by Hannah Madar
It is through the intricately-detailed prose of Frantz Fanon’s writing that scenes of objectification are depicted in Black Skin, White Masks. Specifically, Fanon utilizes descriptive language to outline two different forms of objectification that present themselves in society: external objectification as dehumanizing perceptions of others, and self-objectification as internalized oppression and disconnection. This essay will seek to distinguish between these descriptions of the objectification of Black individuals—as external and internal functions—and present objectification altogether as the key analytical viewpoint for how racism manifests within society. Furthermore, this essay will explore the origins of objectification itself by analyzing a universal, human desire for recognition, and attempt to construct an optimistic alternative for this cycle of objectification by means of mutual recognition. This leads to the notion that once individuals understand the origins of objectification, humanity can progress toward true equality. In the end, this essay’s interpretation of Fanon’s detailed writings will contend that both outward- and self-objectification lie at the root of not just racism, but widespread social injustices as a whole. As a result, as long as the objectification of people exists, societal processes will ultimately breed societies that conflict with virtues of equality, genuine communication between people, and respect for other human beings.
Throughout the book, Fanon describes external objectification through narrative scenes, which allow readers to visualize and feel his recreations of real experiences upon themselves. In doing so, his text suggests that the process of racial objectification is catalyzed by the external stimulus of a single, dehumanizing perception. One of these instances of external objectification is depicted in an anecdote, where a “little white boy” points out at the narrator, exclaiming in a “passing sting” that he is “scared” (Fanon, 91) of him due to his race. Even a child has “no scruples about imprisoning” (Fanon, 92) others with an objectifying gaze, as here, the external stimulus of the child’s remark minimizes the focus and worth of an individual to their physical self. The impression that can be extracted from this example is that these moments of outward dehumanization, predominantly from white society, begin the process of racial objectification within greater society. He proposes that for the individual, artificial ideas of racial inferiority are only made visible to the self due to dehumanizing perceptions from other humans, and that only by living “in the white world, the man of color encounters difficulties in elaborating his body schema” (Fanon, 90). Illustrating how impossible it is for a Black individual to avoid feeling objectified in an external, white-dominated environment, Fanon expresses that when the “white man is all around” and “the earth […] sings white, white”, the result of all “this whiteness burns [them] to a cinder” (Fanon, 94). As long as the Black individual remains in a white society, they will continue to be subject to the burning, objectifying gaze of those outsiders. He goes on to convey that it is the outside source of the “white world” itself that catalyzes the objectification of Black individuals, as it “demand[s] of [him] that [he] behave[s] like a black man” (Fanon, 94). Thus, Fanon’s descriptions of external objectification—an outside, dehumanizing stimulus that reduces an individual to nothing more than their physical body—can be understood to trigger the beginnings of the next stage of objectification for those who are subjected to it: that is, derealization and disconnection from the self.
While external objectification is directed from outside forces towards a targeted group, Fanon’s work proposes that self-objectification stems from the internal processes directly following this outside provocation—and from there, the cycle of systemic racial inequality can be explored. First, Fanon details self-objectification as a compelled reaction for the objectified person. Following the child’s outburst in the anecdote, Fanon describes the objectified target as being “disoriented” and “transformed” (Fanon, 92) as “the image of one’s body [becomes] solely negating. [It becomes] an image in the third person” (Fanon, 90). This produces a disconnect from the self, where the objectified person now views their own body in hyper-awareness, as an object, detached from the individual—a mental function that “the black man adopts in the face of white civilization” (Fanon, xvi). Consequently, a disconnect from the self leads to internalized oppression, as the objectified person suddenly finds themself “responsible not only for [their] body but also for [their] race and [their] ancestors” (Fanon, 92). When the objectified Black person is unable to recognize their own bodily schema, and is “attacked in [their] corporeality”, they may come to believe that it is their “actual being that is dangerous” (Fanon, 142). Fanon exemplifies this personally, describing this internalized oppression as feeling like his “body was returned to [him] spread-eagled, disjointed, redone,” only being able to recognize himself as “an animal”, “wicked”, and “ugly” (Fanon, 93). Oppression and self-hatred become an internal reality for the racially objectified individual, initiated by the onslaught of a single, dehumanizing perception.
