The following is based on Chapter 2 of Frantz Fanon’s “Black Skin, White Masks” (1952): “The Woman of Colour and the White Man” (men of colour and white women will be next week):
When women of colour go after white men and put down men of their own colour Fanon says the cause is just what many of us suspect: internalized racism.
Nor do these women truly love these white men: they just love their colour. They go with them not out of love but to deal with their own hang-ups about race.
Fanon:
It is because the black woman feels inferior that she aspires to gain admittance to the white world.
Secretly she wants to be white. Marrying white is her way of doing this. She looks up to white people and looks down on black people. Whites represent wealth, beauty, intelligence and virtue; blacks, on the other hand, are “niggers”, something to escape, to be saved from, something not to be. So they want to marry a white man even though they know full well that very few will marry them.
Their racism is so profound that it blinds them to good black men. They will say black men lack refinement – and turn away black men more refined than themselves. They will say black men are ugly – and grow impatient with you if you point out good-looking black men.
Fanon takes as his examples three women: Mayotte of Martinique and Nini and Dedee of Senegal. Mayotte is Mayotte Capecia who wrote a book about her life; Nini and Dedee are characters from “Nini” (1954), a story by Abdoulaye Sadji. All three are part white which makes them determined not to “slip back among the ‘nigger’ rabble”. (There was no the One Drop Rule.)
Nini is a silly typist. A man who is an accountant with the waterways company proposes marriage. She cannot believe it. What nerve this man has! There is talk of getting him fired. In the end they have the police tell him to stop his “morbid insanities”. Why? Because he is black and she is half white. He has offended her “white girl’s” honour.
Meanwhile another man with a good government job proposes to Dedee but this time it is a dream come true. Why? Because he is white:
Gone was the psychological depreciation, the feeling of debasement, and its corollary of never being able to reach the light. Overnight the mulatto girl had gone from the rank of slave to that of master. … She was entering the white world.
But a white man cannot make you white, not even in effect: Mayotte, the third woman, had an affair with a married white man. One time she asked him to take her to the white side of town. He does, taking her to a friend’s house for the evening. But the white women there made her feel so out of place, so unworthy of him, that she never went back to the white side again.
See also:
Abagond 
This coming from a man who married a white woman??
For someone who must have spent a great deal of time on the issue, whether through research or living the experience through his white wife, isn’t he really reflecting on his own reasons for marrying white?
That he married her because she was white, that he secretly wants to be white, he feels inferior, therefore wants acceptance from the white world? Be accepted by white men that made HIM feel out of place?
Give me a break.
I was going to read this book, but it’s descending into unfounded nonsense.
He wouldn’t stand a chance with these half-white women, being a black male, and part of the ‘n*$*er rabble’. His two examples are fictional. Please!
Just useless musings of a an aggrieved reject.
:sigh:
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Fanon was part white himself. Next week is “Men of Colour and White Women”, so we will see what he says then. He did not marry his white wife till AFTER he wrote this book.
Nini and Dedee are characters in a novel, but even so they have to be believable to readers. Only truth can be stranger than fiction.
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He may have been a tragic mulatto type, granted I don’t know about this man save for what I read on your blog, but it would appear he still harboured those inferiority thoughts. It’s irrelevant WHEN he married his white wife, but the sentiment must have simmered for a long time. Marrying white just sealed the deal.
I agree characters have to be believable, have to resonate with the readers, but believable to whom? Readers that want to believe that black women seek validation and approval by marrying white?!
It that book was written in 1952, how on earth did black women, biracial or not have the social freedom to go after white men??
He’s accusing these women of purposely bleaching the color line ie when he infact did so himself.
His real life discredits his writing.
He may be right, in a time when the color of your skin determined wealth, socio-economic status, these women saw marrying white as a means of survival and security.
What’s love got to do with it?
‘N*@*er rabble’—Interesting choice of words. They chose ‘refined’ white men over those rabble rousing negroes.
I would have hated to live in those times 😦
I’ll wait to read the next chapter then.
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“When women of colour go after white men and put down men of their own colour Fanon says the cause is just what many of us suspect: internalized racism.”
Id say that the number of women of colour who put down their own colour is a small percentage of the reason most women of colour might date or marry white men.
What gets me about America, who is uptight about race and sex, is the constant pshycological examination and critisizm up and down about inter racial relationships.
It seems people who want to cross black white racial lines ,in America, are backed into a corner and subjected to huge amounts of stereo typing , generalising,inspection from head to toe of the motivations and predictions of the outcome, coming from all sides , black and white.
They are acused of fetishes , acused of being aflicted with jungle fever, analysed every which way posible to find something wrong with their motivations, acused of rejecting their race, or betraying their race by the klan.
This kind of uptightness about interracial sexual relations in America , is something I am so glad to be far away from.
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What interests me with this chapter is teh title
‘The Woman of Colour and The White man’
My copy of the book has the first chapter has it read as
‘The Negro and The Language’
If the translation is accurate then this chapter is about not Negro per se but anyone who has an admixture.
Personally I think Fanon is brilliant. His psychoanalytic reasoning is just spot on considering the book was written in 1940s(??)
What Fanon says in this chapter is true. No matter how much you may dislike yourself for being Black – or any other race -. You will not be able to escape from:
a.. Yourself
b. The White World.
I think I may if I get time have a quick re-read of the chapter and come back.
Just a few other thoughts that have been touched upon
1. By the time he published his first book, “Peau Noire, Masques Blancs,” he had abandoned the philosophy of Negritude for what he described as a so-called “non-racist humanism” as if loving yourself and your culture is racist. In the same year as the publication of his first book, he married a white, French woman, Marie-Josephe (“Josie”) Duble in October 1952, suggesting continuing, unresolved ambivalence and conflict regarding his own blackness
2. His grandparents on his mother’s side had disapproved of their daughter’s marriage to a man of darker color, and one may assume that the questions of class and color entered the picture. Frantz, the fourth and youngest of 4 boys, and the middle child in a total of eight, was the darkest of the family.
3. Therefore, we see that Frantz Fanon had his own contradictions, his own foibles and issues, and his own strengths and weaknesses LIKE EACH AND EVERYONE OF US.
http://www.raceandhistory.com/Historians/frantz_fanon.htm
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Hmm. I agree with MeriMay.
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MerriMay sez:
This coming from a man who married a white woman??
MM, Fanon is talking about typical race-associated neuroses. He is NOT making the determinist statement that ALL black people who marry white suffer from said neuroses.
Fanon’s arguement is veyr much to the contrary.
Not everyone who drinks a beer becomes an alchoholic, MM, but the potential is definitely there for everyone and it’s best to be aware of it. What Fanon is doing is making an attempt to chart out some of the common ways in which racism warps sex and love so that race STOPS being a determining factor in human sexual/affective relationships.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again: Fanon would consider the view that “black should only and always marry black” to be JUST as neurotic and just as rooted in racism as the syndromes he brings up. He is quite aware of the fact that there is nothing “natural” about these sorts of attractions and repulsions. His goal is to map some of the bigger and more damaging ones out in order to help make a future humanity that is not bamboozled by them.
This idealized humanity of Fanon’s would not be a set of perfect, color-matching pairs, which is what you seem to find to be “natural”, MM.
This is an interesting reaction you’re having here, btw. Over on the “Mayer” thread, I pointed out that many if not mopst of the black posters here seem to believe exactly what John Mayer says: that like should only date/marry like. And yet in John Mayer’s case, said sentiment is unanimously decried as racist… 😀
he had abandoned the philosophy of Negritude for what he described as a so-called “non-racist humanism” as if loving yourself and your culture is racist. In the same year as the publication of his first book, he married a white, French woman, Marie-Josephe (“Josie”) Duble in October 1952, suggesting continuing, unresolved ambivalence and conflict regarding his own blackness
This only makes sense if one ipso facto presumes that marrying someone of one’s own color is always and necessarily more “psychologically healthy” than marrying someone of a different color.
It would be wise to remember here that Fanon is talking about specific attitudes and behaviors and not simplistic and reductionist idiocies like “s/he who marries white MUST have done so because of internalized racism”. If Fanon had ever in his life made statements that would indicate that he believed the same things that, say, Mayotte believed, then those commentators might have a point. Since there is no evidence of this…
The difference between Fanon and Mayotte is that Mayotte would have gone for practically any white man at all and, in fact, defended “her” white man even when he didn’t treat her as a full equal and abandoned her. This is, of course, the ultimate definition of mental illness, is it not? That one persists in behaviors that are demonstratably harmful to oneself because one cannot stop.
There is no evidence I have ever seen that Fanon had a “thing” for white women in general or that his white wife treated him like sh#$ and that he stayed with her, regardless, because she was white and thus superior. There is no evidence that he turned down superior brown or black suitors because he believed that white women – any white women – were superior.
There is thus no evidence that Fanon suffered from the syndrome he so aptly maps out.
As it is, the people who claim that Fanon was an example of the syndromes he pointed out are confusing the symptom with the disease. Fanon was most certainly NOT saying “Pychologically healthy blacks marry black”. He is saying “People often externalize their inner turmoils when they choose a mate”. The “inner turmoil” is the disease, folks, not necessarily the choice of mate. Fanon obviously felt that he had dealt with this aspect of racism in his own life. He obviously felt that the difference between himself and Mayotte was the difference between someone who drinks a beer occasionally and a full blown alchoholic.
It’s obvious that he’s aware of the dangers that transracial relationships can create. His prescription, however, is not “avoid transracial relationships at all costs”. In fact, given that Fanon classifies racism’s effects on the emotional level as a form of mental illness, black people rabidly AVOIDING relationships with white people would be seem by him as a neurotic state likewise created by racism. For Fanon, a black who turns down a white suitor SIMPLY BECAUSE s/he is white is likewise enchained by the neurosis of race.
Fanon’s ultimate message in “Black Skin, White Masks” is this: “If race determines the object of your sexual and affective pleasure, you are most likely neurotic”.
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“You have two eyes, to see both the relative and the absolute. Don’t see through one only, for then you will be partially sighted”
Zen philosophy on attaining enlightenment.
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“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it’s most probably a duck.”
American country philosophy on how to avoid being bamboozled by bulls$%&.
