Black Skin, White Masks

Black Skin, White Masks
by Frantz Fanon

Black Skin, White Masks
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $8.79
You Save: $6.16 (41%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $7.94 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Frantz Fanon
Translator: Richard Philcox
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-10
ISBN: 0802143008
Number of pages: 206
Publisher: Grove Press

Book Reviews of Black Skin, White Masks

Book Review: An evocative poetic-critical reading of oppression, racism, colonialism
Summary: 5 Stars

"I am black; I am in total fusion with the world, in sympathetic affinity with the earth, losing my id in the heart of the cosmos... I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth." (p. 27)~ Thus Fanon reaches into the experience and meaning of the black man's alienation.

This alienation strikes in an essential sense--it stems from the denial of the black man's very flesh: "The black man is attacked for his corporeality. It is his tangible personality that is lynched. It is his actual being that is dangerous..." (142). The white man, who has been obsessed with eradicating the body out of collective consciousness for millennia, now associates this abjected domain of the body with the black man, and constructs it as the essential evil Other. The white man does this because he is insecure--he does this out of hatred, a hatred that he works to cultivate, that consumes his time and energy. The white man is dehumanized. Projecting his fears onto the black man, the white man shirks his responsibility to acknowledge his guilt (83) in instrumentalizing the black man (206).

Even though this work was written over 50 years ago in a literal colony of Europe, sadly it remains only too relevant in the United States today as a condition between people that allegedly have the same legal and human rights. This is largely made possible by the many ever-so-casual-racists (who vehemently deny they are racist)--people who, for example, complain about affirmative action as unfair to them personally (nevermind history and generations of enslavement and stolen opportunities). Fanon writes, "outside university circles there is an army of fools... Granted, these fools are the product of a psychological-economic substructure. But that does not get us anywhere" (18). An education for racial tolerance from which we are sadly very far removed is necessary for moving towards a world of love.

Summary of Black Skin, White Masks

Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon, and Black Skin, White Masks  represents some of his most important work. Fanon?s masterwork is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers.
A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history.

Psychology & Counseling Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Psychology & Counseling Books
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values ImageZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
by Robert M. Pirsig
Harper Perennial; Published: 2000-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.25
Price in other shops: $13.00
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers, and Providers (4th Edition) ImageSurviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers, and Providers (4th Edition)
by E. Fuller Torrey
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2001-05-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops: $15.00
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers and Providers ImageSurviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers and Providers
by E. Fuller Torrey
Perennial; Published: 1995-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.68
Price in other shops: $16.00
The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium ImageThe Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Harper Perennial; Published: 1994-06-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.75
Price in other shops: $15.99
How People Change ImageHow People Change
by Allen Wheelis
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 1975-07-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.47
Price in other shops: $11.99
Sleeping Through the Night, Revised Edition: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleep ImageSleeping Through the Night, Revised Edition: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleep
by Jodi A. Mindell
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2005-03-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.45
Price in other shops: $14.99
Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You ImageEmotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You
by Susan Forward, Donna Frazier, Susan Frazier
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops: $23.00
Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View ImageObedience to Authority: An Experimental View
by Stanley Milgram
Harpercollins; Published: 1974-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $532.97
My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers ImageMy Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers
by Helen Morrison, Harold Goldberg
William Morrow; Published: 2004-05-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops: $24.95
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Stress ImageThe Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Stress
by Jeffrey P.; Davidson, Jeff Davidson
Macmillan Distribution; Published: 1996; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.33
Similar Books and other products
The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition ImageThe Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition
by Carl Schmitt
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 2007-05-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.04
Price in other shops: $20.00
Modern Prince and Other Writings ImageModern Prince and Other Writings
by Antonio Gramsci
Intl Pub; Published: 1959-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops: $8.50
The Second Sex (Vintage) ImageThe Second Sex (Vintage)
by Simone de Beauvoir
Vintage; Published: 2011-05-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.01
Price in other shops: $17.95
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution ImageThe Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
by C.L.R. James
Vintage; Published: 1989-10-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops: $16.00
Disgrace: A Novel ImageDisgrace: A Novel
by J. M. Coetzee
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2008-08-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.03
Price in other shops: $15.00
A Dying Colonialism ImageA Dying Colonialism
by Frantz Fanon
Grove Press; Published: 1994-01-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops: $14.95
Toward the African Revolution (Fanon, Frantz) ImageToward the African Revolution (Fanon, Frantz)
by Frantz Fanon
Grove Press; Published: 1994-01-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.98
Price in other shops: $14.95
Orientalism ImageOrientalism
by Edward W. Said
Vintage; Published: 1979-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.61
Price in other shops: $16.95
Discourse on Colonialism ImageDiscourse on Colonialism
by Aimé Césaire
Monthly Review Press; Published: 2001-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.68
Price in other shops: $14.00
The Wretched of the Earth ImageThe Wretched of the Earth
by Frantz Fanon
Grove Press; Published: 2005-03-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.19
Price in other shops: $14.00
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories