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Ideologies of Race in DevelopmentSeminar Direction Handout No.3| Black Skins, White Masks: The Psychology of the ColonizedPrepared by: Tyrone Hall

The Main Themes

The main themes in this week’s readings are stated below; they are relevant to the extent that they have shaped the questions to be discussed.

Language and Power Liberation Resistance The Psychology of the Colonized Disalienation/Black Consciousness Colonial Categories/Binaries History, Power and Colonial Agents

Black Skin, White Mask by Frantz Fanon

Please watch the clip below (10mins)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX0yxe02DG8&feature=related

Main Thoughts: Many of the ideas are still relevant in contemporary Caribbean societies. The book has a revolutionary tone, yet the ideas expressed may be read as a repudiation of pan-Africanism and negritude which are themselves considered to be revolutionary ideologies.

Note on Négritude:

“Négritude”, or the self-affirmation of black peoples, or the affirmation of the values of civilization of something defined as “the black world” as an answer to the question “what are we in this white world?” is indeed “quite a problem”: it poses many questions that will be examined here through the following heading (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010)

Please click on the links below for more information http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/negritude.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/negritude/

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Questions:

1. What does Fanon mean by “the psychology of colonialism”?2. Fannon (1967) states “the black man has two dimensions… A Negro behaves differently

with a white man and with another Negro. That this self-division is a direct result of colonialist subjugation is beyond question...” (pg17).

To what extent is this about race or simply a matter of power imbalance? Don’t we all treat people differently based on power dynamics? Is the duality that Fanon speaks of true for interactions between blacks and poor whites and poor blacks and wealthier blacks?

3. Fanon sets out to “help the black man to free himself of the arsenal of complexes that has been developed by the colonial environment.” How does he propose to free “the black man” and how feasible is his proposition?

4. He says “a man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language. What we are getting at becomes plain: Mastery of language affords remarkable power.” Given the prevalence of bilingual post-colonial societies, how relevant is Fanon’s observation today?

5. What reasons did Fanon give for the political nature of language in his native Martinique?

6. How can colonial legacies/retentions stymie ‘local originality’?7. Fanon states that teaching blacks not to be slaves of their archetypes is more important

that trying to change whites. He also makes reference to decolonizing the mind of the black man. How does he envision this process?

8. What does this tell us about Fanon’s concept of social change in terms of race?9. Describe the ‘psychological economic system’ that produces paternalistic, and prejudiced

whites?10. Fanon uses the phrase, “express himself properly,” isn’t this evidence of his own

language prejudice (p86)?11. What does he mean by the intellectual alienation of the black man?12. What are your thoughts on Fanon’s assertion that “there is no negro mission, there is no

white burden?”

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Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History by Frederick Cooper

Main Thoughts: It’s important to rethink Africa’s colonial experience because its past holds many lessons for the way forward. The resistance and colonial lenses are only two of a range of frames through which Africa’s history may be examined, but are perhaps the least useful if the intention is to move beyond the existing binaries.

1. What is the relation between colonial knowledge production and power?2. How does the framing of African colonial history affect north-south relations/ the

black/white encounter? Why is this relevant?3. To what extent can South-South intellectual exchange on colonial history alter our

contemporary race experiences?4. How might African intellectuals move beyond the propensity to use Western intellectual

tools given the rigid nature of academia and the desire to measure up to legible, global standards?

5. How might a truly African history be any more objective than European history?6. Both Cooper and Fanon allude to changing social orders, how do they envision social

change?7. Spivak asks rhetorically, “can the subaltern speak?” To what extent do African

intellectuals reflect the consciousness of Africans and can they adequately represent such a varied people?

8. What is African agency? How might reclaiming and re-representing Africa’s past aid in realizing that agency?

9. Foucault (in Cooper) speaks of “the continual reconfiguration of both power and resistance.” To what extent does international development in the post-colonial era reproduce the colonial encounter?

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White Skin, Many Masks: Colonial School, Race and National Consciousness among White Settler Children in Mozambique, 1934-1974 by Antoinette Errante

Main Thoughts: Education in post-colonial societies retains many of the vestiges of colonial education. I think the argument for revisiting the representation of the “colonizer” is valid, but it might not suit the agenda of many students of African and colonial history.

Questions:

1. Why should revisions of Africa’s colonial history also re-consider the representation of the “colonizer”?

2. What role did colonial education play in socializing people to maintain, resist or transform the colonizer-colonized relationship? To what extent does education in the post-colonial societies play a similar role between elites and non-elites?

3. To what extent is Africa’s intellectual culture still colonized?4. How does the preoccupation of post-colonial studies with the implications of cultural

whiteness for African identity naturalize the notion of European superiority? 5. To what extend does the education system in post-colonial societies resemble those in the

colonial era?