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When you live in a community with few choices in experience, where do you find the bigger world in which to find a peer. Sometimes being black if you are black is not enough to develop a relationship. One might want to find a person who had read the same books, has similar political, scientific views or a non-religious view, which might not be in the small community you exist. If it is, that one person may have several other persons interested. Not a problem is one want a platonic relationship, but something more intimate can be. Just to seek out black just because they are black is like searching for a hook up.
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Abagond do you agree with this post? On my campus there are black men literally and shamelessly CHASING after white women they see them and then they RUN after them. It’s embarrassing. I love being black but when I see black men chasing, running after white women it’s sad it makes me ashamed to be black and ashamed of black men. Like I must distance myself away from them. No other race of man runs after women, only black men.
I honestly think that this chapter is true to black men and why they date outside their race, the actor who played Carlton from Fresh prince of bel air said he rather let a black women burn in a fire than a see a white woman go thirsty. I have never heard a black woman shame their man like that.
I am begining to believe that other races of men love and want us more than black men.
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I just dont get what is the big deal about being attracted to someone outside of our own race.
We are hot wired to have defences against some one differant, and, we are also hot wired to be attracted to someone differant.
What point that seems to ring true for me , from what this author said , and j pointed out , is that as a black person in America, you have to deal with white society , you cant escape it.
White racism in that era, was brutal. They had just integrated major league baseball, the white preasures on blacks as to what they had to do and what they couldnt do, are absurd as we look back on it, and it was just accepted as normal behaviour. But had to be unbeleivable preasures in every day life for black Americans.
This having to deal with white American society , and , the absurdity dished up by it , seems to be answering my question about the black white devide in America better than anything I can think of now.
I think Thad is making good points about what the author was really getting at about race choice.
But I still find the authors deep phsycho over analysing rather extremly racialy self concious.
I think if there are 1000 black females attracted to a white man, you are going to get 1000 reasons deep inside as to why, and, vice verca for both sexes and races.
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With regard to :
“I just dont get what is the big deal about being attracted to someone outside of our own race”.
As Bob Marley sung in his classic ‘War’ which was based upon a speech by HIM. Emperor Haile Selaisse before the UN in the 1960s , where he says
“Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes –
Me say ‘war’ [ie racism my emphasis]”
Some on the spirtual plane say the human race in evolutionary term is just like a ‘baby’ nowhere near maturity. So race is and will always be an issue for now
Finally with regard to Fanon’s assessment. I think he is also seeking ‘underlying causes’ (aietiology) but not symptoms, of behaviours, remember he is a psychiatrist.
If you read his other works, you will see that he documents that the island of Martinique generally had a ‘hatred’ for all things Black/African until Aime Cesaire came along in the 1930s, to help raise their/his racial consciousness
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Not a hater,
When, where, and in what context did Alfonso Ribiero say that about black women?
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Shani I don’t know where it was but I was on a forum and shocked to see that he said that. I forgot the forum though.
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Not a hater,
Can you verify that he made that statement? Was it published in an interview or is it an urban legend? That’s a pretty loaded remark to make. And I can’t believe he would be that bold (and dumb) to say it.
For what it’s worth, Riberio appeared on a segment of VH1’s I Love The 80s. He was raving over Whitney Houston’s looks; talking about the “power she had over men.” in terms of her appearance.
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“Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes –
Me say ‘war’ [ie racism my emphasis]”
So you think that because of this saying, people cant be attracted to a person of another race?
I have no problem with people saying they are in the struggle, but, to say that aplies to how we deal with mating or finding real freinds , I regect it flat out, and Im so happy to be in a place that doesnt think like that.
Yeah, people can tell me that if you dont like it, get out. Well , I did, and I have never looked back. And it shows that just because something is like this in one place, doesnt mean its like that in another.
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I try to forgive Fanon about this but it is hard. In the next chapter he basically theorizes that the black man who marries a white woman does not suffer from the same neurosis. He was not only married to a white woman, but was the darkest of his siblings in a family that had a history of concubinage by white men. When he disses Mayotte, he disses his own grandmother and other his other female ancestors. I guess this is a bad case of why physicians should not heal themselves.
ALSO Carlton from Fresh prince of Bell Air is Dominican. Like Martinique, the Dominican Republic is a hotbed of colorism. They pathologically deny their African origins and only claim aboriginal and European ancestry.
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Not a Hater:
I do think that anyone who bashes his or her own race and always dates outside of it does have serious issues. And dating only within one race that is not your own is a red flag too – unless you grew up among that race and it is what you are used to.
On the other hand, dating only within your race probably does not mean much – at least not in America where it is very common and society is set up to make it easier than not for most people.
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As to Ribeiro, I agree with Mynameismyname. I find it hard to believe Ribeiro would say that publicly – even if he believed it. Unless someone can state the source, like an interview, I am not going to believe it.
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No other race of man runs after women, only black men.
I’m calling BS here. American men will take sex from pretty much any woman who offers it, regardless of color.
B.R. sez:
But I still find the authors deep phsycho over analysing rather extremly racialy self concious.
Let’s put this book into historical persepctive, shall we? It was written in the 1950s and was supposed to have been Fanon’s doctoral thesis, but he was prohibitted from looking at racism through a psychoanalytic lens by his comittee. It is thus a first book of its kind: a psychoanalytical account of the sexual neuroses caused by race from the pen of a freudian psychologist. Given this, it seems a bit much to take Fanon to task for being psychoanalytical and self-conscious. He was a black man taking the first step into a realm of psychanalysis that all his white mentors warned him away from. Hell, I’d be racially self-conscious too!
And remember: this is the 1950s that we’re talking about here. The kind of racial attitudes that many commentators express here were barely a cloud on the horizon of white supremacy at the time. It’s unfair to criticize Fanon essentially for not predicting the changes of the past half century.
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I do think that anyone who bashes his or her own race and always dates outside of it does have serious issues.
I would agree with that and think Fanon would probably agree, too.
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What gets me about America, who is uptight about race and sex, is the constant pshycological examination and critisizm up and down about inter racial relationships.
It seems people who want to cross black white racial lines ,in America, are backed into a corner and subjected to huge amounts of stereo typing , generalising,inspection from head to toe of the motivations and predictions of the outcome, coming from all sides , black and white.
They are acused of fetishes , acused of being aflicted with jungle fever, analysed every which way posible to find something wrong with their motivations, acused of rejecting their race, or betraying their race by the klan.
I totally agree. In addition there are many same race couples that are together for the “wrong reasons” (e.g. self-hate, rebellion, fetishism, etc) yet they somehow escape the same levels of scrutiny and analysis.
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Escho,
Riberio’s parents are from Trinidad. Like DR and Martinique, that island is also a hotbed of colorism/racism.
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Riberio did say this-
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/11782/carlton-banks-racist-alfonso-ribeiro-wants-you-to-know-he-bleeps-white-chicks/
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With regard to:
” I try to forgive Fanon about this but it is hard. In the next chapter he basically theorizes that the black man who marries a white woman does not suffer from the same neurosis”
Thi is not so, a reading of ch 3, (sorry Abagond to pre-empt you). A reading of ch 3 even the opening lines would reveal this.
What I have often observed here attempting to utilise psycho-analyses is the ‘transference’ and ‘projection’ of a an ‘individual belief system’ to the reality of the ‘objective world’ – as if the two are one, which more often than not they are not and they are also two completely different realities
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J.
Save your comments until you finish reading the rest of the book. Then watch the documentary on his life. Fanon is only one of the many anti-colonial, civil rights brothers who married white women. Some black men have deep racially patriarchal issues. They feel that liberation has given them the right to marry anyone that they want but black women must marry black in order to procreate the race. I love my brothers, but the idea that interracial relationships between black men and white women is simply a matter of “love” is preposterous.
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Again, Esho do you have any evidence at all that Fanon believed white women were superior?
Any, whatsoever?
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Thad, when did I suggest that?
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Thanks Eshowoman
I have read the whole book, and at times I have re-read different chapters, or parts of it when needs be.
Obviously I cannot remmber everything in the book. However, what I can say the position you are bringing forth about Fanon is not correct, with regard to his politics to Black woman.
I have asked the women here previously to say what was Fanon’s view toward the Black woman and what words did he used?
Unfortunately there has not been a response to this question.
I would say because he did not really speak about Black woman per se in his politics.
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Thad, when did I suggest that?
When you imply that Fanon married white due to deep psychological issues of the sort which he unpacks in BS/WM.
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Well you have confused me with the “other women” on this thread. I never said he hated black women. You must have very little knowledge of black women in colonialism if you can assert that his scathing criticism of Mayotte Capecia is the same as his treatment Jean Vaneuse. He calls her a white-crazed idiot, but in the next chapter, Vaneuse is simply trying to find love.
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correction:…. Vaneuse is just a neurotic looking for love.
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I also did not say….
Fanon married white due to deep psychological issues of the sort which he unpacks in BS/WM.
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It seems to me that you’re implying that.
How do you read your comments, then, when you say:
He was not only married to a white woman, but was the darkest of his siblings in a family that had a history of concubinage by white men. When he disses Mayotte, he disses his own grandmother and other his other female ancestors. I guess this is a bad case of why physicians should not heal themselves.
Seems to me that your point is pretty clear there, otherwise the crack about “physicians healing themselves” makes no sense at all.
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Well stop trying to make out what I was “implying” and read what I wrote. I wrote about racial patriarchy, colorism and the facts of Fanon’s family.
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Esho,
Wow, Fanon was married to a white woman? I did not know that. I won’t lie. Knowing that makes me see him in a different light, considering what he wrote about.
Islandgirl,
Interesting find. The whole thing was pretty tongue-in-cheek. He’s mocking society’s reaction to his (questionable) racial preference in women. (Notice how eerily quiet the all-white audience got when he playfully went on about his love for white women! That is what he’s making fun of.) It’s funny, because in his Fresh Prince years, Ribero was very vocal about black issues and racism.
Hmm…him, Fanon, and several others…I’m noticing a pattern. LOL.
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@mynameismyname
J. A. Rodgers and Cheikh Anta Diop were also married to white women. So was the cinematic saint of blaxploitation, Melvin Van Peebles.
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Eshowoman sez:
I wrote about racial patriarchy, colorism and the facts of Fanon’s family.
