possm@bookwyrm.tilde.zone reviewed Peau noire, masques blancs by Frantz Fanon (Collection Points)
Psychology of the colonized
4 stars
Fanon takes a lot from psychoanalysis in his description of the psychological effects of colonialism. He describes the subjectivity of the oppressed who are led to identify with their oppressor and are alienated from themselves. He replies to a lot of other texts, quotes a lot of black poets. He replies to Sartre, it made me want to read Sartre's "question juive". He also replies to some authors that are irrelevant nowadays, these parts are a little boring because he kinda assumes that the reader has read them. The parts about white women wanting to be raped, or about white racists being repressed homosexuals, sound pretty bad nowadays. All in all, he is at his most astute when describing the condition of the colonized (which, luckily, is most of the book). He gets a little weird and bad when psychoanalyzing the colonizers. Some passages are really well written and highly …
Fanon takes a lot from psychoanalysis in his description of the psychological effects of colonialism. He describes the subjectivity of the oppressed who are led to identify with their oppressor and are alienated from themselves. He replies to a lot of other texts, quotes a lot of black poets. He replies to Sartre, it made me want to read Sartre's "question juive". He also replies to some authors that are irrelevant nowadays, these parts are a little boring because he kinda assumes that the reader has read them. The parts about white women wanting to be raped, or about white racists being repressed homosexuals, sound pretty bad nowadays. All in all, he is at his most astute when describing the condition of the colonized (which, luckily, is most of the book). He gets a little weird and bad when psychoanalyzing the colonizers. Some passages are really well written and highly quotable.