind it, white mind set of ruling, black’s inequality and struggle for human existence.

1.The Black  Man and the language

In this chapter the author discusses that if a black person does not learn the white man’s language perfectly, he is unintelligent yes if he does learn it perfectly, he has washed his brain in the world of racial ideology.

According to Fanon

“The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his

superiority alike behaves in accordance with a neurotic orientation.”

Essentially the Negro is born into a hopeless situation. In this context, the black man will never be normal, but always an inborn no, a preborn human of abnormality. "Let me add only that in the psychological sphere the abnormal man is he who demands, who appeals, who begs." Fanon invokes Freud; however the Oedipus complex is a luxury for the white man.

2. The woman of colour and the white Man

The colonized women look down on their own. Race and deep down won’t to be white. In “The Bluest eye” of “Tony Morrison” we find a black desire of white woman.

There are two such women: the Negros and the mulatto. The first has only one possibility and one concern: to turn white. The second wants not only to turn white but also to avoid slipping back. What indeed could be more illogical then a mulatto woman’s acceptance of a Negro husbands? For the understood once and for all that it is a question of saving the race.

Further fanon talks about three women, Mayotte, Nini and Dedee. Those entire woman are part white. A Blackman proposed Nini. Police was called because he is black and she is half white he has offended her “white girl’s” honours. Dedee was proposed by a man with a good government job. She was eager to enter the white world where Mayotte, the third woman had an affair with a married white man. She goes to white side of town with him where the white woman made her feel unworthy of him.

The woman colour wants to marry with white people because she believes that

 ‘Look a Negro!’ ‘Dirty nigger!’

3.The man of colour and white woman.

“The man of color and the white woman” reveals a boy, team venues that grow up in France and desired white woman. As a civil servant, he just is a bad as the whites.’ 

I want to be recognized not

As Black but as a white (Frantz)

 

 In this chapter Fanon talks about the condition of man as a Black. He says that these men wants to become white, they are also equal to whites. Gwendolyn Brook’s poem “We real cool’’ deals with the same theme.

4.The so called dependency complex of the colonized people.

In this chapter Fanon argues that a people of colour may have deep desire for white rule. Those who opposite to it they don’t have secure sense of self that they have very chip sense on their shoulder.

If the black is not a man, then what is the biological, psychological and cultural identity of the black? If the black is not a man, what and who is black? Fanon’s answer to this is equally enigmatic: ‘The black is a black man.’ Moreover, his answer to what a black man wants is more enigmatic: ‘The black man want to be white’. In this book he said that...

“Toward a new humanism…Understanding among men...Our colored brothers...Mankind I believe in you...Race prejudice...To understand and to love...From all sides dozens and hundreds of pages assail me and try to impose their will on me.

But a single line would be enough. Supply a single answer and the colour problem would be stripped of its importance’ .A single answer was and is indeed not enough to deal with Dubois’ old problem of colour line.”

5.The Lived experience of Black Man

This chapter deals with them pathetic situation of black people. Here it is shown that being always black as if they are never fully human being. No matter however education or intelligence you have or no matter how well you perform in to the society. Even we have to mention here the black historical movement to support this argument. 

After that Fanon categorises this chapter …

§  He is seen not as Dr Fanon ,But as a Black Man who is a Doctor.

§  Being Seen as a Negro , never a man .

§  White people do not see him , they see his body .

§   

THE BLACK IDENTITY MOVEMENT

The Noble Drew Ali was one of the most influential Black Nationalist leaders of the century. He strongly influenced the growth and development of Black Nationalist Identity between 1913 and the 1930s. His movement combined black Messiah feelings, Black Nationalism, and a theology of deliverance from the white man’s world, culture and religion.

BLACK SLAVE OWNERS AND THE MULLATO CLASS

The majority of black slave owners were members of the mulatto class, and in some cases were the sons and daughters of white slave masters. Many of the mulatto slave owners separated themselves from the masses of black people and attempted to establish a caste system based on colour, wealth, and free status.

6. The Black Man and Psychopathology.

“Black man and psychopathology” is related with some wrong beliefs that whit had for natives”

Why should people fear of being as a black? Here the white man repressed the Homosexuality and their strange hang ups about black man’s penises more generally, black man are viewed as a bodies which makes them seems like mindless, violence, sexual, animal beings. All the bad meaning that the word “Black” had even before Europeans set foot in black Africa.

Here he writes that

7. The Black Man and Recognition.

“The black man and Recognition” draws our attention as the author writers “ I am narcissus, and I want to see reflected in the eyes of the other an image of myself that satisfied me.”

In this chapter he writes that how different style of white rule shaped black people in America and Martinique.

Even we can also prove the post colonialism through these points

·        The idea of Blackness

·        The idea of identity

·        Notion of desire

·        The idea of Negritude

·        The idea of darkness 

·        O-Other

·        Black Mulatto White.

In India we had un touch ability. There (Africa) they had color problem. Black felt inferior as did our untouchables. Example ‘Urmila Powar’s book” The Weave of my Life” deals with such problems.

            8. “By way of conclusion

“By way of conclusion” is the final chapter, Frantz fanon does not want to be a black man, and he wants to be amen plain and simple. Black and white could not live in present as they can’t separate themselves from their past, says fanon.

 He writes……

“I will not make myself the man of any past. I do not want to sing the past to the detriment of my present and future.

§  Let the dead bury the dead:

§  I am my own foundation.”

Fanon says he has only one rights and one duty.

1) The rights to demand human behaviour from the other.

2) The duty to never let his decisions renounces his freedom.

TO wind up

The Book deals with innumerable example of the Black and white problems, the coloured’s inferiority complex. Their inner feeling is revealed throughout the book. It seems that the coloured people themselves did not want to raise high. They were not ready to think high of themselves instead they ran after vision which was not possible. Skin can’t be changed but mentality can be changed so we can say“ The Nature of Blackness is within the Mind.”

Works Cited

Frantz, Fanon. "Black Skin , White Masks." Trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press , imprint of Grove/ Atlantic , Inc, 2008. 45.

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