Oh, come one, esho! Stand by what you mean. Don`t be coy. It`s damned obvious that you think Fanon has “issues” with race and sexuality and, as far as I can see, your only proof of this is the fact that he married white.
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Was J.A Rogers married to a White woman, where was she from??
J.A Rogers was an academic historian rather than a political leader per se.
Other political activist you can add to the list is Paul Robeson, Kwame Nkrumah, and rumoured Martin Luther King and the list goes on…
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You’ve got to be kidding me right? Fannon married a White woman but questions why Black females marry White men?
Is this for real?
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Are you a psychic or a psychoanalyst skilled in interpreting the unconscious motives of blog entries?
I am a film and cultural studies scholar who has studied Fanon extensively and am also person of West Indian heritage, with the similar genetic mix and cultural experiences as Fanon. I hate to pull rank but I know more about this than you do.When you have my pedigree maybe we can have a conversation without your “implications.”
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Thad:
You have done this at least twice before – with me and Peanut and now with Eshowoman – where you ASSUME what we mean to say and misread our comments accordingly.
I kept being told by you that I was black essentialist. Peanut was told she believes that monogamy is a surefire way to prevent Aids and was ridiculed for it and now Eshowoman is being told she believes Fanon married white due to deep psychological issues.
Instead of stereotyping our positions please be kind enough to read what wrote instead of putting words in our mouths.
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Patricia Kayden said:
“You’ve got to be kidding me right? Fannon married a White woman but questions why Black females marry White men?
Is this for real”
It is. But in Fanon’s defence (ducking the tomatoes) he married white after he wrote this book and he sees black men and white women as a separate case from black women and white men.
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You’ve got to be kidding me right? Fannon married a White woman but questions why Black females marry White men?
Let’s put it into perspective, Patricia, because you’re obviously having a hard time with this one: Fanon criticizes a certain SYNDROME that he sees among black women who marry white. This syndrome is not present among all black women who marry white in the same degree, but it’s always potentially there.
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abagond says,
But in Fanon’s defence (ducking the tomatoes) he married white after he wrote this book and he sees black men and white women as a separate case from black women and white men.
laromana says,
When I hear CERTAIN BM make exceptions for their IRR’S with WW while pretending they have the right to dictate to/judge BW about their IRR’S with WM it smacks of HYPOCRISY/IGNORANCE/SEXISM.
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Abagond, I don’t think I’m misreading esho’s comments at all. I think she’s being quite clear: she believes that Fanon has issues regarding race and sex and that’s why he married white. Now, I’ll ask her again: is this not true and, if not true, why the crack about “Physician heal thyself”? It makes no sense at all, otherwise.
So if I’m reading that comment wrong, how does esho want it to be taken, precisely?
But in Fanon’s defence (ducking the tomatoes) he married white after he wrote this book and he sees black men and white women as a separate case from black women and white men.
And it should be pointed out, before someone here screams “sexist pig!”, that Fanon also saw a neurosis which could push black men to marry white women. He did not believe that BM/WW is fine and BW/WM is horrible, as some people imply above.
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Black men suffer from this as well. There are a lot of people male and female who sadly suffer from this malady. I call them trained negroes
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Esho sez:
Some black men have deep racially patriarchal issues. They feel that liberation has given them the right to marry anyone that they want but black women must marry black in order to procreate the race.
Is there any proof at all that this is what Fanon believed? I only ask because you claim to be something of a Fanon scholar, so I presume you have quotes or something to this effect…?
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Sorry, am still not buying it Abagond, he comes across as someone with an axe to grind.
He’s preaching to black women(he knew them all did he?, or is he psychic as to read black women’s minds and their motives) that we must be insecure and calculating to be with white men..Black men on the other hand have nothing but noble intentions for marrying white, all in the name of love right??
What could have motivated this man to write such a book, where obviously the honor of black men and white women’s relationships are defended and cast in a better light. The same union that he just happens to find himself in later on. How fitting. As I said before marrying his white wife after the book has no relevance whatsoever, just a weird life imitating art kinda scenario, now granted, I haven’t read his BM/WF chapter, but so far that’s how he comes across to me.
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There are several things I don’t get here, but since I’m not really familiar with the issues discussed in the book, I think it’s the best to read comments and not offer my own. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think. I don’t see any reason for black man/white woman couples to be seen any differently than black woman/white man ones- unless it’s abut gender differences.
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ha ha ha ha…splat
Its one thing to duck the tomatoes…splat.
However, its another to mis-represent
With regard to:
“It is. But in Fanon’s defence (ducking the tomatoes) he married white after he wrote this book
and he sees black men and white women AS A SEPARATE
CASE from black women and white men.”
‘what is this special case’ that you are referring to here?
Thanks!!
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With regard to:
“There are several things I don’t get here, but since I’m not really familiar with the issues discussed in the book, I think it’s the best to read comments and not offer my own. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think. I don’t see any reason for black man/white woman couples to be seen any differently than black woman/white man ones- unless it’s abut gender differences.”
Well I would humbly submit that you are not on your own here Mira about not really familiar with the issues discussed in the book.
What I would say is happening is you are having a conflation of culture and gender issues and placing them retrospectively on Fanon’s book.
This is why you hear the idea of Fanon preaching to Black women.
1. In the US from the 60s there has been a rise in female consciousness to re-dress the imbalances in the world. Here I am specifically referring to Black women.
2.Then there is another strand to the argument. Within the Black Nationalist school, it is against intermarriage, like the Nation of Islam
3. Then you have U.S. history with its extreme racism, compared to France/Europe where Fanon resided after leaving Martinique.
4. France was completely different in its race politics to the U.S. This is not to minimise the racism at the time. However, I am trying to put things into perspective. Some Black Americans ie Richard Wright left what they perceived as racist U.S. to reside in France. So France in the 1940s is a completely different environment and culture to America at the time – but this point is overlooked here
5. Then you have females – as well as males concerned about the number of inter-marriage TAKING PLACE TODAY.
So what we have here, in my opinion is a conflation of all these points (1-5) and then projected back into the book and Fanon.
This is not to say that there are not any contradictions in Fanon. However, what you are actually seeing here is perhaps more about the posters worldviews, than Fanon the man. So for instance no-one has commented on the fact that his first wife was Black, or elaborated that point as an argument.
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@J
What I would say is happening is you are having a conflation of culture and gender issues and placing them retrospectively on Fanon’s book.
Yes, I do believe that might be the case. I’m here to learn more.
1. In the US from the 60s there has been a rise in female consciousness to re-dress the imbalances in the world. Here I am specifically referring to Black women.
I think this is my basic problem with the article- I understand feminism, but I am unable to properly connect it with race. Because to me, gender comes first, race second. I identify myself more as being female, than being white.
I am aware not everybody shares the same views, and of course all the people have a full right to determine their own identities. And while I do know there are people who are putting race first, I sometimes have problems understanding how it works exactly.
So yes, can understand Fanon’s points from the feminist/gender point of view. Call it double standards or culture, when it comes to sex, it’s simply not the same when men do something, and when women do it. But that’s all- I am afraid I am unable to see this problem beyond the gender one.
Then again, I must add I don’t buy “they raped us” argument. I do understand the mechanism behind it, but I don’t think it’s a good thing.
4. France was completely different in its race politics to the U.S. This is not to minimise the racism at the time. However, I am trying to put things into perspective. Some Black Americans ie Richard Wright left what they perceived as racist U.S. to reside in France. So France in the 1940s is a completely different environment and culture to America at the time – but this point is overlooked here
I agree. I am not saying Europe isn’t racist. But our racism is of a different kind than the American.
5. Then you have females – as well as males concerned about the number of inter-marriage TAKING PLACE TODAY.
Yes, I can see that. It goes back to “they raped us” argument, I think.
People need to understand that authors don’t always write autobiographical stories or, in this case, studies. If they want to explore a phenomenon, they must go beyond their personal experience. So just because I was never discriminated for being a woman doesn’t mean discrimination against women is nonexistent. So yes, there are sexist men in my culture and I despise them. I married a man from my own culture (who is not sexist, btw). Does that make me a hypocrite?
I said this several times: it’s never a good thing to transfer “bigger issues” and ideology on personal level.
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If I may, just to say the reiteration of;
“…Call it double standards or culture, when it comes to sex, it’s simply not the same when men do something, and when women do it.”
Even though Fanon spoke on matters of sex, race and marriage.
At no time, as far I know did he lecture people to marry only Black woman. Nor did he chastise Black women for marrying White and so on.
It is only in this post, are such charges alleged.
There is another thing about Fanon, he never claimed to be a Black Nationalist. His main goal was discussing the effects and impact of colonialism especially on its victims whether, Arabs or Blacks and a sort of a humanist.
Reading some of the comments her have been very disturbing, – and I think of myself and the capacity to learn,
understand and grow.
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@Thad,
“Fanon criticizes a certain SYNDROME that he sees among black women who marry white. This syndrome is not present among all black women who marry white in the same degree, but it’s always potentially there.”
Yeah, I think this is true, but only partially because the same truth applies to some black men. The fact is that all people of color were and are affected by white racism (white colonization/supremacy?)
@Abagond,
“he sees black men and white women as a separate case from black women and white men.”
True, Fanon does see these two partner combinations as different in intent. Many people do even today. Fanon’s opinion–at least in this writing–is that bm/ww relationships are based on true love of each other as individuals, a more honest affection (it’s clear when you read the next chapter). And bw/wm relationships are based on the black woman’s self-hate & need to distance herself from all things black. I’ve read a few blogs where these same statements are made by both black men & women. What I keep coming away thinking is that it’s an attempt to villainize & police black women who are with or interested in non-black men (specifically white men).
Thad, I read your post about you & your wife on the train when you were in the U.S & the reaction you received from black people. There’s a double standard & I’m weirded out that a french-caribbean man was spouting what I believe is misinformation as far back as the 1950’s. I just don’t believe that it’s impossible for black women & white men to have real love, but white women & black men always have a love that’s real. I don’t know what to think about this book at this point.
Great comments from all.
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@abagond Thanks for the heads up on Thad. Now that I know that he has habit of doing this I will ignore him. French colonialism wa different than British, Spanish and Beligum. in the manner in which they saw their subjects. France saw colonial subjects as french citizens who through education in & eposure to the civilizing effects of French culture would be almost as good as white frrenchmen. When fanon went to France he was shocked to be treated as less than.
