Frantz Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique on July 20, 1925. His family occupied a social position within Martinican society that could reasonably qualify them as part of the black bourgeoisie; Frantz’s father, Casimir Fanon, was a customs inspector and his mother, Eléanore Médélice, owned a hardware store in downtown Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique. Members of this social stratum tended to strive for assimilation, and identification, with white French culture.
Fanon was raised in this environment, learning France’s history as his own, until his high school years when he first encountered the philosophy of negritude, taught to him by Aimé Césaire, Martinique’s other renowned critic of European colonization. Politicized, and torn between the assimilationism of Martinique’s middle class and the preoccupation with racial identity that negritude promotes, Fanon left the colony in 1943, at the age of 18, to fight with the Free French forces in the waning days of World War II.
After the war, he stayed in France to study psychiatry and medicine at university in Lyons. Here, he encountered bafflingly simplistic anti-black racism—so different from the complex, class-permeated distinctions of shades of lightness and darkness one finds in the Caribbean—which would so enrage him that he was inspired to write “An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks,” the piece of writing that would eventually become Peau Noire, Masques Blancs (1952). It was here too that he began to explore the Marxist and existentialist ideas that would inform the radical departure from the assimilation-negritude dichotomy that Peau Noire’s anti-racist humanism inaugurates.
Although he briefly returned to the Caribbean after he finished his studies, he no longer felt at home there and in 1953, after a stint in Paris, he accepted a position as chef de service (chief of staff) for the psychiatric ward of the Blida-Joinville hospital in Algeria. The following year, 1954, marked the eruption of the Algerian war of independence against France, an uprising directed by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) and brutally repressed by French armed forces.
Working in a French hospital, Fanon was increasingly responsible for treating both the psychological distress of the soldiers and officers of the French army who carried out torture in order to suppress anti-colonial resistance and the trauma suffered by the Algerian torture victims. Already alienated by the homogenizing effects of French imperialism, by 1956 Fanon realized he could not continue to aid French efforts to put down a decolonization movement that commanded his political loyalties, and he resigned his position at the hospital.
Once he was no longer officially working for the French government in Algeria, Fanon was free to devote himself to the cause of Algerian independence. During this period, he was based primarily in Tunisia where he trained nurses for the FLN, edited its newspaper el Moujahid, and contributed articles about the movement to sympathetic publications, including Presence Africaine and Jean-Paul Sartre’s journal Les Temps Modernes. Some of Fanon’s writings from this period were published posthumously in 1964 as Pour la Révolution Africaine (Toward the African Revolution).
In 1959 Fanon published a series of essays, L’An Cinq, de la Révolution Algérienne, (The Year of the Algerian Revolution) which detail how the oppressed natives of Algeria organized themselves into a revolutionary fighting force. That same year, he took up a diplomatic post in the provisional Algerian government, ambassador to Ghana, and used the influence of this position to help open up supply routes for the Algerian army. It was in Ghana that Fanon was diagnosed with the leukemia that would be his cause of death. Despite his rapidly failing health, Fanon spent ten months of his last year of life writing the book for which he would be most remembered, Les Damnés de la Terre, an indictment of the violence and savagery of colonialism which he ends with a passionate call for a new history of humanity to be initiated by a decolonized Third World.
In October 1961, Fanon was brought to the United States by a C.I.A. agent so that he could receive treatment at a National Institutes of Health facility in Bethesda, Maryland. He died two months later, on December 6, 1961, reportedly still preoccupied with the cause of liberty and justice for the peoples of the Third World. At the request of the FLN, his body was returned to Tunisia, where it was subsequently transported across the border and buried in the soil of the Algerian nation for which he fought so single-mindedly during the last five years of his life.
Influences on Fanon’s Thought
The first significant influence were his studies in France of Hegel, Marx, and Husserl. From these sources he developed the view that dialectic could be the process through which the othered/alienated self can respond to racist trauma in a healthy way, a sensitivity to the social and economic forces that shape human beings, and an appreciation for the pre-conscious construction of self that phenomenology can reveal. He also found Sartre’s existentialism a helpful resource for theorizing the process of self construction by which each of us chooses to become the persons we are. This relation with Sartre appears to have been particularly mutually beneficial; Sartre’s existentialism permeates Peau Noire and in turn, Sartre’s heartfelt and radical commitment to decolonization suggests that Fanon had quite an influence on him.