As Fanon presents examples of the effects of objectification through narrative imagery, Charles Villet provides an exposition of both the functionality of, and reasoning behind, this interaction with a philosophical concept from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Specifically, Villet refers to the “master-slave dialectic in [Hegel’s] Phenomenology of Spirit” (Villet, 40). When a demeaning, outside stimulus activates feelings of self-objectification for a targeted individual, it stems from a “need for recognition” (Villet, 39). A desire for recognition, as explained by Fanon himself, is universal. As Fanon states in Black Skin White Masks, “[m]an is human only to the extent to which he tries to impose himself on another man in order to be recognized by him.” (Fanon, 191). In reference to this interaction of objectification, Hegel’s philosophical concept describes this assertion of positive feelings of recognition in the outside party, but in the process, the targeted individual experiences degradation: this idea constitutes the master-slave dialectic. For Hegel, the self can only feel recognized in its humanity by being aware of the presence of the targeted individual—the Other—which allows the self to assert certainty of itself as a singularly significant being in comparison. This “process of self-consciousness”, however, “takes place at the expense of the Other” (Villet, 40). Hegel’s work claims that when a person executes a dehumanizing observation towards another, that person fulfills its desire to be recognized as a “subject” in contrast to the targeted individual, who becomes diminished to an object. While the subject is “able to affix its own meaning” in feeling recognized in its humanity, becoming a “being-for-self”, the objectified individual receives the damage—since its meaning is determined by the actions of the subject, the target is reduced to a “being-for-other” (Villet, 42). Thus, Villet presents Hegel’s master-slave dialectic as equating this interaction of objectification to a reshaping of two sides into the recognized subject and the targeted object. It is through both Fanon’s vividly-written dialogue and Hegel’s discussion of his master-slave dialectic that the psyche of the objectified person—being one of a mental disconnect and self-directed oppression—only exists due to the outside provocation of society’s dehumanizing, external perceptions.
With the acknowledgement that self-objectification—the feeling of viewing the self as degraded to an object—stems from an external force of objectification, racial inequality can be revealed as the product of these two processes functioning in a self-perpetuating cycle with one another. Essentially, the more an individual undergoes a disconnect from the self, the more that repeated objectification becomes, erroneously, acceptable. Fanon showcases this vicious cycle in a reference to Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay, Anti-Semite and Jew:
In Anti-Semite and Jew Sartre writes: “They [the Jews] have allowed themselves to be poisoned by the stereotype that others have of them, and they live in fear that their acts will correspond to this stereotype. We may say that their conduct is perpetually overdetermined from the inside.” (Fanon, 95)
Fanon’s mention of Sarte’s writing is a prime example of how racism is processed: as a repeated loop of outside and self-oppression. When a racial group experiences an external objectification, whether it be from the poisonous quality of stereotypes or the “dissecting” perceptions of “the white gaze”, individuals within the group will experience a self-disconnect, accepting their positions as one with these stereotypes—and they will “slip into corners” and “keep silent”, praying to be unnoticed, to “be anonymous, to be forgotten” (Fanon, 96). Their self-objectification has taken hold, and the more oppression that is repeated from the outside, the more accepting the objectified and dissociated group is to further external oppression. This social psychosis—the poisoning of the mind, and the forced acceptance that comes along with it—is the culmination of a racially unjust society’s “unreasoning hatred of one race for another” (Fanon, 97). In fact, Derek Hook contributes to this sentiment that over time, a targeted racial group will gradually come to be associated with these repeated, dehumanizing perceptions, as “[t]he racial other […], be it the Jew or the Muslim, is reduced to this particular quality” (Hook, 133). As the targeted group’s actions are influenced by these objectifications in turn, this perpetuates and illustrates a power dynamic between the targets and the outside group. What Hook “detect[s] here, in the unrealistic and racist reduction of a person or category to one or more basic qualities, is the racial stereotype” (Hook, 133)—in other words, the product of consistent racial objectification, brought about by a cycle of dehumanizing perceptions. Thus, the “juxtaposition of the black and white races” is presented: that which has manifested, repeated, and “resulted in a massive psycho-existential complex” (Fanon, xvi) for the oppressed racial groups within a society.
