The “Fact of Blackness” critique
“Dirty nigger!” “Look at that Negro!” starts chapter 5 of “Black Skin, White Masks,” one of the most remarkable works from Frantz Fanon. In “The Fact of Blackness,” the density of being black, the known or unknown experience of being black is explored in his own words. It looks like Fanon was trying to talk to someone else or just himself. This conversation is set up in a kind of desperate moment, a crucial moment looking for answers, but at the same time along with an incredible pressure surrounding any of his thoughts. “Look at that Negro!” becomes repetitive during part of the text, making it noticeable that there is an unfriendly presence that never vanished.
Moreover, those who inflict this persecution are whites, creating a shadow that he must live with. Black and white, those two words or concepts are intimately attached in this text: one cannot be read without the other. Yet, how does this persecution start? Apart from structural racism, this dialectic between black and white works as an untold history, a secret conversation about inferiority. An inferiority that must be challenged, disputed, and defeated dialectically by those that have been targeted as subalterns, but at the same time looking for brotherhood among different, among equals. Those contradictions drive out irreconcilable feelings that must live together in the same space, in the same body. To whom was Fanon speaking? Blacks, whites, or only to himself… Maybe to the whole of humanity.
This essay will argue about the starting point of this conversation, the epistemic environment, and where it took place, creating in his own words an “imprisonment”. How a polarization of feelings drags the author from rejection to positive affirmation, from fear to rage where the concept of “double consciousness” might be present. And how capitalism could have taken place in this conversation, manufacturing this speech as a good in order to intermediate between blacks and whites.
The starting point of this chapter, there is something that is noticeable from the first sentence, loneliness of Fanon: “I came into the world imbued with the will to find meaning in things…” (Fanon 2017: 89) In this solitude, Fanon spoke about his commitment “to find meaning,” a commitment that should be fulfilled into the “world”. The world as infinite and him as an individual draw a perfect picture of this beginning. Who am I and where am I? In fact, the conversation starts alone, asking himself what is outside of him. Suddenly, it changed turning the previous point 180 degrees in a regression of his perception, looking back to himself as an object too: “I was an object in the midst of other objects” (ibid).
Between the first sentence and the second, there is no space for doubting or introducing ideas about the world itself; what were the meanings surrounding it? The world did not have space for him to deliberate, to think. From the very beginning, he was focused on his inner thoughts like he was not allowed to go outside the limits of his own body like a prison. The reason for his imprisonment is discovered in the next pages of the same chapter: the white man (Fanon 2017: 89).
There are two main factors of their limitations reflected in the first page of this chapter; the anxiety of his presence in a physical space and the ability to bring meanings to the world. Both of them were denied to Fanon as well as to the entire black race because of the fact of being “different”. So, his inner conversation turns from the idea of bringing meanings and exploring the world to a prison due to the presence of “white”. According to Charles W. Mills, whiteness “is a cognitive model that precludes self-transparency and genuine understanding of social realities” (Mills 1999: 18) Thus, the truth and authenticity belong to whites, and this pushback reflects the doubts of habiting a place or a space that was questioning his presence, and behind that there is another question: What does it mean to be black?
However, this question is not formulated explicitly but it is present throughout the whole chapter, floating in each paragraph. As a result, he was speaking to himself trying to find his answer, although with the (silent) inquiries from “others” he said “…to experience his being through others” (Fanon 2017: 89)
The pushback and the (silent) questions are not a natural response from him it is the result of the enforcement of being identified as “black”, and the very moment to understand it is when he was confronting whiteness: the truth over his identity through others. The consequence behind this is that “inferiority” becomes the central core of this (inner) conversation. “The black man among his own in the twentieth century does not know at what moment his inferiority comes into being through the other” (Fanon 2017: 90) This first step from Fanon to stay in or out of the world would have not worked without the will to approach and rejection from whiteness, although this approach was not an obligation from the beginning to start his conversation, other possibilities could have been explored between blackness and whiteness.
Elisabeth Anker argues how “Marronage” became a response to whiteness in the Caribbean. In this regard, escaping from the plantation was a natural action to create alternative paths where a conversation was not needed to start looking for answers or recognition from whites. In the words of Neil Roberts, marronage articulates “a theory of freedom from slavery” creating new conceptions away from “abstract concepts of personhood”. (Anker 2022: 66, 67) Escape and establish an alternative “world” that was not connected to whites in any sense. However, Anker argues that “marronage” might be an incomplete practice of liberation as “a maroon is an escaped slave”, so the dialectic between the slave and the master would be still present.
This could have been true if the maroon had escaped from the physical place of the plantation, but they were still mentally attached to its epistemic nature. Therefore, the chat between Fanon and himself or whiteness is an enforcement with no escape. Thus, colonialism has worked capturing bodies as well as minds. A. P. Ipadeola argues “undermining local epistemological systems and making the people hold the foreign epistemological systems in high esteem” through education was one of the main objectives of “epistemic conquest”. First, it should be destroyed by any other source or form of local knowledge and opposition so as to establish structures of colonial powers “as being superior, more complex and more valid”. (Ukpokolo 2017: 148) As Fanon said, “Overnight the Negro has given two frames or reference within which he has had to place himself. His metaphysics, or less pretentiously, his customs and the sources on which they were based, were wiped out because they were in conflict with a civilization…” (Fanon 2017:90)
The destruction of local knowledge and substitution by Western education was the form of undermining the self-esteem of Africans and another type of violence. Ipadeola suggests that a series of questions were brought to Africans as a consequence of this, such as: “Is true that Africans lacked a form of education that helped them to understand their world and address the pressing challenges and problems of precolonial times?” (Ukpokolo 2017: 152) These inquiries were not formulated by Africans; they were verbalized indirectly in the education system from the West. So, inferiority arose when those questions were taken into account by blackness. This is due to the “emptiness of racism” where whiteness works as a constant negation that must be disputed dialectically. However, this emptiness is not a physical space, it is an abstract and conceptual framework of complete negation and a “thousand details, anecdotes, stories” about the black population.
Even though Fanon knew it, he tried to overcome the entanglement in their inner thoughts: “…I intended to rationalize the world and to show the white man that he was mistaken” (Fanon 2017: 91, 97) Those new structures of education created new social classes that had not existed previously. Those who had Western education were presumed to have some privileges over those who did not. In many cases, an elite of educated colonized persons emerged from those colonies challenging Western intellectuals. But those who had tried to prove that Africans were equal to Europeans did it using Western philosophy, language and values: Fanon was one of those. In the end, they want to be recognized as a “man” from a Western perspective: “All I wanted was to be a man among other men” (Fanon 2017: 92) Indeed, this imprisonment is structural, territorial and epistemological. It was also a permanent negation of Fanon’s presence as well as his knowledge and existence. Creating the paradox of existing and at the same time not. Thus, the reality of being black and the relationship with whites is a matter of ontology rather than “facts”.
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All of this is caused and driven by a single element: the body. The body as a third “consciousness” did not allow him to penetrate the sophisticated and intricate dialectic between whiteness and blackness as well as represent a triply representation of his existence: “I existed triply: I occupied space…I was responsible at the same time for my body, for my race, for my ancestors” (Fanon 2017:92) The body itself is an overwhelming wall of misunderstanding. Then, this dialectic is embedded in the space and time of the movements of his body, being observed by others. His body had a significant number of meanings that did not belong to him: “A slow composition of myself as a body in the middle of a spatial and temporal world…” (Fanon 2017:90) Consequently, different feelings started to come out. “It amused me…” he said. This is the moment where the conversation with himself turns to someone else, but rather than talk it is a moment where Fanon keeps silent. Others were talking to him, and he was paralyzed: “Look at the Negro!” There was not a dialogue because of the body, whiteness was looking at him as an object. Therefore, he turned around looking for someone who might understand his frustration. He seemed to find someone who may listen to him carefully and patiently. Unfortunately, that unknown person talked to him with indulgence: “Where am I to be classified? Or, if you prefer, tucked away?” “A Martinican, a native of ‘our’ colonies.”
There was not conversation at all rather than that, there was a close observation of his body, movements and behavior or even a validation of his intelligence. Validation with a sharp and thin line between good (Negro) and bad (Negro): “…the little boy is trembling because he is afraid of the nigger, the nigger is shivering with cold, that cold that goes through your bones…” (Fanon 2017:93) Fanon finally answered to all of them: “Kiss the handsome Negro’s ass, madame” (ibid) Rage appeared and consequently, Fanon gave up finding recognition from whiteness. His desire to be recognized as a “man” had a turning point when he recognized himself as a BLACK MAN. This rage looks to emancipate him from white’s observation, creating a limit where he tried to stop certain attitudes towards him. He was not looking at whiteness anymore to establish a rational conversation. There was nothing rational in the relationship between blackness and whiteness and this is the fact that leads Fanon to his major frustration: “…there is nothing more neurotic than contact with unreason” (Fanon 2017:97)
But he still insisted on proving his value. Then, he started to challenge some thoughts of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. This speaking with Sartre is also a way to criticize and face whiteness. Fanon named Otto Rank, “Delphic oracles”, Ulysses, Greece paraphrasing some western authors he looked to speak to whole Western philosophy. With Sartre, he tried to create a parallelism between Jews and Negroes where he emphasized the difference of its discrimination: the body. Blackness cannot be hidden or concealed, even well-educated black professionals from many fields suffered this persecution. Fanon looked for those Negroes with good qualifications and Western education, unfortunately, he found rejection also from some of them: “To my horror, they too reject me. They are almost white” (Fanon 2017: 95)
As a black man, he became conscious of the necessity to find a partnership in this journey. Facing the thoughts of Jean-Paul Sartre and looking for some collaboration into blackness he was trying to build bonds. His triple existence (body, race and ancestors) became a way to talk not just to himself, he was claiming his humanity, leaving his individuality to speak to the general public about his suffering independently of race. But this looks to be done indirectly, his real effort was to be in contact with other blacks. Exhausted from the observation and rejection of whiteness with the only explanation that “color prejudice” should disappear in some unspecified moment and vague affirmation of “Negro as human being”, he decided to move on.
