Black Skins White Masks Summary

Evaluating the Parallels between Black Skins, White Masks and The Souls of Black Folk

The phenomenal books entitled Black Skins, White Masks, written by the notable Frantz Fanon and The Souls of Black Folk, by prominent author, historian, and activist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, better known as W.E.B Du Bois, both express the trials and tribulations of Blacks in respect to their identity. Black Skins, White Masks, originally written in 1952, in French was translated into English by Richard Philcox to increase the population of those who would be impacted by this book. Due to Fanon’s training in psychiatry, discussed in the forward, the book was heavily rooted with his psychoanalyses on a multitude of topics including identity, racism,
Educated Blacks could afford certain luxuries that other Blacks could not. This would not be in the best interest of the community because communities needed a sense of unity, especially Black communities during that time. Du Bois thought that educated Blacks had a duty to pass their education and awareness to other Blacks so they can progress past the oppression that whites placed upon
There is great power in possessing a language for one’s language dictates every other factor of their life. Frantz Fanon’s opinion was that “to speak a language is to appropriate its world and culture. The [Black person] who wants to be white will succeed, since he will have adopted the cultural tool of language” (Fanon 21). Many of Fanon’s assertions made it seem as though Fanon sincerely thought that someone of the Black race could assimilate themselves so much so that they could in fact become a part of the French culture. He felt that speaking the language of the oppressor was the key to opening doors that would otherwise be