Movements and Thinkers Influenced by Fanon
The pan-Africanism that Fanon understood himself to be contributing to in his work on behalf of Third World peoples never really materialized as a political movement. It must be remembered that in Fanon’s day, the term “Third World” did not have the meaning it has today. Where today it designates a collection of desperately poor countries that are the objects of the developed world’s charity, in the 1950s and 1960s, the term indicated the hope of an emerging alternative to political alliance with either the First World (the United States and Europe) or the Second World (the Soviet bloc). The attempt to generate political solidarity and meaningful political power among the newly independent nations of Africa instead foundered as these former colonies fell victim to precisely the sort of false decolonization and client-statism that Fanon had warned against.
Thinkers around the globe have been profoundly influenced by Fanon’s work on anti-black racism and decolonization theory. Brazilian theorist of critical pedagogy Paulo Freire engages Fanon in dialogue in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, notably in his discussion of the mis-steps that oppressed people may make on their path to liberation. Freire’s emphasis on the need to go beyond a mere turning of the tables, a seizure of the privileges and social positions of the oppressors, echoes Fanon’s concern in Les Damnés and in essays such as “Racism and Culture”
Kenyan author and decolonization activist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o also draws on ideas Fanon presents in Les Damnés. Inspired mainly by Fanon’s meditations on the need to decolonize national consciousness, Ngũgĩ has written of the need to get beyond the “colonization of the mind” that occurs in using the language of imposed powers. Like Fanon, he recognizes that language has a dual character. It colonizes in the sense that power congeals in the history of how language is used (that is, its role in carrying culture). But it can also be adapted to our real-life communication and our “image-forming” projects, which means it also always carries the potential to be the means by which we liberate ourselves.
Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith takes up Fanon’s call for artists and intellectuals of decolonizing societies to create new literatures and new cultures for their liberated nations. Applying Fanon’s call to her own context, Tuhiwai Smith notes that Maori writers in New Zealand have begun to produce literature that reflects and supports a resurgent indigenous sovereignty movement, but she notes that there is little attention to achieving that same intellectual autonomy in the social sciences.
In Paris, the heart of the former empire that Fanon opposed so vigorously in his short life, his philosophy of humanist liberation and his commitment to the moral relevance of all people everywhere have been taken up by his daughter Mireille Fanon. She heads the Fondation Frantz Fanon and follows in her father’s footsteps with her work on questions of international law and human rights, supporting the rights of migrants, and championing struggles against the impunity of the powerful and all forms of racism.
The Wretched of the Earth - Franz Fanon
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Uh yeah picking up the pieces
that's what I'm doing
definitely not still letting everything go wrong
New Megathread Nerds!!!
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Remember nerds just like in the old site, no current struggle session discussion here on the new general megathread, i will ban you from the comm and remove your comment, have a good day/night :meow-coffee:
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Yeah I was trying to look at the site earlier and saw all those posts. It was mildly annoying, I'll give them that
bit of a Great Lakes moment. plus relatively small college, tho fuck em for not kitting all the dorms out by now
"bisexuals aren't confused" mfers when i tell them to do their taxes (suddenly they're really confused now)
To all my fellow bisexuals who have been fooled and cheated out of their tax money by the demonic TurboTax parasite dogs, use this: https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/
Dont let your money be stolen by evil bastards just because we have the most confusing and nonsensical tax system in the world.
I ate a banana yesterday morning and then twitter had a bunch of banana discourse
Clearly this means something
Funny thing is I'm pretty sure we could still grow bananas and other tropical fruits in greenhouses closer to where they're being consumed. It's probably be more expensive than exploiting banana republics, but if you can build tons of green houses and power them with renewables why not? They're growing hot house tomatoes and fruits through the winter up in northern north america, why not bananas or anything else?
They would be much more expensive but yeah, people are already doing this in their home gardens in USDA zones 7-9 without greenhouses. Usually they are less tasty varieties of cold hardy bananas, but it's no different than growing citrus plants in pots on your patio and taking them indoors for the winter (you just need a bigger pot). A big issue with bananas is they need a ton of water since they are jungle plants, but plenty of food crops are like that already.
I ate two bananas today. And I never eat two bananas in one day but I knew the second one was going to be overly ripe by tomorrow, so I went for it.
Had no idea there was banana discourse going on in the midst of all this. very spooky indeed
😔 We have committed a grevious crime against the international proletariat without even realizing it
Night cap: on
Onsie buttflap: half open
honks: shewwed
Thats right folks, its bed time.
I just finished the game Pentiment, which is excellent, but I found myself envious of the characters and the community they live in. They're all so loving, polite, and helpful. They talk about a shared future that they want you to be a part of and hopes for your participation in many things within the community.