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With regard to:
“When Fanon went to France he was shocked to be treated as less than”.
This is not so, as can be seen from his other writings
This is not true, since in Faon’s other writings he clearly goes throug the process of what you say here cannot be true and it is re
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oops forgive the typing errors (ie last sentence) – its getting late ere he he
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So Fanon was not shocked at the way he was treated when he went to France or he was not treated as less than?
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I don’t see a controversy here. I think this is true:
“When women of colour go after white men and put down men of their own colour Fanon says the cause is just what many of us suspect: internalized racism.”
I think this is false:
When women of colour go after white men Fanon says the cause is just what many of us suspect: internalized racism..
I think the part causing confusion (don't know if that's the right word) is the part I omitted the second time:and put down men of their own colour. I think your post may have implied something extra, Abagond, by virtue of highlighting only the first part of that statement.
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I do not think there is much about Fanon’s day-to-day living in France. This is why I found the comments strange,
probably to support a worldview
If data can be provided with Fanon’s own words, then I would be more than grateful to receive it.
With regard to how Fanon was treated in France. I am making it by reference to his other writings.
In Toward the African Revolution he discusses the fall of the White French man, and for the very first time, for most Martinicans through the inspiration of Aime Cesaire, that they no longer idolised White/France.
So by the time he went to France, the French would have
lost their ‘superiority complex’ – and hence no surprise!!
What I would say about the subject is that after his move to France he was sufficiently moved to fight French colonialism and participate in an armed struggle revolution.
I would aver partially because of the influence of his mentor Aime Cesaire, and what Fanon discusses in Toward The African Revolution, pertaining to Martinique in the late 1930s.
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MerriMay sez:
s he psychic as to read black women’s minds and their motives) that we must be insecure and calculating to be with white men..Black men on the other hand have nothing but noble intentions for marrying white, all in the name of love right??
Fanon is NOT commenting about all black women. He’s analyzing what he sees as a race-related sexual neurosis that occurs in SOME black women.
Furthermore, he points out similar neuroses that affect black men.
Read the book, is all that really can be said, MerriMay. Your reaction to it PARODIES Fanon’s points, it does not adequately encompass them.
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You forgot to add he is talking primarily of the Martinique-France connection in the French Caribbean world – and he does not claim to speak of anywhere else…unless you are reading this whole post ha ha ha ha.
Now I am off!!
See ya!!
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J,
Thank you for answering my question (I think your comment was to my question). At the time that I bought this book on-line I also got Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth (I hope to get to it after this). Only these two books by Fanon were available & two books on Fanon (one way beyond my range at $32+) and another that got terrible reviews (by John Edgar Wideman).
Maybe I’ll go to a non-cyber bookstore.
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OK. Whew.
Abagond has been calling me to task for being arrogant lately, so let me try to explain where I’m coming from on this book.
I first read it in 1998 because my then Professor Herbert Hill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hill) tossed it into my lap and said “So Thaddeus, I hear that there’s a lot of interracial f$%ing going on in Brazil. Your term project is to tell me why. Maybe this book can help you.”
My original reaction was like that of a lot of people here: the book seemed hard and stilted, difficult to read and, initially at least, Fanon seemed to be trying to read too much of sociological value out of a handful of neurotics. So I went back to Hill and asked him what he thought I should be getting out of it.
“Have you read the whole thing yet?” he asked me back, by way of answer.
“Well, no…”
“Well then read the damned thing, boy, then re-read it and THEN come back and ask me again.”
So I followed his advice and finally got it.
Hill taught a lot of difficult books and the one thing I definitely learned under him is that you can’t do a Reader’s Digest version of some topics: you can only really tackle them full on or you’re better off not even starting on them.
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Thad:
I deleted your last comment because you doubted Temple’s reading skills. That counts as an ad hominem attack. You make some good points, but please try to make them without throwing in personal remarks.
From my comment policy:
“An ad hominem attack is where you attack the commenter not the comment, like by calling him names or questioning his intelligence, character, motive, age or education. Even fools are right some of the time. Ad hominem attacks prove nothing and only make it unpleasant for everyone else.”
As far as you know all the commenters might be 14-year-old boys in Bangalore avoiding their homework. But it does not matter. Just like Fanon’s ideas are right or wrong independent of the fact that he married a white woman.
More:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/comment-policy/
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Thanks Temple…
What I find interesting here on Fanon is the issue of
inter-racial relationship
From a psychoanaytical perspective – since we are anon- what I find interesting there are other valid critique which can be used against Fanon, especially if you utilising a Black Nationalist position as opposed to African centred, since in this respect Fanon was very African centred.
Furthermore as I have said before Fanon was married to a Black woman. There has been no talk here or conjecture of was he suffering with complexes before and whilst he married this woman. Or did any complex(es) come thereafter.
Personally, what I think should be stated here is something like this, then you probably would not have seen any comments from me.
“I am a Black man or woman…or even a Black Nationalist. I am not much into Fanon ideas because unlike him I do not believe or practise inter-racial dating”.
What else could I say to such a response – Except – ‘Fair enough!!!
However, this has not been said by anyone here. It is implicit in much of the debate, and hence it would explain the ‘distortions’ attributed to Fanon, in an attempt to put him into the worldview of ‘others’.
Enough said…for now ha ha ha
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This is really something, this psycho analysing a psychologist , with his psycho analysis of interracial relationships , about interracial relationships.
So much psycho analysing of interracial relationships.
let me tell you all something that is really clear to me, after reading how so many people on here think white men with an attraction for black woman have a fetish.
PSYCHO ANALYSING INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS IS THE
REAL FETISH !!!!!!!!
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Abagond, that comment was quite specific and it didn’t relate to temple’s reading skills: it DID relate to Temple’s WILLINGNESS to read a book instead of just skimming it. I have my doubts he’s reading it if he thinks, upon reading chapter 3, that Fanon believes that BM/WW realtionships are more honest.
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Let me give people a few keys to this book…
First of all, Fanon is building a complex argument. BSWM is not a 2010 internet-ready document for the ADD generation (which I consider myself to be at least halfway part of, so no one should take this as a cut in particular). It is a THESIS, built a brick at a time, by a brilliant doctor trained in the classical French intellectual style. It is meant to be read all the way throguh, thought upon, and then reread. This is the minimum ammount of effort necessary for making an honest critique of the book.
Chapters 2 and 3 relate CASE STUDIES of people Fanon classifies as clinical neurotics. They do not offer up Fanon’s philosophy about black/white relationships in general. Fanon presents these studies to remove a common prejudice of the times which might otherwise be raised a s a block to his thesis: the belief that black people are “naturally” obsessed with sexual-love relationships with whites because whites are “naturally” superior and thus more attractive than blacks.
Fanon brings up Mayotte’s case in chapter 2 and Venieuse’s case in chapter 3 to show that ONLY NEUROTIC BLACKS FEEL THIS WAY. And this is his only reason for writing those chapters.
These chapters do not represent his views regarding healthy, normative black/white relationships, folks.
Chapters 4 and 6 are where Fanon really starts building his argument. Said argument can be summarized in the following way:
Certain blacks are neurotically obsessed with white beauty and sex because a racist, white supremacist system of values has enabled this neurosis. The problem here thus lies in white society’s racism and not in anything that has to do with blackness. If one wants to understand why certain blacks ONLY date or marry white people and obsess on this fact, one need only look at the dominant social values which surround them to see that which enables their neurosis. This is thus not a black problem: it is a social problem.
Fanon then goes on to basically say that white people drive black people insane by projecting onto black people exactly those things which white people most fear in themselves.
THIS is Fanon’s thesis and it was brilliant and radical then and continues to be so today. But in order to understand that, one needs to read – and reread – the whole book, not just skim a few pages of it or even a single chapter.
This is why all the comments about how Fanon is “projecting his internal struggles on those poor people in chapter 2 and 3” are ridiculous and reveal that the commentators haven’t even read the book that they are passing judgement on. Fanon is not holding out people like Mayotte as “typical of black women”: he’s saying she’s simply neurotic and not a very good example of normal black people at all. She’s nuttier than a fruitcake, not normal.
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Personally, what I think should be stated here is something like this, then you probably would not have seen any comments from me.
“I am a Black man or woman…or even a Black Nationalist. I am not much into Fanon ideas because unlike him I do not believe or practise inter-racial dating”.
What else could I say to such a response – Except – ‘Fair enough!!!
However, this has not been said by anyone here. It is implicit in much of the debate, and hence it would explain the ‘distortions’ attributed to Fanon, in an attempt to put him into the worldview of ‘others’.
Precisely.
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Thad:
I haven’t read the book admittedly so I’m reacting as I go to the chapters that Abagond blogs on.
Clearly you’ve read the whole darned thing, but for the purposes of debate relating to this particular chapter it would behoove you not to impose your own take on the book on people.
My reaction is not a parody of anything. Allow me and others to draw our own conclusions.
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True, Fanon does see these two partner combinations as different in intent. Many people do even today. Fanon’s opinion–at least in this writing–is that bm/ww relationships are based on true love of each other as individuals, a more honest affection (it’s clear when you read the next chapter). And bw/wm relationships are based on the black woman’s self-hate & need to distance herself from all things black.
Oh please. Is there an eyeroll emoticon here?
This man has got to be kidding. If this is actually what he is saying in this book, why is/was he being taken seriously instead of being ridiculed for this nonsense?
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Oh Thad…Trust you to spoil it for Abagond (who was going through the book chapter by chapter)…and for the rest of us here
First you take the black hair subject of track
and now this pre-empting
ha ha ha ha
Though I would say I think you have summed up Fanon position probably as how he would have described
it.
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Thad,
Chapters 2 and 3 relate CASE STUDIES of people Fanon classifies as clinical neurotics. They do not offer up Fanon’s philosophy about black/white relationships in general.
Ah okay, thanks. I might need to see if a local library has this book so I can check it out.
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Fanon then goes on to basically say that white people drive black people insane by projecting onto black people exactly those things which white people most fear in themselves.
