[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Frantz Fanon's Black Skin White Mask
Black skin, white mask by Frantz Fanon's is a mind-opening novel for humanity irrespective of race or the color of the skin. The author's insights into the psychological damage of the black man from colonialism, incomprehension, self-denial, racism, continuous bitterness and other negative consequences still stand as powerful guides in helping us to grapple with the problems of our world. You read the book to the end and come out of the experienced feeling enlightened and a better person. One feels better placed to navigate in our rapidly becoming multicultural world.
In certain African countries Africans bleech their skin hoping to look white, in some cases it is fatal, but the point is they do it to look more European. In the United States there is the famous case of Michael Jackson and his lose of his skin pigmentation, he says it is a disease, but many question. There is also the famous paper bag test and the comb through the hair test done by many African Americans to each other in order to measure their level of European blood, thus their level of status.
The question is why does this or did this happen and is it some how related to colonialism? It seems that in most places where people of color were colonized whether in Africa, South America, or South East Asia (yes the problem is not solely an African problem) the conquered people develop an inferiority complex and try to assimilate into the main stream culture. In some cases this means actually trying to become European (literally) through race mixing or in the most extreme cases surgery, in fact some Asian Americans get the folds removed from their eyes trying to give them a more European look. Fanon brilliantly focuses on this problem of the inferority complex like no other he uses Martinique(French colony) as his case study for a good part of his book......