It was all so alien to me, a bastard child of Reagan's "welfare queen", or so it was always uncharitably assumed, a pariah before I was even born, abandoned by most family. I never felt accepted, or loved, or wanted to be in someone's future, to be an integral part of any community. I was humored, I was pitied, my presence was endured and they were saints for such charity. When I managed to deceive myself that there was a place for me and shared that idea, I was swiftly disabused of that notion, cruelly, in no uncertain terms. This superstructure is a horror, death to amerikkka.
you are an integral part of our community. and also, what coffee did you recommend to StraightIanFidance?
thank you. I just recommended some places that sell good decaf green coffee(sweet maria's, burman, happymug) and apparently they chose this Mexican MWP decaf. Apparently they have a roaster for it as, of those that I mentioned, only happymug sells roasted decaf.
I should load that up. I haven't tried the arena update, and it's always fun to get absolutely whupped by some god awful bleed/toxin combo I've never seen before.
coming at a dude with my silly pickaxe build and then being instakilled by dual spears
Update to the north Atlantic surface temperature anomaly chart. And guess what? It went up again. Again.
ShowAccording to the retired mathematics professor putting together these charts, we're on day 18 of consecutive record-breaking global average surface temperaturess.
And all my co-workers can talk about is how nice and warm the weather is.
we're on day 18 of consecutive record-breaking global average surface temperaturess.
Keep on winning
The United Nations agency said dengue fever rates were rising globally, with reported cases since 2000 up eight-fold, totalling 4.2 million in 2022.
About half of the world's population is now at risk, WHO Neglected Tropical Diseases specialist Dr Raman Velayudhan said.
:)
"Alright, you've been playing Project Zomboid on easy mode for far too long. Time to get up from no infections and play Survivor, dammit"
gets scratched once
it infects
when I opened the door the zombie I knew was on the other side didn't actually appear until after my swing went through because of the weird sightline mechanics and somehow it managed to get behind me
I just saw Oppenheimer, I can't believe they gave him a backstory where he was bullied in school by 150+ soldiers from Nagasaki
Mother cat: "It's normal for me to socialize my kittens through behavioral corrections, where I may sometimes swat, hiss at, or bite them. This is important for them to learn how to behave around other cats."
Later
Dog: "Unfortunately, I had to remove these children from a toxic and abusive situation. They do sometimes see their biological mother, but only under strict supervision. They call me the step dad, but I'm just the dad who stepped up."
okay so yesterday some dude sped through a 4 way stop and I flipped him off and he decided to speed through that 4 way stop again, chase me home, threaten me and then shove me against my car, and then back his car up towards me while I backpedaled trying to get a picture of the license plate (which is like a felony almost running me over), but all I have is a picture of that car + license plate and no video or witnesses. There was a woman in his passenger seat but since she was asking if I'm a moron as I tried to take a pic of the license plate I'm pretty sure she won't back me up in court. I went to the leasing office 30 minutes later to ask if there was a security camera facing the lot, but there isn't (but like 8 people were there when I asked and related details of what happened so idk if that would help in court). I didn't call the cops because idk what the fuck to do, if I want to deal with the cops, like how much of an ordeal reporting this would be, how likely it would be that they can even do anything (like idk since there's no video or witnesses? but my brother had a warrant put out on him because some dude's mom said he spit on him, literally nothing else, so like, idk, this is a lot more than that?)
I also know generally where this guy, or at least the owner of the car, lives, since I saw where they're parked on my way home today. So like the cops wouldn't have to try super hard to find them
idk what would you do? should I even do anything? I keep thinking about it
i was telling people I'm okay because I didn't really get hurt at all (there's like a tiny scrape on my ankle) but based on how I keep thinking about it and reacting to it I think I am not actually okay. I posted about this a couple times and keep deleting it because I have a lot of weird feelings about it
if I had a video this guy would be so fucked like he was like telling me how dangerous it is to flip people off because dangerous people will come and hurt you and I asked if he was warning me or threatening me and he said "I'm threatening you" like I am pretty sure that's a win on legal BINGO
well that and the shove and the trying to run me over
but thinking about it it's kind of funny like "I AM DOING A CRIME AT YOU"
First off Fuck the police but also fuck all non-pig aggressive violent asshole road ragers.
I'd report him. If he did it to you he's probably done it before and/or will do it again and having another report will make something happen hopefully before he hurts someone. If you go to the cops with that attitude rather than "I want justice" you'll have a better time.
Yeah like I really don't wanna deal with the cops but I don't know what else I can do other than try to forget about it. And yeah I was thinking like the guy probably has a record of this shit already if this is how he reacts to a middle finger
I don't know what else I can do
I keep finding all these neat emojis!