Which, perhaps, explains my neurotic obsession with adequate reading. 😀
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“Certain blacks are neurotically obsessed with white beauty and sex because a racist, white supremacist system of values has enabled this neurosis. The problem here thus lies in white society’s racism and not in anything that has to do with blackness. If one wants to understand why certain blacks ONLY date or marry white people and obsess on this fact, one need only look at the dominant social values which surround them to see that which enables their neurosis. This is thus not a black problem: it is a social problem.”
Thad,even if this is Fanon’s basic premise, I find it limited and over analytical.
First of all, this is a very small percentage of black women that date white men ,who then totaly reject their own race.
And, if you can find 100 black women who date exclusivly white men, you could find 100 differant reasons.
There are so many factors that make up why people are sexualy attracted to a person of differant physical traits , and who would reject their own race , besides just the prejudice in society around them, which is of course a very valid point also.
They could have been beaten by their fathers. They could have had bad first time sexual experiances with black men. They could have been raped by a black man .They could be rejected in their racial social structure for a variety of reasons like being too light or being too black.
Your analysis of Fanon seems on point, I still think his analysis falls under over psycho analysing interracial relationships to the point of fetishism.
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First of all, this is a very small percentage of black women that date white men ,who then totaly reject their own race.
Remember that Fanon is talking in the context of the 1940s and ’50s France/Martinique axis. If that’s anything like Brazil (and several people have assured me that it is), the kinds of neuroses Fanon was talking about were not uncommon.
Fanon makes the point, several times, that people should watch it when applying his analysis, unmodified, to other racist environments.
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With regard to:
“I still think his analysis falls under over psycho analysing interracial relationships to the point of fetishism”.
We have to be careful still that we are not putting a 21st century spin on this when we describe these as a fetish.
If you look at Black Skin White Masks only two chapters are devoted to inter-racial relationships. His other works, Toward the African Revolution, A Dying Colonialism, Wretched of the Earth, I can’t remember any more titles of the top of my head does not discuss this topic.
Classifying his work as a fetish, in my humble opinion falls into the category of conflating present realities with Fanon’s realities – which are not the same
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Well, J, the whole book is actually devoted to interracial relationships, in one way or another. But you’re correct that this has nothing to do with fetishism on his part.
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ok, good points Thad and J
What I said, I didnt mean to say Fanon was like that with all his work, Im only referring to this study of his charactor in that chapter , which Thad has outlined well.
I agree about the time frame , I even mentioned that earliar in my post, that he was in a brutal time as far as prejudice was concerned, so , you all are right about that.
What Im suggesting is that this brutal racial prejudice , especialy on a brilliant man like this, could make him the one who is being somewhat fetish to psycho analyse why a black woman might only be attracted to white men and hate her race. After all, he can be brilliant and have his own psychological problems, as we know , most psychologists and psychiatrists do .
Im wondering ,even back then, how many of the black women who were exclusivly dating white men, actualy hated their race , or , could have been shaped by other factors like I mentioned?
Again, I feel sexual choices by individuals can run a serious gammet of complex reasons why.He even could have been basing it on a very few people he knew personaly and his own sexual demons.
And you know, people start building these psychological profiles about some people and its like jelly on bread, it starts getting spread all over and soon, any black woman who is with a white guy and every one starts thinking she fits that profile. Even he might spread it around in his judgements of woman (even with his other ackowledgemets of healthy interracial relationships), of course i dont know that.
Im not sure I agree with you , Thad , about Brazilian black women being with some neurosis like that ( if that is what you meant). I never got they hate their race, just that they arent hung up on dating white men.
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What Im suggesting is that this brutal racial prejudice , especialy on a brilliant man like this, could make him the one who is being somewhat fetish to psycho analyse why a black woman might only be attracted to white men and hate her race. After all, he can be brilliant and have his own psychological problems, as we know , most psychologists and psychiatrists do .
He could also have been a mass murderer or, hell, even a alien invader from the ninth dimension. There is no proof for any of these things, however, so idle speculation really doesn’t help us there.
Like I said, his analysis of Mayotte and company is neither supposed to be an analysis of black women in general, nor is it really the foundation stone for the argument that he builds. He’s clearing the decks. Fanon brings these people up to show that typical examples of black men and women who “obsess” on white beauty are really a few ants short of a picnic. His point is that this is not a “natural” black thing to do: it is neurotic. And that is really the only reason chapters 2 and 3 are there at all: to give the opening for what he wants to discuss, the origins of black neuroses on race.
Fanon wasn’t putting women like Mayotte in the same classification as a black woman who slept with white men for financial or survival reasons, btw. In her story, Mayotte makes some very anti-survival, anti-economic decisions based on her neurotic celebration of whiteness. Again, he’s talking about black people who neurotically proclaim that white people in general are innately superior to black people and who actually HURT themselves doing this. That’s a very different prospect from what you’re bringing up which, to me, points to a sort of tolerated semi-prostitution on the lines of concubinage or plaçage.
Im not sure I agree with you , Thad , about Brazilian black women being with some neurosis like that ( if that is what you meant). I never got they hate their race, just that they arent hung up on dating white men.
Well, yes and no. While I agree that Brazilians are much more likely to look at the INDIVIDUAL when it comes to mating and not their identity/heritage/racial classification/ what have you, remember that whitening ideology was a significant force here. My wife’s grandma used to talk about the need to “better the family’s blood” by marrying lighter and Ana and I often joke that if she were alive today, she’d be just pickled to see us married.
And white standards of beauty are lavishly praised in Brazil. In general, I’d say a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed person goes up about two notches on the beauty scale here.
So I’d definitely say we have some of the neuroses Fanon
talks about operating in our society. When practically every 20 year old brown girl I know has died their hair blond and straightened it at one point or another, then I’d have to say we have some pretty serious problems. MORE serious than the Americans? No. That’s like saying that the Pacific Ocean is wetter than the Atlantic. But serious enough for anyone’s taste.
I don’t think Brazilians “hate their race”. But then again, Fanon’s point isn’t that these neurotic blacks “hate their race”: it’s that they are driven into neuroses about blackness do to the unresolvable dilemas that racism presents them with.
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Thad
I wont speculate on Fanon any more.
“yes and no” well ill take that as room for dabate, maybe another thread
All I know is that my mother in law never said that, she just helped my wifes brothers and told the sisters to find a man to help them…
One thing Ive said before Ill state here, the cosmetics companies have us all running around in circles thinking that as we are we are imperfect and need to try their products.
Women love to change their visual from time to time
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All I know is that my mother in law never said that, she just helped my wifes brothers and told the sisters to find a man to help them…
I think most Brazilians in general would have a very hard time turning a viable mate down because they are not color compatible. In this you are quite correct.
I just don’t think this means that we are “less hung up on race” down here. Our hang ups just tend to be different. And BOY have I heard a lot of black neurotic crap out of the mouths of black and brown Brazilian women over the years, so I think Fanon’s pretty spot on here.
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Abagond said: It is. But in Fanon’s defence (ducking the tomatoes) he married white after he wrote this book and he sees black men and white women as a separate case from black women and white men.
@Abagond –
Please just call Fanon out for what he was — a hypocrite!! Nothing more, nothing less.
Not a fan.
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With regard to:
“Well, J, the whole book is actually devoted to interracial relationships, in one way or another”.
Thanks!! I am going to double check again by looking at the chapters again. Its not really an important issue since we both agree on the substantiave issue that its not a fetishism.
I am interested how ch 3 is going to be received here when he speaks of the Man of Color & the White Woman.
Especially as in my opinion he is just reiterating more or less what he says for the woman of color.
With regard to the issue of ch2 and ch 3 of this book. I personally believe that Ch 2. of another Fanon’s book may help to shed some light, and he even alludes to the BSWM in the opening sentence.
By the way Temple this is the chapter I was referring to and alluding to earlier
Ch 2: West Indians & Africans
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VScQZGMsox0C&dq=Toward+the+african+Revolution+Frantz+Fanon&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=gq8qG9BeEn&sig=HWwAghRsqAQ0mJ4M8e3jN6OZQSw&hl=en&ei=6UpSS_CaGoXu0gTm89GqCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false
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Especially as in my opinion he is just reiterating more or less what he says for the woman of color.
Well, he does call Venieuse gay, in a ’round about way, which is something new.
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Even though we spoiling things for Agabond ha ha…
…where is that part located???
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Even though we spoiling things for Agabond…
I really didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stand people distorting the man like that anymore.
Oops! My mistake on the gay thing. He said “introversion”, not “inversion”. In my copy it’s on page 73.
See what happens when you read Fanon too quickly? 😀
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ha ha!!
It can happen especially on a crazy board like this…
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J —
Thanks for the link. It’s reveals Fanon’s perspective more cleanly than what I’ve been able to get from Black Skin White Masks up to this point.
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Well some clever clogs here have spoiled it for some of us who haven’t read it yet.
Thanks guys 😦
sheesh
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Merri, this ain’t a blockbuster movie with a surprise ending. It’s a complex philosophical and psychological work. Abagond, I’m sure, will have his own take on things which will be equally valid as mine and J’s and if you read the book, you can develop your own. It’s open to a multitude of readings.
So nothing’s logically been ruined.
I just wanted to set people straight on what this book IS because some of the commentary was really getting dismissive and even parodying Fanon’s points and the man deserves much better than that.
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Hey, Thad,you said on another thread you couldnt believe I could say what i said here about the black woman in Brazil, and you say that she has the same neurosis.
I just dont agree. The white women go out between 12 and 2 to fry their skins to look black, so what if the black woman wants to look blond…why the need to finger neurosis?
Of course there are a lot of people everywhere who might say some dumb things. I dont know why you want to break it down on the black /brown woman of Brazil
I say there are deeper things than psycho analysis , I really dont get off on pointing fingers and saying “they are neurotic”.
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…not only that, as many woman who want a blond there are equal number who want a moreno
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Well, B.R., neither I nor Fanon are talking about someone who does this occasionally: we are talking about someone who holds it as an article of faith that, say, dying one’s hair blond and straightening it makes one prettier, even as it exposes one to incredibly poisonous chemicals.
The equivalent, to use your sun bathing analogy, would be white women who insist on sunbathing without sunscreen, even after contracting skin cancer, because tanned skin is just som much more beautiful.
