freedom by way of oppression
Freedom By Way Of Oppression The text, Black Skin, White Masks (1955), by Frantz Fanon is a psychoanalytic interpretation of the black man’s alienation. ... Instead, Fanon argues that the present situation of oppressed people and the possibility of their future freedom and dis-alienation depends upon acting right now for the creation of that future. ... Fanon says, “in no way should I [black people] derive my [their] basic purpose [liberation] from the past of the people of color”(Fanon 101). Of course, Fanon is not saying that the past oppression of black people should be forgotten. Actually, Fanon believes that “it should be preserved in the memories of black people so that they can be committed to each other… [and ready] to fight with collective strength for the freedom of a subjugated freedom”(Fanon 102). ... Fanon is saying that the black man must objectify himself in a way that the white man has objectified him to understand his identity. ... From this, one can gather that the crux of Fanon’s argument is since black people form their identity from oppression, they tend to try to live above the standards that oppression have set for black people. ... According to Fanon the only way black men saw fit to accomplish this task was to master white culture. ... It will analyze the texts, Another Country (1960), by James Baldwin and Soul on Ice (1968), in relation to Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks to show that black men desired white women as a way to scale the social hierarchy. ... My paper will show that black men desired white women because they were a symbol of freedom and that this helped to oppress black people collectively because it suggested to the masses that black culture was not even deemed worthy in the eyes of the black community. ... The big blonde who was always in his way, weak, sensual, offered, open, fearing (desiring) rape, became his mistress in the end” (Fanon 140). ... Cleaver describes the relationship between black men and white women as a wicked irony that reinforces the idea of black oppression. ... This is evident when Cleaver writes: I mean I can’t analyze it, but I know that the white man made black women the symbol of slavery and the white women the symbol of freedom. Every time I embrace a black woman I’m embracing slavery, and when I put my arms around a white woman, well, I am hugging freedom (Cleaver 189). ... Since black men at this point in time were still being deprived of their basic civil rights, they only wanted to incorporate symbols of freedom and equality in their lives. ... The irony here is that black men desired white women because they were a symbol of freedom. ... While white women are a symbol of power and white acceptance by black men, they are also a symbol of oppression and racism. ... This is said because on one level black men desire white women because they are a representation of freedom and assertion into a position of power within white society. ... These desires in a sense lead to a new cycle of self-inflicted oppression.