Frantz Fanon

Martinique

December 1, 1951

W.E.B. Dubois

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA 02138

Dear Mr. Dubois:

I would like to thank you, as your work has been the greatest inspiration to my own. Although all of your works are impressive, I particularly have been interested in your theory of dual consciousness. I believe that the phenomenon you outline is apparent in colonized subjects throughout the world (Du Bois, 5), not just the United States. In my own French colony of Martinique, I have observed similar behavior and watch it grow today. On their knees, battered and beaten, colonized individuals cloaked in shame look up to their colonizers with admiration. They have an implicit desire to assume the privileges they know they cannot obtain. It is astounding how colonized individuals can be consciously aware of the pain that their colonizers have caused, yet simultaneously wish to be them. The countless number of times I have seen my fellow Martiniquais judge themselves according to the standards that their white colonizers created is astonishing (Fanon, Black Skin, 69).  

Ultimately, I hope to expand your philosophy on a global scale. I believe the linchpin of colonization lies in mind control. Colonized subjects are led to believe that they are innately inferior. The moment colonized subjects realize the falsity of this claim and the wickedness of their situation, they will be galvanized to revolt (Fanon, The Wretched, 170).

However, I do depart from your philosophy in that I believe psychoanalysis is crucial for colonized subjects. A revolution will not come on its own. The language of the oppressor and his beliefs has been stitched into the hearts of the colonized. These toxic beliefs have infiltrated the unconscious, something that can only be reversed via psychoanalytic therapy (Fanon, The Fact of, 257). I believe this diversion is in part due to my occupation as a psychiatrist. This position has given a different lens from which I can view problems of oppression.

Ultimately, I would like to express my gratitude; your philosophical influence has allowed me to form a new theory of colonization.

Respectfully yours,

Frantz Fanon

Frantz Fanon

Martinique

November 17, 1955

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Eberhardstraße 53

70173 Stuttgart, Germany

Dear Mr. Hegel:

I am writing to you as a fellow philosophical scholar that believes the fundamental basis for your philosophy is incorrect.

Your philosophy is simply an extension of pure and ideal whiteness. By abstracting away from material realities and creating hypothetical utopian scenarios of human interaction, your philosophy is an obstacle to tangible, real change. Not only this, but your theorizing without realizing is exactly the problem that I have outlined in nearly all of my books; you continue a long trend of white philosophers that ignore the lived experiences of colonized subjects and oppressed bodies (Fanon, Black Skin, 83).

But alas, I must be more specific. Most importantly, I staunchly disagree with your notion of reciprocal recognition. Of course, living such a privileged life would allow you to conjecture about the nature of society in an a priori utopian world. As a general principle, recognition should never be the basis of a moral theory. The idea that two subjects, regardless of class, gender, or color will reciprocally recognize each other is baseless and historically inaccurate. Simply put, your philosophy claims that in order to recognize their own inherent value, subjects have to receive approval from others reciprocally. The actuality of this claim is that your philosophy is wholly inaccessible to minorities, who have never been recognized, and therefore justifies their exclusion. For example, a slave would be forced to depend on his or her former master for self-identification. Clearly, there is no reciprocity in this one-sided situation. The slave simply is not recognized as valuable by his or her master. Following the claim of your philosophy, this subject would be perpetually damned, as self-identification would not ensue (Hegel, 168).

Hopefully, you will not dismiss my objections on the basis of me picking a single example to disprove your theory. The phenomenon of irreciprocal recognition is alive and well in today’s society-- pick any minority you would like. But as my work pertains specifically to colonized subjects, I will speak to that scenario. Colonized subjects are viewed as inferior through the eyes of colonizers. This lens of viewing the world is what I refer to as the “white gaze.” Colonized subjects judge themselves using the white gaze, which solidifies their so-called inferiority. Your philosophy is the clearest extension of the white gaze that I can think of. Recognition is always skewed in favor of the dominant perspective. It is definitively white. Your notion of reciprocal recognition is the epitome of the white gaze that my entire philosophy outlines. You force colonized subjects to judge their inherent worth using the opinions of their colonizers (Fanon, Black Skin, 163).

I hope that you have gotten to this point in the letter. I simply wanted to express my views on your philosophy. Respectfully, and civilly, of course.

From,

Frantz Fanon

Frantz Fanon

Martinique

September 21, 1952

Immanuel Kant

Königsberg

Dear Mr. Kant:

As a fellow philosopher and scholar, I found it my duty to explain to you why your philosophy is wholly incorrect, along with being ethically violent.

In an effort for my critique to remain substantive and not ad hoc, I would like to detach your downright racist views from your actual philosophy. Despite this, racism oozes its way into your philosophy, especially your conception of practical reason.

First, I would like to begin with the meta-ethical claim of practical reason that you advance. You characterize the human subject as grounded in the sole capacity to reason. Yet, the complexity of human life cannot be accounted for within such a narrow frame. It is common for humans to have out-of-body affective experiences, along with traumas and moments of pure joy; by the logic of your philosophy, these events hold no normative weight-- they are not “rational experiences.” In this way, your model of the subject is inaccessible to minorities and colonized individuals. The entire colonized experience is an issue of brain control, whereby colonized subjects are manipulated in ways that convince them they are inferior. The effects of these manipulations cannot be understood through the lens of pure reason-- after all, they are incomprehensible. For such individuals to become “pure” Kantian subjects would require them to dismiss a key aspect of their daily lives. That itself is exclusive and obstructs the path to morality (Kant, 102).

