Book Review: Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon.
In the introduction, Fanon reflects on why he chose to write Black Skin, White Masks.He argues that in order to understand racism, we must ask what “man” wants and what “the black man” wants. Fanon seeks to understand the relationship between white and black people, and argues that both groups are trapped within their own racial identities.Fanon’s insistence that both white people and black people suffer because of the way they are trapped within their respective racial identities is important: it shows that, for Fanon, the idea of race itself—rather than racism alone—is the problem.Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks is a stirring glimpse into the mindset of a black man living in a white man’s world. The author approaches the subject of racism from a psychoanalytic viewpoint rather than from a sociological stance.
Contributors offer new ways of reading the text and the volume as a whole constitutes an important contribution to the growing field of Fanon studies.The first collection of essays on Frantz Fanon's classic anti-colonial text, 'Black Skin, White Masks'. It offers a range of interpretations of the text by leading scholars across various disciplines.Get this from a library! Black skin, white masks. (Frantz Fanon; Charles Lam Markmann) -- Fanon, born in Martinique and educated in France, is generally regarded as the leading anti-colonial thinker of the 20th century. His first book is an analysis of the impact of colonial subjugation.
Frantz Fanon, an afro-Caribbean psychiatrist has so painstakingly showed the Black social reality of the to the whole world, through his book Black Skin, White Masks.He was clear to show that until today, this particular Black race is suffering from a “mental illness” that hinders his very existence into today’s society.Mental chains bound blacks.
