MY PRESENTATION ON “THE NATURE OF BLACKNESS IS WITHIN THE MIND”- WITH REFERENCE OF FANON’S BLACK SKIN WHITE MASK

1. “The Nature Of Blackness Is Within The Mind”-
With Reference Of Fanon’s Black Skin White
Mask
Presented By: Ranjan P.Velari
Paper No.: 11 (The Post-Colonial Literature)
Class: M.A. Sem. 3
Roll No.: 23
BatchYear: 2014-16
Enrolment No.: 14101032
Email Id: ranjanvelari@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt.S.B. Gardi
Department of English
M.K. Bhavnagar University

2. Index
Chapter 1:The Black Man and the Language
Chapter 2:TheWoman of Color and White Man
Chapter 3:The Man of Color and theWhite Woman
Chapter 4:The So-called Dependency Complex of
Colonized
Chapter 5:The Fact of Blackness
Chapter 6:The Negro and Psychopathology
Chapter 7:The Negro and Recognition
Chapter 8: ByWay of Conclusion

3. Chapter 1:The Black Man and the Language
 Thoughts regarding language choice reveals the
effect oppression has had on the black psyche.
 For black people, “to speak is to exist absolutely for
other.”
 He or She “assume a culture, support the weight of
civilization.”
 There is a tendency to equate European culture and
whiteness with humanity.
 Thus, “the Negro will become whiter-become more
human-as he masters the white man’s language.” (18)

4. Chapter 2:TheWoman of Color andTheWhite
Man
“ Me? a Negress? Can’t you see. I’m practically White? I
despise Negroes, Niggers Stink. They’re dirty and lazy.
Don’t ever mention niggers to me.”
 Matrinican relationship to France during Fanon’s time.
 Fanon decided to analyze a book written in 1948 by a black
woman- Mayotte- Capecia- in which she dialogues her
reasons for being exclusively attracted to white men.
 He says, “I cannot seek to love unless I have rid myself, in this
case, of my inferiority complex.
 For black person this becomes a humongous hindrance
because, as Fanon believes, the inferiority complex is what
the black world view is mainly comprised of.

5. Chapter 3:The Man of Color andThe White Woman
 Fanon argues that the nature of this relationship is
also rooted in the latent desire to become white. On
page no. 63 he writes,
“By loving me (a white woman) proves that I am
worthy of white love. I am loved like a white man. I
am a white man.”
 As in the previous chapter, Fanon uses a work of
literature to illustrate the psychological character of
a black man who finds himself in live with a white
woman.

6. Chapter 4:The So-called Dependency Complex of
Colonized
 Happy Darkies, Uppity Negroes and white saviors all
come from the need of white people to feel that their
power in society is good and not racist.
 Most natives are content to put whites above them
and be dependent on them because it fulfils a deep
need in their hearts, one that was there long before
whites showed up. Mannoni calls this a dependency
complex.
 A few natives are unhappy because they suffer from
an inferiority complex, which makes them want to be
the equal of whites.

7.  Not all people can be colonized: only those
who experience the need.
 European civilization and its agents of the
highest calibre are not responsible for
colonial racism.
 It comes from lower-level whites who
blame their unhappy lives on the natives.

8. Chapter 5:The Fact of Blackness
 Deals with condition of black people
 Color of skin giving feeling of embarrassment
 It is the pathetic conditions of blacks
 They thought that being always black is as if they
are never fully human.
 Isolated creature from the world

9. Chapter 6:The Negro and Psychopathology
 Here writer ask question to reader that, why
should people fear black?
 White men’s repressed homosexuality and their
strange hang-ups about black men’s penises.
 Black men are viewed as a body, which makes
them seem like mindless, violent, sexual animal
beings.

10. Chapter 7:The Negro and Recognition
 Frantz Fanon was not a big believer of Adler and
Hegel, but nonetheless he used their ideas as a
jumping off point to understand the blacks from his
home island of Martinique.
 Deals with how different styles of white rule shaped
black people in America and Martinique.
 In Martinique black people put each other down to
feel good about themselves.

11.  Hegel says that our sense of self worth and
even reality comes from others, particularly
from how they react to our actions.
 So blacks in America, having had to fight for
equal rights against whites, have a firm sense
of themselves. Seeing the hatred in the eyes of
white people and hearing the names they were
called and knowing the body count, they
fought for an equal place in society.

12. Chapter 8: By way of Conclusion
 According to Fanon, it was not easy for black to
forget their past and to free themselves from
their past condition.
 Relationship of white and black is like master and
slave
 Examples:
 Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
 Shakespeare’sTheTempest

13. Conclusion:
 Thoughts of black people represented by Fanon
 Black people did not want to raise high, because
they think that we are inferior to white and it is the
psychological level of them.
 But why should they think about this way?
we can say that from the very beginning they treated
as a slave, cruel, or animal by white people.
 In short, these points proves that “The nature of
blackness is within the mind.”