Black Skin, White Masks Paperback – September 10, 2008

On my first read. This book is a lot to digest. I love it though and it was worth the purchase.

"I am black; I am in total fusion with the world, in sympathetic affinity with the earth, losing my id in the heart of the cosmos... I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth." (p. 27)~ Thus Fanon reaches into the experience and meaning of the black man's alienation.This alienation strikes in an essential sense--it stems from the denial of the black man's very flesh: "The black man is attacked for his corporeality. It is his tangible personality that is lynched. It is his actual being that is dangerous..." (142). The white man, who has been obsessed with eradicating the body out of collective consciousness for millennia, now associates this abjected domain of the body with the black man, and constructs it as the essential evil Other. The white man does this because he is insecure--he does this out of hatred, a hatred that he works to cultivate, that consumes his time and energy. The white man is dehumanized. Projecting his fears onto the black man, the white man shirks his responsibility to acknowledge his guilt (83) in instrumentalizing the black man (206).Even though this work was written over 50 years ago in a literal colony of Europe, sadly it remains only too relevant in the United States today as a condition between people that allegedly have the same legal and human rights. This is largely made possible by the many ever-so-casual-racists (who vehemently deny they are racist)--people who, for example, complain about affirmative action as unfair to them personally (nevermind history and generations of enslavement and stolen opportunities). Fanon writes, "outside university circles there is an army of fools... Granted, these fools are the product of a psychological-economic substructure. But that does not get us anywhere" (18). An education for racial tolerance from which we are sadly very far removed is necessary for moving towards a world of love.

This is a brilliant attempt of the era to scientifically analyze the black psyche in a white world. This book has far reaching effects on how colonialism was viewed to impact the black man in society and undoubtedly must have sparked a few revolutionary undertakings. This is not my first encounter with this book, I have had the opportunity to use it as sociological reference in 1981/82 and felt compelled that I would read it in its entirety some day. Now I can say I did and was more than satisfied. Fanon is a great writer of his times and beyond. I am tempted to say that this book should be read by all Black men and women however it is not an easy read because to me it is not a Novel (not a story book). As a student of History, Sociology, Psychology and Psychiatry I found it very delightful and relatively easy to follow. This Book is very powerful writings for the time when it was written, no wonder Fanon was dissuaded from using it as his Thesis for his Ph.D.. May his soul rest in peace but may his ideas live on. O my body always make me a man who questions?

Imagine how useful academia could be if this kind of writing was accepted at the doctoral level these days! Here is a concise analysis of the problem with plausible solutions. Not what seriously more than 99% of all academic writing in sociology, literature, the art, comparative literature, and anthropology hold as a gold standard today; today you must obfuscate your pointless observations with academic jargon, citation and reference to others who have made no real observations, and fighting racism by supporting a new way of talking in order to maintain the existing inequitable systems.

Although it has the trappings of a philosphy book, the overly flowery speech of the original French (translated thankfully), it sadly tells some truths that are still relative in 2017 about how blacks in the Western Hemisphere that are descendants of those brought here during the TransAtlanatic Slave Trade, regardless of if they ended up in Anglophone, Francphone, or Hispanphone nations can relate to if they are conscious and self-reflective. Race relations and human rights have come a long way since Franzt Fanon wrote his magnum opus, but some of the sociological and psychological dynamics have not changed as the same pace as the laws.

This iconic book arrived on time and in great condition.

Glad I purchased this book for my collection. Great information. Knowledge is power.

This is and was a great book. Even though he discussed the effects of racism in regards to his native land of Martinique we Mr. Fanon has to say still resounds in today's so-called PC world.I do wish he had lived long enough to see Barack Obama elected President of the United States. I would have loved to hear his take on that. The only aspect I found missing from this book is his opinion on Black American ex-patriots living in France. James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Josephine Baker.... Did these African-Americans living in Paris not realize the effect of colonolism on all Africans in the Diaspora?, or were they treated as "Honorary Whites" in France. I truly wish Frantz Fanon had explored that entire subject.