Fanon and ‘The Fact of Blackness’

Chambi Chachage, Pambazuka

‘What does a black man want?’- Frantz Fanon’
‘Look not upon me, because I am black’- The Song of Solomon 1:6
‘The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself’- Steve Biko
‘I propose nothing short of the liberation of the man of colour from himself’ - Frantz Fanon

The Fact of Blackness

by Frantz Fanon, Chapter Five of Black Skin, White Masks, archived at Chicken Bones

“Dirty nigger!” Or simply, “Look, a Negro!”

I came into the world imbued with the will to find a meaning in things, my spirit filled with the desire to attain to the source of the world, and then I found that I was an object in the midst of other objects.

The Fact of Blackness in a Sea of Whiteness

by Camalita Naicker 

The Fact of Blackness, the fifth chapter of Frantz Fanon’s Black Skins, White Masks, is not an answer or an explanation to the statement that is the title, rather it is an insight into the inner turmoil and tense soliloquy that Fanon is experiencing. The answer on what is The Fact of Blackness is exceedingly less important that the question of it. If we take this as our starting point then we begin to understand his angst in trying to locate his identity in a sea of whiteness and white power. It is a conversation not unlike the ones we all have with ourselves every now and again, if you’re a person of colour. His inner rumination and contemplation is central to the chapter, it is the guide that leads to the end of the chapter where Fanon finds himself in crisis. 

Fanon Reading Group Text Three: 'The Fact of Blackness'

The 'Fact of Blackness' is the 5th chapter of Black Skin, White Masks. It is available online in pdf here and in plain text here.