It’s not occasionally doing these things that marks a neurosis, but obsessively doing them even when they hurt you. Nor is Fanon saying that this is an exxlusive thing of black women. In fact, he points out how COMMONLY and GENERALLY neurotic black men and women are who do this. It’s not blackness that’s their problem here: it’s the neurosis enabled by racism.
And I think Fanon’s analysis here is spot on: people who obsessively engage in dangerous activies are indeed neurotic.
not only that, as many woman who want a blond there are equal number who want a moreno.
My colleague Laura Moutinho would agree with you, but that in and of itself is an expression of what Fanon sees and something will get into later when Abagond reaches Chapter 6 or so.
But how many WHITE women in Brazil do you see dying their hair black and wearing dreads or other “African” styles as opposed to black/brown women going blond and straight? I live here, B.R. and deal with young women of the popular classes every day. I’d place the ratio at something like 1 to 10. And WHEN a white girl does this, it’s usually just a lark. Black/brown girls often straighten and lighten their hair with a maniacal frenzy.
Please don’t tell me you’ve never heard of “cabelo ruim”. No one in the history of Brazil has EVER called straight blonde hair “cabelo ruim”, B.R.
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The equivalent, to use your sun bathing analogy, would be white women who insist on sunbathing without sunscreen, even after contracting skin cancer, because tanned skin is just som much more beautiful.
Well, just to say the situation IS like that in my country. Having pale (non-tanned) skin is a huge no-no. You MUST be tanned to be considered attractive. So women- or, should I say, girls (16, 18 years old) go to tanning salons and obsessively use tanning creams and go to tanning salons more frequent than it’s recommended as safe and they stay there way too long. They know it’s dangerous, but they insist on going because white (pale) skin is considered extremely ugly. I once heard a girl talking to her friend about going to tanning salon before the New Year celebration, because she couldn’t stand being “white as cheese”. And she was already well tanned. So yes, they know it’s dangerous, but non-tanned skin is considered ugly, so they try to make it dark.
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That borders on the neurotic, for sure. It’s not the racially neurotic, however, Fanon would say, because there’s not an entire, wholistic ideology saying that “black people are superior and to have darker skin is to be more like black people”.
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There is another theory from the ‘Nationalist perspective’ explain but for fear of moving the topic on, I will not discuss it.
With regard to this tanning issue it is quite a wide phenomena and it is in other Eatern European countries.
What I would like to say and I am going a little bit out of my depth but here goes.
From a Frantz Fanon perspective, remember he is a psychiatrist using a psychoanalysis perspective
I think he would say something like this.
Whites who constantly seek to tan are doing it from a position of a’superiority complex’ (ie Alderian psychology).
So in other words Whites do not really hate White skin, what they believe is that adding a bit of a tan to the ‘White skin’ will enhance it.
This process is totally different to the ‘Blacks’ who come from a different perspective altogether. So in this way you can really equate the two. Even though to all intense and purposes it looks like the same thing.
This is something Thad touched upon when he referred to a White Brazilian imitating Black/African Brazilian styles.
So the key is understanding the Psychological perspective and in psychoanalysis the assumption is that there are number of basic drives (the id, ego etc)that ‘determines’ or more specifically ‘underlies’ ALL human behaviour and this is one of the reasons why Fanon analysis reaches such a depthof analysis.
Since he is searching for the equivalent of those Freudian terms (ie id, ego) with regard to societal influences on behaviour in a colonial situation ie (Whites vis-a-vis people of colour)…
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Correction:
Trust me to get it to wrong at a vital part
The Nationalist theory is suggested by Cress Welsing
More important than that though is, paragraph 7 should read
“This process is totally different to the ‘Blacks’ who come from a different perspective altogether. So in this way you canNOT really equate the two. Even though to all intense and purposes it looks like the same thing.”
Thank yu… ha ha
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abagond maybe you could put more focus on black men and white women. you seem to have more topics about black women with white men. just a suggestion.
if anything there is more of a stigma when black men date white women and people think it is more about sex than love. if anything because black women and white men rarely date each other, when they do people think it must be love.
strange that black men white women couplings are more common when really since slavery times black women being with or atleast sleeping with white men has been more accepted. here is an interesting article about prevalent and accepted interracial relationships. it has some truth to it. But i think in the u.k asian women and white men are less accepted than in the u.s. due to the fact many asians are not born in the u.k- many think the white man has brought them over to the u.k and fetishise them.
http://www.fiyastarter.com/fs-pages/fs-socgen-interrelation10.html
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I am in the UK… I had thought that Asian (ie Orientals/Far East) women and White men is quite common especially in the larger cities.
Asian men and White women not so.
What are your thoughts??
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anyway back on topic. yes there are some mixed race and black women that think this way and to be fair it is often because they have had bad experiences with black men. many mixed race people i have come across haven’t even had a black dad present in their lives. I have dated several black men, one white and one mixed race. not any lasting love with any yet, but then im still young. I do come across many black men that to be honest do live up to certain negative stereotypes. my black dad however has always been a good role model to me.
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according to marriage stats in u.k the most common interracial relationships involve mixed race women and men with white people. then ‘other’ women with white men, which could include south east asian women, since chinese is seperate from the ‘other’ caregory. I have heard people come out with more negative comments when an asian person dates white in the u.k than when a black or mixed race person does. I think the ethnic dynamics are different here.
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From a Fanon perspective, I think he would raise this question:
Is any bad experience – even if it always involve the same race due to the issue of race (ie inherently destructive), individuals (ie individuals make the race but they are not the race per se, or human conditions (ie environment)??
What one chooses would ultimately reveal a lot about the psychology of the individual, rather than those race(s) which are judged.
…If you follow
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J sez There is another theory from the ‘Nationalist perspective’ explain but for fear of moving the topic on, I will not discuss it.
Please tell me you were not going to bring up the theories of the melanin fetishists… [roll eyes]
So in other words Whites do not really hate White skin, what they believe is that adding a bit of a tan to the ‘White skin’ will enhance it.
And remember that this sort of thing is entirely consistent with classical racism theory. The BIG fear of racist white scientists was white “devolution” due to the “over-socialization” caused by civilization. So just a leeeeeetle bit of barbarism was considered to be a good thing. You can catch the full blown scientific version of this in Gobineau’s works. The popular American “for the masses” version can be found in Teddy Roosevelt’s musings on “the strenuous life”.
If tanning has a racial component, I see it slotting in here and not in some full-blown neurotic inferiority complex on the part of whites.
I am in the UK… I had thought that Asian (ie Orientals/Far East) women and White men is quite common especially in the larger cities.
Asian men and White women not so.
What are your thoughts??
The Madame Butterfly complex in western thought. There is no wide-spread equivalent – that I am aware of – which encompasses Asian men.
In this respect, Latin Americans are “better off” (if you can call this sort of fetishizing “good” in any way). We get the sexy mixed latina stereotype AND the Latin Lover stereotype. Don Juan de Marco or ChiChi La Bumbum, take your pick.
Come to think of it, Don Juan de Marco is an EXCELLENT example of the EXACT kind of neuroses that Fanon is talking about, except in an ethnic and non-racial context. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll use this movie as an introduction next time I present Fanon in class. It might shake people out of their entrenched mindset of thinking of this as a specific black/white issue…
Melissa sez:
anyway back on topic. yes there are some mixed race and black women that think this way and to be fair it is often because they have had bad experiences with black men.
And this is how racist neurosis develops, according to Fanon. They are frustrated in their expectations regarding black men and society has an apparently “rational” explanation for all this that conveniently dumps the problem on someone else’s shoulders. To the degree that these disapointments persist, the stereotype is increasingly likely to develop into neurosis unless the victim actively fights it.
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With regard to the issue of the sun tanning issue, it does involve melanin and a sort of pschoanalysis perspective too he he.
Just to say I don’t create the theories he he he. However, like a good scholar – well I am not one really – ha ha . All I do is bring them to the table, for discussion.
One thing about such theories it shows there are other ideas that many are not aware off, from an African centred or Black Nationalist perspective).
I would rather take the Malcolm X position to life and learning. He would read all views and that even including the extreme White racists. So he could have knowledge and a better understanding of what he is dealing with.
Moving it on who is this Don Juan de Marco and as a result I did not quite understand what you were suggesting about the Latin stereotype.
Cheers
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I don’t create the theories. All I do is bring them to the table, for discussion.
My cats do that with dead mouses, too. I toss the dead mouses out and don’t give them a second thought. 😉 Melanin theory is a particularly well-chewed and stinky dead mouse.
“Don Juan de Marco” is a film starring Johnny Depp in which a New Jersey ‘burb kid with a huge neurotic rejection-abandoment complex, a la that described by Fanon, builds himself the persona of the ultimate Latin Lover: Don Juan de Marco.
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Thad
‘Merri, this ain’t a blockbuster movie with a surprise ending’
Try to make your point without belittling people will you? Think you can handle that?
Sheesh!
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Sorry, Merri. It really wasn’t my desire to belittle you and I had no idea you’d take the comment in that fashion.
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That’s cool, apology accepted. Thanks.
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“I don’t see any reason for black man/white woman couples to be seen any differently than black woman/white man ones- unless it’s abut gender differences.”
The lack of interest in the experiences of women of color by many white feminist (male or female) is at the basis of this deeply uninformed comment. Read Zora Neale Hurston and find out why she says black women are the “mules of the world.” Then read Michelle Wallace, belle hooks, Angela Davis and Patrica Hill Collins on black female stereotypes and white femininity. Just look at the census statistics in the U.S. and England to see proof of the difference between bm/ww and bw/wm intermarriage.
Thad,
since you are an “expert” on the unconscious meaning of black women’s blog posts, please give us some examples of the “neurotic” responses of black Brazillian women to intermarriage. I find you views deeply paternalistic, since you come from a country that promotes sex with black and native women as a way to “lighten up” the country.
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The issue of Black women, feminism, and the liberation of Black women (whether it can be done as a ‘whole’ with regard to the women movemnet or as part of the ‘Black movement’ only, if at all) is really an interesting subject altogether.
What I would say is that when you look at all African/Black movements this matter has not been addressed.
So in this respect I do have a lot of sympathy with some of the ladies here – And I do understand why they may have a grievance against Fanon. Even though this is the first time I am expressing this position.
