Lovely piece on the misused, abused, and sainted for all the wrong reasons Frantz Fanon, by @tomowolade:
"St. Frantz is a mirage. As his biographer David Macey puts it: 'there were other Frantz Fanons', apart from his status as a prophet of Third World revolution."
Thread
1/9
"St. Frantz is a mirage. As his biographer David Macey puts it: 'there were other Frantz Fanons', apart from his status as a prophet of Third World revolution."
Thread
1/9
https://twitter.com/tomowolade/status/1376424925406314496
2/9
"On the very first page of 'Black Skin, White Masks' Fanon states: 'I’m not the bearer of absolute truths'. Which doesn’t sound very saintly. He was trying to emphasise his humanity instead of being seen solely for his race."
"On the very first page of 'Black Skin, White Masks' Fanon states: 'I’m not the bearer of absolute truths'. Which doesn’t sound very saintly. He was trying to emphasise his humanity instead of being seen solely for his race."
3/9
"Fanon, in his book, is trying to affirm the universal brotherhood of man. In one passage, he states: 'we must recall our aim is to enable better relations between Blacks and Whites'. It is no surprise, then, he is sensitive about anti-Semitism."
"Fanon, in his book, is trying to affirm the universal brotherhood of man. In one passage, he states: 'we must recall our aim is to enable better relations between Blacks and Whites'. It is no surprise, then, he is sensitive about anti-Semitism."
4/9
"He rejects being viewed as black person. He wants to be seen simply as a person: 'The black man, however sincere, is a slave to the past. But I am a man, and in this sense the Peloponnesian War is as much mine as the invention of the Compass'."
"He rejects being viewed as black person. He wants to be seen simply as a person: 'The black man, however sincere, is a slave to the past. But I am a man, and in this sense the Peloponnesian War is as much mine as the invention of the Compass'."
5/9
"Later [Fanon] lyrically adds: 'It is not the black world that governs my behaviour. My black skin is not a repository for specific values. The starry sky that left Kant in awe has long revealed its secrets to me.'
Unlike many self-described anti-racists today...
"Later [Fanon] lyrically adds: 'It is not the black world that governs my behaviour. My black skin is not a repository for specific values. The starry sky that left Kant in awe has long revealed its secrets to me.'
Unlike many self-described anti-racists today...
6/9
"...who engage in performative demands for white guilt, Fanon states: 'I have not the right as a man of colour to wish for a guilt complex to crystallise in the white man regarding the past of my race'. What he wants, instead, is respect and dignity: 'I, a man of colour...
"...who engage in performative demands for white guilt, Fanon states: 'I have not the right as a man of colour to wish for a guilt complex to crystallise in the white man regarding the past of my race'. What he wants, instead, is respect and dignity: 'I, a man of colour...
7/9
"...want but one thing. May man never be instrumentalised. May the subjugation of man by man — that is to say, me by another — cease. May I be able to discover and desire man wherever he may be'."
"...want but one thing. May man never be instrumentalised. May the subjugation of man by man — that is to say, me by another — cease. May I be able to discover and desire man wherever he may be'."
8/9
"What animates Fanon most was a deep curiosity. In the book’s conclusion, he asks: 'Superiority? Inferiority? Why not simply try to touch the other, feel the other, discover each other?' The final sentence: 'My final prayer: O my body, always make me a man who questions'."
"What animates Fanon most was a deep curiosity. In the book’s conclusion, he asks: 'Superiority? Inferiority? Why not simply try to touch the other, feel the other, discover each other?' The final sentence: 'My final prayer: O my body, always make me a man who questions'."
9/9
"If Fanon was an icon of anything, it wouldn’t be Third World revolution, but rather republican France. But he was not an icon; he was simply a man."
Read all of @tomowolade's essay in @unherd:
unherd.com/2021/03/the-bl…
"If Fanon was an icon of anything, it wouldn’t be Third World revolution, but rather republican France. But he was not an icon; he was simply a man."
Read all of @tomowolade's essay in @unherd:
unherd.com/2021/03/the-bl…
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