The rejection from blacks demonstrated to him that those bounds were not automatic. Blackness is moving from recognition to invisibility as a strategy to survive. This matter addressed him to the point where recognition among blacks was also problematic. Du Bois tackled this problem as “double consciousness” as a split of personality where the tensions between white and black can be represented in the behavior of some blacks hiding their true authenticity as African. Du Bois remarks “African consciousness was its spirituality, a spirituality based in Africa but revealed among African Americans in their folklore, their history of patient suffering” and “the double consciousness of being both an American and not an American” (Dickson 1992: 301) Fanon found in the “spirituality of blackness”, art and history of Negritude a true self, a recognition for himself and the black community around the world. He did this after moving from “reason to unreason” and after that “to real reason” recovering real facts of African history: “Since no agreement was possible on the level of reason, I threw myself back toward unreason” (Fanon 2017: 101)
From here to the end of the chapter, Fanon was re-discovering something unknown to him. Instead of answering the (silent) questions from whiteness, he created new bonds with Africans from around the world through art, poetry, and history achieving what he was looking for: recognition “At least I had been recognized, I was no longer a zero” (Fanon 2017:107) Blackness is revealed as “a transcendent way of being” where the myriads of stories about suffering and exploitation give them a specific place to habitat: “Negro suffers in his body quite differently from white man” (Fanon 2017: 116) On the other side, whiteness still presents but with judgments all over the text with any new advancement of Fanon where he could never fulfill his duty due to the absolute negation of whiteness or emptiness of racism “Negritude appears as the minor term of a dialectical progression” (Fanon 2017: 111). Whiteness would never recognize blackness in the same level of consciousness in this relationship. So, validation and observation become the true self of whiteness. In this regard, it can be said that blackness and whiteness never had the opportunity to speak to each other in a real conversation in Fanon’s text. So, what are the terms of a real conversation? The fact is that “real conversation” might have not an attempt is due to a structural framework that determines how relationships work between black and white.
This relationship is regulated by power, narratives, and a structural position. The great achievement of Fanon and consequently blackness, even despite the persistent pressure of racism, was to create his narrative, a unique narrative that must be heard. The problem was how should be heard in which terms and conditions taking into consideration structural racism.
Capitalism has found a way to do it. Eric Fershtman describes in his article, “Black Art, White Praise” how these interactions are happening. Fershtman argues, there is an interesting pattern that is repetitive: progressive whites reverence black artists for their commitment and effort to bring those stories of racism and struggle and at the same time, it looks like that buying products from African American artists is a form to connect with blackness. Thus, capitalism found a way to exploit black speech to intermediate in this conversation. Films, music, and books can be purchased as a way to hear this black experience. As a result, whites might remain silent about matters of racism due to their privilege and blacks are always forced to articulate this speech as a continuation of imprisonment. Fershtman point to two major attitudes from “watching-while-white”: buying forgiveness and the curiosity of white Americans to see what black life is really like.
Objectification and exploitation of black populations still going on because of capitalism. The suffering of black communities represented in books, films, and music has helped to spread part of Fanon’s legacy but at the same time has become a product of entertainment. So, Fanon’s efforts to deliver a message to overcome whiteness still pending. Part of his work has served to articulate the injustice of racism that was invisible in front of white’s eyes.
However, the epistemic environment of racial relationships is too dense to disentangle even through those advancements. The real conversation between whiteness and blackness which Fanon tried to achieve and did not happen is not impossible. Fanon opened the door and created the legacy to work on it. The disentanglement would be feasible only if the framework of racial relationships would remove totally. That means that identification by race and its epistemic background should disappear. In order words, to achieve this objective, mankind should work in different kind of society where race would not be anymore a central pivot of understanding of human beings and its reality. Fanon’s work could be seen by many black scholars as a way to unite black communities. Moreover, he contributed to achieving a universal objective to connect to the “world” beyond the race. His work must be continued.
Notes:
Anker, Elisabeth R. (2022) Ugly Freedoms. United States: Duke University Press. Dickson D. Bruce Jr. (1992) American Literature: Duke University Press.
Fanon, F. (2017) Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press.
Fershtman, Eric. (2018) Black Art, White Praise. Medium: Available at https://medium.com/@ericfershtman/the-problem-with-white-praise-of-black-art-9d5b01f6a293
Ukpokolo, Isaac E. (2017) Themes, Issues, and Problems in African Philosophy. Ibadan: Palgrave Macmillan.