Perhaps a topic or series of topics for you there Abagond…
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Where can I find the book Nini?
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since you are an “expert” on the unconscious meaning of black women’s blog posts, please give us some examples of the “neurotic” responses of black Brazillian women to intermarriage. I find you views deeply paternalistic, since you come from a country that promotes sex with black and native women as a way to “lighten up” the country
And I find you deeply bigoted, since you seem to presume that a two-tone, one dimensional and absolutely parodic version of Brazilian history can somehow explain what I do or who I am.
So I guess we all have our crosses to bear, esho.
For the record, your view of “whitening theory” is parodic, not historical. It also seems to presume that Brazil was somehow “special” in wanting to “lighten up” its population. The only difference between Brazil in 1890 and the U.S. was that a certain segment of the first nation’s power elite was saying “Y’know, we can ultimately get rid of the blacks by mating with them” while in your “progressive” nation, the same sort of white racists were saying “kill the motherf#$%¨&s”.
Yes indeed, esho, as an American citizen, you certainly have cause for pride over your country’s much better form of racism.
I’ve posted an article on our blog regarding whitening theory and what it was, for anyone who wants to discuss this.
http://omangueblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/whitening-theory-in-brazil.html
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But since you ask about Brazilian women’s neurotic responses interracial sexual and affective relationships…
First of all, let me stress that I’m talking about a small minority here, definitely not the norm. However, even so, I’d have to say that this sort of reaction is much more common here than in the U.S.
Putting it simply, there are some black and brown Brazilian women who fetishize white skin, blond hair and blue eyes. Most of the time, this is simply a fetish. Where it becomes dabgerous for the women concerned is when they, like Mayotte, affirm that this sort of biotype is obviously superior to any other.
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@J
So in other words Whites do not really hate White skin, what they believe is that adding a bit of a tan to the ‘White skin’ will enhance it.
I think this is true. Those people have nothing against being white (as “race”). Since most of the Eastern European countries are almost 100% white, those people don’t really think of themselves as belonging to a particular race (they view themselves as raceless). What current beauty standards dictate, however, is skin that isn’t pale- skin that has a “healthy olive- tanned tone”, as the opposite of pale white, which is considered unattractive.
This, however, doesn’t mean Eastern European people want to be dark per se. However, you must understand that “dark” here doesn’t mean “black”- after all, most of the Eastern European people are white. What is considered dark (in a bad way) here is being Gypsy (Roma) or Turkish. Those are not considered attractive. It’s not about the skin colour. While you’re visibly non-Gypsy, for example, you can make your skin as dark as you want (and can), and you’d be considered attractive. So there are many tanned blondes that go to tanning salons way to often, which is not healthy at all. I have no idea why this is taken as the absolute beauty standard, but it is.
As far as I know, this has nothing to do with race. I might be mistaken here, though.
@eshowoman
The lack of interest in the experiences of women of color by many white feminist (male or female) is at the basis of this deeply uninformed comment.
Thanks for the book recommendation, I’ll try to find those books. I am not sure how to find census statistics, though.
@Thad
Now when i think about it, “Don Juan de Marco” is a good example of the complex problem we’re talking about. Maybe I should watch the film again and see if I could understand neurotic rejection-abandoment complex better.
My motives are, of course, strictly scientific, and have absolutely nothing to do with the fact Johnny Depp plays the main character.
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Thanks Mira!!
And just one other thing and I am sure you know, but I will state it anyhow, that trends for obtaining a tan is only a recent phenomenon and I am sure at some point in time there will be probably be a desire for ‘pale skin’.
I knew about the plights of the Gypsies but I did not know about Turkish.
In England there are so many different nationalities that you become to be aware of some of the politics) in Eastern Europe but I did not realise that about Turkish as being ‘unattractive’
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Yes, I know tanning is a recent phenomenon. My grandmother (who was only part Eastern Europen- she was part Croatian, part Polish and part Austrian, and very light skinned) considered this paleness of the skin as a very attractive feature. She couldn’t understand tanning- only village women were tanned because they had to work on field, ladies were pale, and that was beautiful. I am very pale and I can’t tan- of course I hated that when I was a teenager, and my grandmother didn’t understand why.
So, I guess tanning obsession was generated in the last few decades. In my grandmother’s time (first half of 20th century), pale and “snow white” was beautiful. In my parent’s time (60s, 70s, 80s), tanning was beautiful, but only natural one (it was normal to go back to being pale in winter, but get tan on the beach in the summer). In my generation’s time (from 90s onward), tanning is a must during the whole year (hence tanning creams and salons).
About Turks- Oh yes, Europe hates them. Half of the Eastern Europe was enslaved by them for several centuries, and that’s why Turks are considered “bad” there, while in the rest of the Europe, they are considered bad because of their religion, as well as culture- they are considered dirty (and all the other negative stereotypes you can think of). They want to join EU, but Europe doesn’t want them.
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My motives are, of course, strictly scientific, and have absolutely nothing to do with the fact Johnny Depp plays the main character.
As opposed to, say, Jack Black… 😀
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J. A. Rodgers’ wife was named Helga Bresenthal. She was responsible for keeping his work in print after he died.
Thad,
you have been insisting that you know my, abagond’s and peanut’s unconscious motives behind our blog entries. But I am bigoted, by stating a well documented Iberian colonialist strategy. Please, spare me. Why are you here if all you want to do is shove your opinion down the throats of black women?
By the way, I of Caribbean heritage, both my grandmothers were products of concubinage. So my families experience is not American.
Here are some articles from fellow “bigots” like me.
Racial ambiguity among the Brazilian population
http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9182b929
During the height of scientific racism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Brazilian elite was concerned that the country’s large black
population would predestine the country to second-class status. Therefore, it sought to “eliminate” blacks and thus “whiten” the population by encouraging European immigration and intermarriage. Marriage to whites was believed to whiten the population because white
genes were thought to be dominant (Skidmore 1974). P9
The Idea of race in Latin America, 1870-1940
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ZKImn9nyGUYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=brazil+whitening&ots=Cc0wRI1RbX&sig=Nfo18ynu4e2SkBC0j8khLl_oFwE#v=onepage&q=brazil%20whitening&f=false
The whitening thesis got unique support in Brazilfrom the widepread belief later popularized by Gilberyo Freyer, the the Portuguese enjoyed the uncanny ability to lighten the darker people from which they mixed. Page 9
In Search of the Afro-American “Eldorado”: Attempts by North American Blacks to Enter Brazil in the 1920s
Luso-Brazilian Review Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer, 1988)
…they hoped that over several generations, Brazilian blacks and European immigrants would intermingle to the extent that a mixed race, or “whitened,” population would predominate. This policy of “whitening” or branquismo, pervaded all levels of Brazilian society and underlay the exclusion of non-white immigrants.P16
I could go on and on and but that would only make me more of a neurotic black woman. I post these references because I want the participants this thread to get the facts, not conjecture from someone who obsessionally denies and belittles the historical and continuing experience of black women.
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Esho sez:
you have been insisting that you know my, abagond’s and peanut’s unconscious motives behind our blog entries.
Friend, do you want me to repeat all the names you’ve recently called me and give you a list of all the things you’ve assumed about me?
But I am bigoted, by stating a well documented Iberian colonialist strategy.
As I’ve stated on Ana and my blog, “whitening” was hardly an Iberian strategy, being that it was discussed in Brazil from about 1880 to 1930, roughly 60 years after Brazil had declared independence from Portugual and 380 years after Portuguese colonization began in these parts.
Apparently, you need to learn a bit more about Brazilian history, Esh, because what you claim is “well known” is, in fact, a mistatement of facts. Insofar as it is a mistatement of facts that you cling to in spite of your ignorance about the topic at hand, it is bigoted.
By the way, I of Caribbean heritage, both my grandmothers were products of concubinage. So my families experience is not American.
Nothing is more American than the child of an immigrant, Esho. And nothing is more American that the American child of an immigrant who claims that s/he’s “not really” American.
Here are some articles from fellow “bigots” like me.
Racial ambiguity among the Brazilian population…
That’s nice, Esho, but where in that article does my colleague Telles claim that whitening theory existed in 1600 and was the official policy of the Portuguese colonial government? I don’t think you even read the paper, to tell the truth (which seems to be common here among commentators).
Telles, in fact, is offering very good evidence that not only is race ambiguous in Brazil but that the U.S. and South Africa’s unambiguous views on race are the exceptions, rather than the rule in world attitudes towards race. What ANY of this has to do with a supposed Portuguese conspiracy to force miscegenation is beyond me. Perhaps you’d like to point out to me what you think you’re seeing in Telles’ article?
During the height of scientific racism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Brazilian elite was concerned that the country’s large black
population would predestine the country to second-class status. Therefore, it sought to “eliminate” blacks and thus “whiten” the population by encouraging European immigration and intermarriage. Marriage to whites was believed to whiten the population because white
genes were thought to be dominant (Skidmore 1974). P9
Thomas Skidmore was an old professor of mine and I’m quite happy you seem to have discovered him for yourself, even if you have had to use Google to do it. Skidmore’s work, however, has now had close to 40 years of further research added to it. Perhaps you should compare his statement to one I wrote this morning and which is now up on my and Ana’s blog:
“Whitening theory” in Brazil was hegemonic from about 1880 onto, maybe, 1940. 60 years out of the 500 that make up Brazilian history. To truly understand it, one needs to look at the context of the times. This period was the heyday of scientific racism in the United States and Western Europe and most of the world’s top biologists looking at human race believed that intermixture between the races (i.e. miscegenation) led to immediate and utter devolution: the creation of “mixed” people who were morally, physically and intellectually inferior to their parents. (Something certain white and black Americans still believe unto this day, apparently…)
Well, this presented Brazil with a quandary. A huge portion of its population was black or native and even more of what was left was mixed. If the racist presumption regarding intermixture was true, then Brazil was doomed to be a degenerate, sub-evolved mongrel nation (again, sort of like what certain Americans – black and white – believe it to be today).
Now remember, racist scientific theory wasn’t just an academic debate at this point in history: it was widely believed by everyone as representing the key to human behavior. It was very pop. Hell, even such black luminaries as W.E.B. Dubois and Marcus Garvey apparently bought into it, going on their comments at the time. If I recall correctly, Garvey once made the claim that North American blacks were more “evolved” than other types because of “evolutionary pressure” from “the highly aggressive Anglo Saxon”. Everyone thought that biology held the key to explaining human social behavior and almost everyone believed that “purity of race” created an unbeatable evolutionary advantage.