Hook also expands on the reasoning for the way in which racism functions in repetition. He establishes racially dehumanizing perceptions as irrational in nature, stemming from places of paranoia, jealousy, and fragility of the self. For instance, he asserts that noticing differences in the Other can be “enough to create a sense of inadequacy and insecurity” (Hook, 132) in the perceivers who do not possess such potentially coveted traits, relating back to the concept that every human desires feelings of recognition, desires to feel human. Therefore, to “defend against [their] own lack”, there lies only one solution: “the threat of the [O]ther needs to be hopelessly exaggerated” (Hook, 134). Continued instances of racially-objectifying exaggerations restore self-worth in the objectifiers, as Fanon states that it is the existence and recognition of the Other that “human worth and reality depend[s] on” (Fanon, 191). Racial objectifications as methods of defending self-worth, such as mocking or stereotyping, are illogically fearful due to their repetitive structure. Hook illustrates this by providing a first-person dialogue of the deep-rooted paranoia behind these dehumanizing objectifications:
It is not that I lack a particular quality, it is rather than you have this quality in an excessive and hence dangerous quantity. In this twisted emotional logic of racism I, the racist, hence become the victim of you, the ‘racial other’ who undermines and threatens my existence. You, on the other hand, become my persecutor, that which represents all that is threatening to me. Hence, I deserve protection against you, and you, on the other hand, deserve punishment. (Hook, 134)
By exaggerating the perceived and irrational threat of the Other, the self-inadequacies felt by the dehumanizing party are reduced in comparison. Hence, the purpose of repetitiveness in the cycle of systemic rational inequality is revealed as eliminating insecurities of self-worth and humanity in white society—and subsequently, the true origins of racial inequality become clear. Racism can be understood as the paranoid recapitulation of repression and sublimation between individuals and the society they live in. An outside group will project dehumanizing perceptions onto targeted groups in order to feel more human themselves. Hook’s reasoning relates back to the notion that the desire for recognition as a subject—a being secure in its humanity—is a universal human attribute. His arguments support Fanon’s work, which expresses that when the objectification of racial groups is accomplished internally and externally within both individuals and their society, racial injustice is founded. It is evident that Fanon’s work outlines how objectifying perceptions of other humans, which generate self-oppression within individuals, lie at the heart of racial inequality. However, these mechanisms of objectification can be extended beyond the subject of race; Black Skin, White Masks also offers objectification as a means for how inequalities of all types develop and thrive within society. This fact is demonstrated in two ways: first, through the book’s discussion of language, and second, through the support of Michael Vannoy Adams in The Multicultural Imagination. According to Fanon’s own book, it is true that learning a language involves a conceptual and mechanical comprehension of the syntax and morphology, “but it means above all assuming a culture and bearing the weight of a civilization” (Fanon, 2). To adopt an identity and integrate into a civilization implies a denial of any intrinsic human culture, or any ingrained temperamental traits amongst groups of people. Furthering this inference, Fanon writings suggest that each human begins as a self-contained being, “constitut[ing] an isolated, arid, assertive atom, along well-defined rights of passage; each of them is” (Fanon, 187). In this way, each and every individual primitively exists for themselves, independent of communal, societally-constructed characteristics. Fanon therefore presents us with the concept that the psychological damage that results from incorrectly objectifying others spans all types of objectification, as regardless of how they are being objectified, the individual is “locked in” the “suffocating reification” of being classified as an “object among other objects” (Fanon, 89).
Adams upholds a similar stance regarding the belief that categorizing humans into collective identities regarding their perceptible attributes is unnatural. These perceptible attributes can be considered equivalent to the “differences” that Hook described: differences as notable human characteristics that induce feelings of insecurity in those who perceive them. These “difference[s] must be ‘perceptible’ in order for [them] to result in a complex” (Adams, 161), yet differences themselves only instigate negative emotions under specific demographic conditions. Adams states that it is possible for an existence of “inferiority complex[es] even among people who are in the majority if the minority is in power socially, politically, and economically” (Adams, 161). For Fanon’s context of race, this majority alludes to white society, while the minority refers to Black individuals; however, Adam’s views can apply to any perceivable differences in people. In summation, Adams is arguing that the worth of an individual cannot be measured by the worth of that individual’s perceivable attributes, as the superiority or inferiority of these attributes—depending on the demographic circumstance—are wholly arbitrary. For the unfairly categorized human, ideas such as inferiority of skin colour are “imposed” by outside forces—including forms of objectification—and are then “adopted by them” (Adams, III) rather than existing as natural qualities. Ergo, both the classification of individuals into inferior or superior classes—as well as the psychological internalization of this—fosters social discrimination, regardless of the traits they are being sorted in or compared against. Fanon’s writing supports the idea that inequalities within society begin with the objectification and unreasonable categorization of individuals from others, leading to a mental disconnect and internalized oppression upon the self; meanwhile, Adams declares that the worth of the noticeable qualities used for objectification and categorization are determined randomly, all depending on the social, political, or economic environment they occur in. This is because no human can be born with the psychological attributes associated with their observable characteristics, and the perceived value of these characteristics are arbitrary as well. So, categorizations based on objectification are unnatural and rightly uncomfortable. The foundational abstraction from both philosopher’s works maintains that as long as people continue to unfairly categorize and stereotype one another, the societal and psychological processes of objectification will continue to birth societies that harbour distresses, discommunication and injustices. By understanding the implications of language in Black Skin, White Masks, along with Adam’s opinions in The Multicultural Imagination, it becomes clear that the workings of objectification are fundamentally flawed, repeating and self-perpetuating to allow inequalities of all types—including racial disparities—to thrive.
