Manifestation of Negro thought in Frantz Fanon’s writings: “black skin, white masks” and “the wretched of the earth"

Abstract EN

This study aims at highlighting the work of one of the most prominent figures in the twentieth century: the Martinican militant, politician, philosopher and thinker: Frantz Fanon, who played a leading role in condemning the colonizing project and the imperialist hegemony.

it will also illustrate his relation with the “Négritude” movement which arose in the 1930’s and whose main purpose was the rehabilitation of the Blacks in general and Africans in particular.

Fanon approved “Négritude” movement at first, but he backtracked later because he adopted a different position and view concerning the black’s culture and the movement’s former principles set by the movement’s founders such as Leopold Sédar Senghor and Aimé Césaire.

Fanon’s different vision concerning the Blacks thought was influenced by his personal experience, particularly after he joined the Algerian revolution and adopted its people’s militating cause.

furthermore, his trip to France for studies, and later joined the French army where he lived and experienced different types of racial discriminations practised by the white man against the Blacks, led him to hold a different opinion about “Négritude” that he showed in most of his literatures, particularly: “Black skin, white masks” and “the wretched of the earth” that he devoted to the Blacks ethnicity and culture and his renouncement to both Black and white racism.

Fanon thus, became among the most outstanding intellectuals who adopted the Negro’s diaspora, claimed their rights, defended them and denounced the process of marginalisation and cultural deprivation they were facing, through his writings.

He wanted the Blacks to live with dignity and take pride of their identity, and the whites to renounce to any kind of discrimination.

despite the colour of his skin, Fanon had always had a neutral position towards “Negritude” movement, moreover, he didn’t approve all the ideas it suggested, yet, he didn’t even adopt most of the principles the movement tried to anchor.

he, however, praised the movement’s positive points and rejected its negative ones after he noticed it started to get racially biased.