by Fritz Fanon

1952; 1967 in English

The violent overtones in Fanon can be broken down into two categories: The violence of the colonizer through annihilation of body, psyche, culture, along with the demarcation of space. And secondly the violence of the colonized as an attempt to retrieve dignity, sense of self, and history through anti-colonial struggle.

The Black Man will try to appropriate and imitate the culture of the colonizer—donning the “white masks” of the book’s title. Such behavior is more readily evident in upwardly mobile and educated Black people who can afford to acquire status symbols within the world of the colonial ecumene, such as an education abroad and mastery of the language of the colonizer.

Phobogenesis - Fanon postulates that the black person is a phobogenic object, sparking anxiety in the eyes of white subjects