Faced with this consensus, Brazilian scientists split into two general groups: those who agreed with racial purity and those who sought other information from the biological sciences to question it.
The first group believed that “natural competition” from the “superior white race” would eventually eliminate blacks and Indians in Brazil. Obviously, then, Brazil would have to import more whites to make up for this fall-off. The United States, by the way, was these gentlemens’ model because, according to them, the U.S. was well on the way to eliminating its “black problem” through actual physical elimination (though they usually used the euphemisms of their American counterparts and said things like “out compete”). I call these boys (and they were almost exclusively male) the “kill the bastards off” crowd.
The second group is perhaps best represented by João Batista de Lacerda. This group took a long, hard look at what little information existed about genetics and interbreeding at the time and concluded that there was no scientific basis for the notion that racial purity was inherently superior. They looked at dog breeders and plant breeders and concluded that, with the proper management, hybridism could in fact create a super race. For this group, the question then became “well, what is the proper mix for the future Brazilian super race?” Given that they were indeed racists (as even most Black scientists were at the time) and also white supremacists, it was pretty much universally agreed that Brazil had “too much black blood for its own good” and that importation of white blood from Europe via immigration was called for. The members of this crowd were the real “whiteners” in that they actively encouraged interracial mating and marriage.
Skidmore, for example, incorrectly claims that Freyre believed that “strong” Portuguese genes would win out over “weak” African genes. In fact, a careful reading of Freyre’s major work The Masters and the Slaves quite clearly shows him defending blacks as the most dynamic group within Brazil – biologically and culturally. What Freyre DOES claim is that unlike northern European whites, the Portugese had little problems interbreeding with Africans. The resulting progeny were not white, though, but brown.
Skidmore’s views re: Freyre are quite typical of 1970s scholarship when much of Brazilian historiography was revolting against Freyre. Since then, there’s been a more balanced re-evaluation of the man’s work, at least here in brazil. Apparently U.S. Brazilianism is still stuck back in the 1970s on this point.
I could go on and on and but that would only make me more of a neurotic black woman. I post these references because I want the participants this thread to get the facts, not conjecture from someone who obsessionally denies and belittles the historical and continuing experience of black women.
If you are truly interested in this topic, I suggest that you actually READ the books you googled up and not just selected pages of them. I would also suggest that you go direct to the originals.
For example, here is Freyre himself on this topic (and not some American interpreter):
Every Brazilian, even the light-skinned fair-haired ones, carries about with him on his soul, when not on his soul and body alike, the shadow, or at least the birthmark, of the aborigine or the Negro… The influence of Africa, either direct of vague and remote. (M&S, 278)
This is hardly the view of a man who believes that the black man has been absorbed into the white without a trace.
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Like I said on another post, I am through responding to you. Please do not respond to my post and stop using my name in your own blog post.
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Sorry, Eshowoman. I am not doing what I’m doing to irritate you. I am simply stating the facts as I see them.
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What I don’t understand is why Fanon only discussed black women who are married to white men. Why not talk about black people, both men and women, who marry white people for the wrong reasons. I constantly hear black men who put down black women in favor of white women. Many black men say that white women are kinder, more patient, and more submissive. So what is the difference between a black man who puts down black women in favor of white women and a black women who puts down black men in favor of white men? Nothing. To say that black women and white men relationships are somehow more tainted than black men and white women relationships is ridiculous. I agree with MerriMay, I sounds like Fanon is being a hypocrite. It is okay for him to be with a white women, but it is not alright for a black woman to be with a white man?And then to assume that black women who are in interracial relationships are somehow more into “self-hatred” than black men. Well, there are many black men who hate themselves and hate being black. There are many black men who marry white women for the wrong reasons. So why not discuss BOTH black men and women who marry for the wrong reasons. That would have been the right thing to do.
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And let me say something else, I remember when I was a child, around 8 or 9, I read a book and in the book a black man said ( bare in mind, this was an actual statement by a REAL black man, not a fictional character) that he would rather marry a fat, bald, white women who was toothless, before he would marry ANY black women. There are many black men who are programmed into believing that “white is right” Many, many black men. There are many black men who hate their own race, especially the women. So what Fanon is talking about is pure nonsense. Yes, there are black women who hate themselves, who want to be white, but to imply that this is a uniquely black women problem is just outrageous. Ask black women how they feel about the issue. Many will tell you how rejected they feel by some black men. They will tell you how many black men will completely ignore a black women, in favor of white woman any day. So if Fanon was going to talk about self hatred, he should have been objective. He clearly is in favor of bm/ww relationships for his own selfish reasons. Self hatred is a problem that effects both black men and women. Living in a racist and color struck society has had a huge impact on black people, often since they were children. So I am suspicious of the real motives of anyone who implies that one type of interracial relationship is better than another.
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I agree with you jeri. it seems that fanon is putting more focus and negativity on when a black women is with a white man. black men and white women couples are more common so maybe that should also be focused on and yes i have come across black men who date women and say they are more easy going e.t.c then moan about a black women dating a white man ie. calling halle berry a sell-out. this hypocrisy does not even suprise me anymore.
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So how is the next installment going Abagond…or not, as the case may be… ha ha??
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https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/fanon-the-man-of-colour-and-the-white-woman/
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And from the Liberator magazine. I am surprised no-one had referred to this.
“And now we move to one of the more exciting chapters in Fanon’s book, “The Woman of Color and the White Man”. Fanon’s analysis, as we have seen, is based primarily on the Martinican relationship to France during his time. As such, he decides to analyze a book written in 1948 by a black woman–Mayotte Capecia–in which she divulges her reasons for being exclusively attracted to white men.”
http://weblog.liberatormagazine.com/2009/12/frantz-fanons-black-skin-white-masks-ch.html
Once again no attempts to pre-empt on my part
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Here’s one for you Thad. It took me a very long time to work it out, but somehow I did.
“Fanon’s scathing condemnation of the novel and writer were rooted in initially the
Novel’s commercial success, literary kudos and appeal to French audiences, an appeal
Undeniably linked to Capecia’s seemingless effortless adeptness at acting as a mirror for
the French, reflecting back their idealized conception of themselves.
But it is precisely this dismissive critique that has led Fanon into a myriad of conflict with Feminists and helped to catapult him into a misogynist and sex orbits.”
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Qrd9FR-xn10C&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=White+Feminist+attack+on+Fanon&source=bl&ots=WtxCd6mdgA&sig=fmbGhvznmPDMFoI28R0L8500q5I&hl=en&ei=P02DS4YhirLSBISD_cQC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CB0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=White%20Feminist%20attack%20on%20Fanon&f=false
So in essence what we are having here is a Feminist critique of Fanon taking place on these pages.
however, and as usual, no-one came forth and suggested that this was ultimately the perspective tehy were arguing from.
From the Black Nationalist perspective what we would have here would be specifically considered as a White/Western Euro centred feminist attack, since it is they in the Black Nationalsit eyes who run and control the movement.
This is one of the major issues to what extent Euro-centred Feminism is affecting the Black libertaion struggle, if at all??
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Start reading from page 62 and you will see more or less every argument presented here unfold
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With regard to this issue of criticism of Fanon. He has long been the ‘bogeyman’ figure in the Western world.
And much of it has been carried out here under the guise of feminism, as well as others merely following the consensus.
Paradoxically, with regard to the issue of ‘revolutions’, if you wish to keep a populace ‘dumb-downed’. Then its best to keep an individual away from Fanon.
Its no co-incidence that when the Black Panthers cited their ‘heroes’ (i.e revolutionist). Fanon is there high up on the list.
I felt this needed to be said
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Whilst trawling through the posts of what had been said.
I saw for the first time your following comments:
“J. A. Rodgers’ wife was named Helga Bresenthal. She was responsible for keeping his work in print after he died”.
Thanks for the information. I tried lookin for an autobiography about her on the net, but hardly any entries came up.
Do you have any other information please??
Cheers!!
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Although a lot of you have valid points and are entitled to your opinion, facts and research are the ultimate bottom line…Please let me introduce you all, if you do not know already to (Joel Agustus Rogers) Just look him up and read his books, and nothing else will need to be said, you will be enlightened and amazed. He was THE historian of all times, and gives many facts and details of all of his pioneering works. His works show great details, facts and examples of race mixing of our American History and Nation.
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Well Fanon begins with an important qualifier. The woman of color who dates white AND puts down her own race. I think that is the key as to whether the interracial relationship – any interracial pairing – is healthy or not. If you are going for something else because you’re self-hating that’s a problem. I think it’s preposterous to assume that just because someone has found companionship outside of their “race” that they automatically have issues with their racial and cultural identity.
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oh yes, if god ‘fannon’ says it then it must be true.
the three women being hated on in fannon as ‘examples’ are conveniently women of mixed heritage–perhaps the very sort of women fannon desired? fannon is one of the most simplistic, limited ‘theorist’ out there.
what fannon effectively does (for himself and the ‘blacks’ he speaks for, including the ‘white’ that relished it all) is reveal the overwhelmingness and importance of ‘white’ in his and their lives. fannon does not question the prevailing attitudes so much as elevate the keepers at the ‘zoo’, that psychic zoo into which he placed one group: ‘the blacks’. none more happy to quote fannon than neoliberal whites (many with closet suprematist feelings)–, and ‘blacks’. possessed with fannon’s malaise, people continue to think of themselves only through the eyes of others. with that kind of thinking, surely you do not exist until acknowledged as ‘other’? yet in that ‘acknowledgement’ there’s no existence. but people go around feeling at least vindicated.
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Reblogged this on conflictedblackgirl.
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Fanon is hypocrite about interracial partners.
He said that who he chooses to marry is nobody business. Then why did he make it a business for blacks marrying out of their race?
Does he want us to think that he is superior to those other blacks who marry whites because of complex of inferiority or self hate but himself is an exceptional black who should be seen as different?
He wrote very good books but that doesn’t make him morally a better self conscious black. He is a hypocrite who accused some black people for doing a same thing that himself did.
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