“Peau Noire, Masques Blancs” — What is Fanon’s view of the Black Woman?

Jump to Comments

 

I would love to see a biopic about Frantz Fanon. His work has influenced thinking on decolonisation and colourism and his seminal “Peau noire, Masques Blancs” (Black Skin, White Masks) is one of the most passionate and persuasive works I have ever read.

I read parts of it over again and I noticed new points that I missed the last time. In his chapter about the black woman and the white man, he asks an almost sarcastic question that says “Qu’ y a-t-il de plus illogique, en effet, qu’une mulâtresse qui épouse un Noir”? (My translation: Is there anything more illogical than a mulatto who marries a Black man?). I find this question intriguing. Fanon wrote this work in 1952 where colourism thrived in his island of Martinique. No doubt, it is still at large today but did people truly marry based on shades and moreover were light-skinned women determined to marry light skinned men like them too? In this chapter, Fanon seems to argue that in his society, the shade of a black person determined their behaviour. He notes the synopsis of a book by another author that states the “negress” had one worry in her head: to become white whereas the mixed race woman wanted to become white and to avoid regression.

I don’t take offence to Fanon analysing black women through the prism of shadism simply because it is a reality for black people, every day and everywhere that we live. It must have really twisted knickers this book because he is opening up wounds. He also argues that the negress feels inferior so she aspires to be part of the “white” world. The statement rings true when we bring up the topic of beauty. Many black women still want admission into the world of “light is right” by using skin lightening creams. Are women who use skin lightening creams putting a white mask on their black skin? Fanon’s work is so relevant today. His chapter on the black woman is an attempt to try and understand and I think black men and women need to make more attempts to understand each other.

Do black men actually want to understand black women? That is the question in itself. Are depictions of black women by black men truthful or stereotypical? Here is an English translation of the poem “Femme Noire” (“Black Woman”) by Leopold Sedar Senghor:

Nude woman, black woman,
Clothed in your color which is life, your form which is beauty!
I grew in your shadow, the sweetness of your hands bandaged my eyes
And here in the heart of summer and of noon, I discover you, promised land from the height of a burnt mountain,
And your beauty strikes my heart, like the lightning of an eagle.

Nude woman, dark woman,
Ripe fruit of the dark flesh, somber ecstasies of black wine, mouth that causes my mouth to sing;
Savanna of pure horizons, savanna trembling under the fervent caresses of the East wind,
Carved tom-tom, tense tom-tom, grumbling under the fingers of the conqueror,
Your low contralto voice is the song of the lover.

Nude woman, dark woman,
Oil unwrinkled by winds, oil smooth on athletes’ thighs, on the thighs of the princes of Mali,
Delightful play of the spirit, image of red gold on your flaming skin.
In the shadow of your hair, my anguish is relieved by the nearby suns of your eyes.

Nude woman, black woman,
I sing your passing beauty, fixing your form in eternity,
Before a jealous fate turns you to ashes to feed the roots of life.

What are your thoughts about this poem? Does objectify black women? Some people think Senghor is talking about the black woman as a metaphor for Africa itself. I think he has sexualised the black woman in order to show how colonialism in itself has taken advantage of Africa.

4 Comments

Filed under Africa, Culture, Diaspora