Whiteness hidden in shades of blackness : a psychoanalytic fanonian reading of Amiri Baraka's Dutchman

Abstract EN

White society’s reduced and otherized representation of the African American has always presented a challenge to African-American writers, historians, and intellectuals who wanted to write black people into existence, present their repressed, excluded, or subordinated history, culture, and social milieu, and re-tell their many other stories.

Frantz fanon (1925-1961) was a theorist who framed the issue of race in ‘sociogenic’ rather than ‘biocentric’ terms.

his contribution lies in showing how such arbitrary constructs as ‘white’ and ‘black’ predetermine our way of seeing but not truly seeing one another.

when blacks are seen solely in terms of racial stereotypes, they become “flat” images based only on ideologized ‘epidermal inscriptions’ whose actual humanity is denied, potentially leading to a lack of self-esteem and an ‘inferiority complex.’ this paper examines one of Amiri Baraka's famous plays, Dutchman (1967), from a fanonian perspective to explore the troubled relationship between the colonizer (white) and the colonized (black).

in Dutchman, Baraka espoused his unapologetic blackness together with his determination to identify, call out, and wage a battle against racial injustices.

both Baraka and fanon examine violence, sexual exploitation, and discrimination that whites have perpetuated on blacks, and the two writers’ intention was to awaken audiences and inspire change thereby ending the cycle of prejudice and discrimination against blacks.