It follows from this moral exclusion that you also legitimize oppression. In propping up a notion of an ideal subject that is grounded in reason, you justify moral exclusion and oppression of subjects that do not conform to your model. But this is not just normal exclusion-- if a subject cannot conform to your model, there is no obligation to treat him or her morally. This model of perfection is militarized against individual subjects that society views as inferior (Kant, 99). Women, people of color, ethnic minorities, and the disabled have historically not been viewed as reasoners and thus not been treated correctly.

Similar to Hegel, your philosophy is wholly abstract. However, Hegel is able to acknowledge this in his objection to the Kantian community, which I admire. Hegel argues that the idea of a priori reason becomes self defeating when applied to the real world. The problem becomes evident when one wonders how a Kantian community would be actualized. Since the Kantian community is a priori, humans can have no capability to understand what it would look like. Hell, we can’t even know with certainty that we can actualize a Kantian community, or if it lies within our capacity! Without this certainty, you provide nothing for individuals to strive towards. Since there’s no unified vision of what a Kantian community ought to look like, striving towards the community would make moral atrocities permissible. For example, a racist would imagine a perfect community of white subjects, justifying the expulsion of minorities (Gobsch, 11).

If you would like to meet in person, or have a public debate, I am widely available. I would hope that you wouldn’t let your personal biases get in the way of a valuable discussion.

From,

Frantz Fanon

Frank B. Wilderson

University of California Irvine

Irvine, CA 92697

December 19, 2017

Frantz Fanon

Martinique

Dear Mr. Fanon:

Your writings have laid the groundwork for the philosophical field of critical race literature. For that, I must thank you. But despite my gratitude and admiration, I am writing this letter to exemplify why your approach to blackness is simply too optimistic. As the leading modern-day afro-pessimist, I have quite a few objections.

The crux of my objection is that your emphasis on decolonization and revolution is a form of cruel optimism. Nothing will ever change or improve the status quo. Instead, colonized individuals, specifically black individuals, must resort to pessimism and burning down civil society (Wilderson, 26).

Civil society is built on the bones of black people. It was slaves who built the White House, and it was slaves that led countries like the United States to power. Black people have been placed in a structural position of inferiority that will never change (Wilderson, 18). In my work, I identify the place of ontological death at the Middle Passage. Slaves went into the Middle Passage as people and came out of the Middle Passage as objects. Their being was positioned as being-for-the-captor. As time progressed, gratuitous violence was and still is enacted against black bodies--violence that has no purpose (Wilderson, 25). What has looked like progress has really just been a shift in oppressive systems. Slavery was replaced with Jim Crow, which was then replaced with the Prison Industrial Complex. Times haven’t changed. Anybody who tells you otherwise is complicit with the system. Although my work focuses specifically on black people in the Americas, the same experience is applicable to any other colonized situation in the world. Regardless of location, slaves were slaves.

The only solution is not to cede to civil society but rather to burn it down (Wilderson, 26). Everything we know and will ever know is built on anti-blackness. That will never change unless it is all destroyed. Because of my call to action, I am a bit sympathetic to your claim that colonized individuals should revolt. However, the motivations for the revolt you outline are incorrect. The notion that individuals can revolt and suddenly eliminate all racist sentiments that exist is cruelly optimistic. That will never happen. I would acquiesce if the revolt was a revolt to destroy civil society, but as long as such a revolt carries that optimism you outline, it will never be successful. We must accept the position of ontological death and remain pessimistic to survive.

From,

Frank B. Wilderson

Gwen Bergner

West Virginia University

Morgantown, WV 26506

March 18, 2016

Frantz Fanon

Martinique

Dear Mr. Fanon:

Although some individuals view your work with pride and admiration, I am writing to explain to you why it is sexist and ought to be revised.

Most of my criticisms come from your foundational text of Black Skin, White Masks. In this book, you take the masculine as the universal through your usage of “le noir,” or “the black man.” In doing so, you ignore the complex burdens that women of color face. In fact, the only time you ever mention a woman in this book is when you are talking about her sexual relationship with a man! The book almost solely views women as sex objects that twist and distort men, causing them undue harm. It becomes clear that in your eyes, the only importance of women is that they corrupt men that fight over them. This is most clear when you describe the lust of a white woman in the eyes of a black man, which leads to his lynching. It is thoroughly disgusting and treats women as objects of a material economy (Bergner, 76-77).

In addition to this, your philosophy surely isn’t intersectional enough. Race and gender come together in unique ways that set the experience of the colonized woman apart from the experience of the colonized man. By viewing the situation through a unilateral axis, you force women to divide their identities into “colonized” and “female.” You even have the audacity to write, “Those who grant our conclusions on the psycho- sexuality of the white woman may ask what we have to say about the woman of color. I know nothing about her.” This separation ignores how race and gender intersect, disregarding a key aspect of the colonized woman’s experience (Bergner, 81).

I hope that this teaches you to revise your works in order to be more inclusive and accurate.

From,

Gwen Bergner