Psychological Study of 'Black Skin, White Masks'

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Psychological Study of 'Black Skin, White Masks'

Introduction:

“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 -- and the white man, however intelligent he may be, is incapable of understanding Louis Armstrong or songs from the Congo. 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.”

― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (Chandler, 2007)

          Brief about Fanon’s life:

Frantz Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique on July 20, 1925. , Fanon left the colony in 1943, at the age of 18, to fight with the Free French forces in the waning days of World War II. After the war, he stayed in France to study psychiatry and medicine at university in Lyons. The theory which he gave this book is his own experience as a psychiatrist. He was a scholar psychiatrist, but being a black he was always known as a black thinker or Negro intelligent. He himself felt this kind of insult. “Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.”  (Chandler, 2007)  
So he records everything in this book, his experiences as a psychiatrist and his own experiences. It was his research work, later on published as a book form.

       His idea in this book:

He gave several ideas in this book and at length he talks about the mentality of the black people. His basic idea is to understand the color of the skin and the race. “Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.”  (Chandler, 2007) This quotation is taken from his book. We can understand that if the people around you create an identity of yours then it will be very difficult for us to break it. And even if we try to break it with the new evidences then they will not allow us to come out from that. If we try to look at this idea with the racism then we can say that ‘Black’ is the identity created by the white. And though the black people tries to come out from this they will be not able to come out from this CONSTRUCTED identity, or rather we can say that they are not allow to do so.

“What does a man want?”

“What does the black man want?”

“The white man is sealed in his whiteness, the black man in his blackness.”
 If we tries to look at this ‘Blackness’ and ‘Whiteness’ as a concept then we come to know that there is always a men’s wish to be a white. If tries to see it from the psychological point of view that it is called as a ‘Desire’. Desire to be white and desire means you do not have that, it is lacking in you. When a black sees him he feels ‘State of Being’. State of being means when a Negro see, Negro sees the white face not the way they are. Means they try to find out the whiteness in them. Now this blackness or whiteness belongs to their skin color and they wish to change it they can’t.

Here I would like to give example of Michael Jackson. He goes on performing plastic surgery upon his body and turned himself from black to white. Though he was very much popular among the people but still we can say that he was obsessed by his skin color. Black people think that their being is with their skin color. So, these were some ideas, Fanon talks about the ideas in detail.

                Psychological study of black men:

Fanon in his book also talks about the mentality of the Black people. How because of their skin color they are marginalized from the society, and the black people’s wish to become white. He says that the black men always remain in dilemma, turn white or disappear. Here also we can apply the ‘State of Being’. He furthermore talks about the black men’s mentality that how it changes when they goes into the white world. In the white world they behave like a white man. In a sense they adopt everything from the white world from their behavior to their mother tongue. Once they master it they feel superior. When again they come back to their own community they feel superior or upper hand from the other black men. Their behavior totally changes. In their own community they feel like a white man.

Lacan says that language constructs our unconscious. So, here also language plays a vital role behind one’s mentality. Through language we constructs ourselves, our identity or rather we can say that our cultural identity.  “To speak pidgin to a Negro makes him angry, because he himself is a pidgin-nigger-talker. But, I will be told, there is no wish, no intention to anger him. I grant this; but it is just this absence of wish, this lack of interest, this indifference, this automatic manner of classifying him, imprisoning him, primitivizing him, DE civilizing him, that makes him angry.
If a man who speaks pidgin to a man of color or an Arab does not see anything wrong or evil in such behavior, it is because he has never stopped to think.”  (Chandler, 2007) We can say that how language operates in the society and especially conditioning one’s mind.  

                Psychological study of white people:

When a white person looks at a black person, how he will look at him? Surly he will try to differ himself from him. He will think that he has the power and he is superior to the fellow. Now this it becomes the narcissistic approach. We can say that they are so much obsessed by their color that they can’t see other things. Suddenly they start thinking that they are the most civilized people in the world. They are the educated people. From this ‘The White Men’s burden’ came those they are from those intellectual people who have burden to civilize the society. Knowingly or unknowingly they do harm to the other people’s culture and their identity. They never respect a black man rather they feel hatred towards them. The white people always try to protect the white women from the black people. They think that the black men are always hungry for the white women’s body. They always portray animalistic characteristic of the black men.

Here I would like to give the example of the play ‘The Tempest’ by Shakespeare. In this play Prospero tries to save her daughter Miranda from Caliban who is a black slave. Prospero thinks that Caliban is hungry for his daughter and Miranda herself was also so much afraid by Caliban because of his look and color.

                Psychological study of black women:

Fanon as a psychiatrist studied a black woman’s case named Mayotte. He says that it was her wish to marry a white man. She was aware about the truth that she as a black woman can’t marry to a white man. They are not much respected in eyes of the white man. And even if she marries to a white man the society will never accept them.

Civilization is based on two ideas: 1) Incest Taboos and 2) Kinship Rituals. Here I would to talk about only Incest Taboos. Incest Taboos are created to avoid some situations, situation like mingling of the race, or blood. We can stop or avoid this kind of situations by law but we can’t stop thinking or someone’s desire. Here if a black woman desires to marry a white man then she is breaking Incest Taboos made by the society to stay pure by blood. So, we can say that desire is an abstract idea which can’t be fulfilled. Here I would like to give the example of ‘The Bluest Eye’ by Toni Morison. How eagerly Pecola Breedlove the protagonist of the novel was waiting that some a white man come and will marry with her and her every problems will be solve.

                Psychological study of Black skin White masks:

Here I also would like to mention Mulatto also known as Creole. They are the child of mixed race. Fanon studies their mindset also. How they are humiliated and abused in the society. He says that their condition is worse than the black people. They feel superior to the black people but they are also afraid again being black. As I above said that when a black man visits the white world, the black man’s world changes totally. Here Fanon says that a black man has two dimensions one with his fellows, the other with the white man. When the black master the white men’s language he behaves differently with another black person. In the white men’s world he tries to be a white means black skin, white mask. He tries to put the white mask on his black skin.

Conclusion:

Fanon resists many questions but he also tries to give answers to those questions also. He says that black skin or white skin is something which if the fellow wants to change then also he can’t change. And that is why Fanon says that, know your lack, face your limitation and be happy with your being. He says that it is social problem that is why white people can’t be happy with whiteness and black people with blackness. Rather becoming upset with whiteness or blackness celebrates yourself as you are. “Everything begins with you and ends with yourself.”

Works Cited

Chandler, O. (2007, january). goodreads. Retrieved october 2, 2015, from goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/949036-peau-noire-masques-blancs

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