Progress toward true equality, however, is achievable. Villet articulates a hopeful viewpoint within Fanon’s writing. Through analyzing Villet’s position as supported by the understandings of objectification expressed thus far in Fanon’s work—the cycle it functions in, and its origins rooted in a basic human desire for recognition—an alternative psychological loop between individuals and their society becomes clear: a cycle of mutual recognition from both sides, which Villet maintains is powered by an understanding of the core values that lie at the heart of humanity. This leads to the interpretation that in Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon details objectification as a method of abolishing inequalities and one-sided oppression, and that by understanding objectification, society can advance toward equality. In Villet’s view, mutual recognition starts with the shared awareness of differences between people—a prompting to affirm and assert differences in the self against the Other. He makes it clear that the acknowledgement of differences is vital, because “if differences are stamped out then forgetfulness creeps in of both colonialism’s atrocities and the history of race and racism it embodies” (Villet, 46). Indeed, the Black man “knows there is a difference. He wants it” (Fanon, 196). For Fanon, an acknowledgment of perceivable differences between people spurs the need for them to “keep their alterity—alterity of rupture, of struggle and combat” (Fanon, 197); this violence alludes to the notions of overhanging insecurity and oppression that follow this interaction. Villet, however, views the psychological turmoil as a human’s refusal to be objectified: a targeted individual can be “rendered active by the challenges [of objectification] from the outside to his desire for subjectivity” (Villet, 47).Therefore, the key in perceiving differences between the self and other individuals lies in a deliberate resistance to objectification on both sides. This assertion of differences promotes individuals on both sides to declare their own subjectivity.
Subjectivity of the self, in this sense, does not have to represent the inverse of an objectified person, as it did for those targeted by a dehumanizing, objectifying gaze. Villet advocates that instead, the individual can define themselves by understanding, engaging with and respecting the basic, universal values of humanity. For instance, Villet states that this can be done through the intelligent thought that comes from education. The concept of humanity can be problematic when it benefits solely the “subject, and the object is totally ignored” (Fanon, 186). In these cases, “the extent of the imposition of one’s existence on [another] becomes the measure of humanity” (Villet, 42). Instead, Villet stresses the importance of mutual recognition, advocating for a new defining of humanity through incentivizing action by means of education, as opposed to the reaction of self-objectification within targeted individuals. He claims that “only once intelligent thought has transpired can Fanonian action take place. According to Fanon, ‘[t]o educate man is to be actional, preserving in all his relations his respect for basic values that constitute a human world, is the prime task of him who, having taken thought, prepares to act’” (Villet, 47). These basic values are described by Fanon to be universally human: “man [is] an affirmation” to “life”, “love” and “generosity” while being a “negation” to “man’s contempt”, the “indignity of man”, “the exploitation of man” and “the massacre” of “freedom” (Fanon, 197). These values transcend a person’s bodily schema and perceivable differences as a “human reality, different from [their] natural reality” (Fanon, 192). Conceptualizing humanity in this way—or by widely teaching values of life, love, and generosity as a foundation for humanity—serves as the starting point for mutual subjectivity by motivating action in individuals. This is an action to identify themselves as aligned with these core values, which ultimately leads to them being able to identify these values in the Other. By recognizing this humanity in themselves, individuals can recognize humanity in the Other. Mutual recognition, therefore, provokes awareness of the value of a person’s own life, as well as the importance of realizing the value of the life of the Other. The desire for subjectivity—finding humanity in the self—can be represented as a desire to ascend beyond the physical realm “toward an ideal which is the transformation of subjective certainty of my own worth into a universally valid objective truth” (Fanon, 193). These truths are the core values of humanity, which the individual can identify these values in both themselves and their society. Conclusively, objectification as a term in Black Skin, White Masks—along with Villet’s redefining of subjectivity through understanding humanitarian values—provide the education needed for mutual recognition amongst individuals in society, where the truly priceless value of human life itself is affirmed in daily interactions between people, perpetuating in a reciprocal, unifying cycle of subjectivity for both sides.
For Fanon, objectification encompasses a cycle of verbally or physically externalized and psychologically internalized racism. Extending from this, objectification can be used as a term to describe the origins of all inequalities that manifest within greater society. When the essence of a person is reduced to their physical form, as well as the dehumanizing presumptions and categorizations that follow, that there can be no genuine connection between humans—and consequently, true equality cannot be achieved. However, being aware of the external and internal processes of objectification can lead to greater understanding within society. By educating individuals on the basic, universal values of humanity, mutual recognition amongst people can be fostered. Only once individuals understand the origins of objectification can humanity make progress towards true equality.
Works Cited
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press, 1967.
Villet, Charles. “Hegel and Fanon on the Question of Mutual Recognition: A Comparative Analysis.” The Journal of Pan African Studies, Nov. 2011, www.jpanafrican.org/docs/vol4no7/4.7-4Hegel.pdf.
Hook, Derek. “Fanon and the Psychoanalysis of Racism.” LSE Research Online, Juta Academic Publishing, 1 Jan. 1970, http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2567/.
Adams, Michael Vannoy. The Multicultural Imagination: Race, Color, and the Unconscious. 1st Edition ed., Routledge, 1997.