My speaking hands tore at the hysterical throat of the world. . .
The Frantz Fanon reading was better than the Gayle Rubin reading. Where to begin where to begin. I feel as though I understand this reading the best out of all the readings so far. However, me being me, I found myself on more than one occasion scribbling asshole in the margin of my paper.
I understand the point Fanon is trying to get across. The abridged version: he talks about the role blacks have in the world and how they discovered a “self” through racial prejudice. He talks about the inborn complex. “I resolved, since it was impossible for me to get away from an inborn complex, to assert myself as a BLACK MAN. Since the other hesitated to recognize me, there remained only one solution: to make myself known” (115). Fanon asserted himself as a black man as opposed to seeing himself how the other sees him. He makes himself known to the world and to himself. Ok that makes perfect sense. The dominant society constructs “the other” in order to stake their claim in life. See, if there were no Native Americans, Africans, Asians or Spaniards, then who would the other fix? What would their role be if the big book says that you’re purpose in life is to spread the word. But the word can only spread so much. Other cultures can be Christianized, but they would never truly become Christians. It’s the “Praying Indian” effect. Native Americans could be converted to Christianity, but back in the times of Columbus, there was no way in hell a Native American would ever be accepted as a Christian, as a valid member of society, they would always be an assimilated other. Fanon also states on page 128, “The white man wants the world; he wants it for himself alone. He finds himself predestined master of the world. He enslaves it.” I often find myself fascinated with the concept of enslavement. Colonizers were so convinced that it was their right to enslave others. I mean, wow. I couldn’t colonize an ant colony without feeling guilty. I guess my question is, would the black man want to enslave the world if given the opportunity?
“I turn away from these inspectors of the Ark before the Flood and I attach myself to my brothers, Negroes like myself. To my horror, they too reject me. They are almost white. And besides they are about to marry white women. They will have children faintly tinged with brown. Who knows, perhaps little by little. . . .” (117).
Fanon tries to find other men like himself: educated black men. To his “horror”, they act like they’re white and marry white women. ASSHOLE. So what if our faintly tinged brown skin exists. So what if my father married a white women? Why don’t you define what it is to be black. That would useful. Which way do you want it? You want blacks to be educated but if they’re too educated, then they’re “acting white.” He even looks back to cultural practices in Africa and is horrified to discover FGM among other things, and is like, well this is kind of primitive but I’ll make it work.
“Children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.”– Barack Obama
On page 120 Fanon is critiquing Mjoen’s argument about racial mixing. Mjoen believes that, “crossings between widely different races can lower the physical and mental level. . . Until we have a more definite knowledge of the effect of race-crossings we shall certainly do the best to avoid crossings between widely different races.” Hey Mjoen, I have some empirical evidence for you. Racial mix= Derek Jeter. Nonracial mix= two headed pig (I thought using a photo of inbred people would be going to far, so I looked to the animal world for enlightenmint.)
Without racial crossings, the world may be a very different and disfigured place.
So what about those of us who are in the middle? Ranting, ranting I know, but seriously. I enjoyed the Fanon reading because I could pull a lot from it but at the same time I always find myself championing for the mixed bloods. Are there even mixed blood critics that have works like this? I would love to see what they say about finding the self when you have two worlds telling you who you are and are not. Hey Fanon, imagine feeling the oppression of slavery and feeling white guilt at the same time. So is being sensitive a weakness Fanon? You claim to be a “sensitve person who waits” for what I don’t know.
March 12, 2007 at 7:32 am
Hey Keva,
I could only talk myself in circles, like Fanon, pondering the mystery of a solution when all he tried had failed. Then I read your post. This is why this class is so great:
Initially, I didn’t think Fanon found the “crossing of racial lines” horrifying, just the “motive” for doing so. I thought he feared his fellow men were trying to escape their color in this way, and that this practice was not the way to do it. It seemed like he himself entertained this thought but, as he said, he was only dreaming. Now I want to go back and look.
Regardless of which point of view was Fanon’s, your take on it is most interesting. I think the answer lies in what you say, where people forge into the territory of love for “people,” not color. This is what Fanon couldn’t find for himself.
I have to acknowledge that being white comes with the baggage of horse blinders. At times, I can only see what lies directly ahead without peripheral reference. Working together on race issues reminds me of the best part of marriage. We get to show each other where our thinking fails and support each other through the process of learning to do better.
Love the pig!
-Kim
PS: In my post, after mentioning “A Tempest” I had to give mad props to our “mad prop” from last semester.
March 12, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I agree with Kim–sometimes I feel guilty for having those “horse blinders” up, and sometimes I wish I could know the sufferings of blacks, and of everyone for that matter, in order to be better empathetic. After reading your piece, Keva, I’ve solidified my view on Fanon. I was borderline disagreeing with him, but I didn’t feel like I had enough reason with which to do so. When I saw some of the passages from your point of view I thought the same thing as you: What an asshole! I don’t want to call him prejudiced, but he’s definitely not being very open-minded about interracial connections, the same crime of which he accused the white man: “Under no conditions did he wish intimacy between the races…” (120). The sentence, of course, finishes with Mjoen’s suggestion that “crossings” will produce dumb children. But I read this a different way: not only did the white man not want blacks and whites to have sex, he didn’t want any kind of “intimacy,” like friendship, or shouldering each other’s burdens. And it seems to me like that’s exactly what Fanon is saying back to the white man. Okay, you don’t want to be friends? Then screw you.
March 19, 2007 at 4:18 pm
[...] mentioned this in one of her blogs: How can Fanon fail to take into account people of mixed race? To him, blacks and whites are so [...]
April 2, 2007 at 12:26 am
So is the answer to the Black Man’s problem to breed more hatred. Do you create power by over asserting your own. In a way I see Fanon’s views as further dibilitating the Black Man. His rage makes him more animalistic and less humanistic. However Fanon seems to think that this will help, by accepting our brutal pasts and embracing them. But to embrace and move forward does that mean that one must then recreate old mistakes, and only portray one aspect of ourselves. And if we are all fighting to be seen as people then wouldn’t mxing even the playing field, making us all on race of people with an abundant evolutionary history?