For the Antillean Negro, mastery of French proportionally increases perceived whiteness and humanity.

Evidence

To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture. The Antilles Negro who wants to be white will be the whiter as he gains greater mastery of the cultural tool that language is. Rather more than a year ago in Lyon, I remember, in a lecture I had drawn a parallel between Negro and European poetry, and a French acquaintance told me enthusiastically, “At bottom you are a white man.” The fact that I had been able to investigate so interesting a problem through the white man’s language gave me honorary citizenship. — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 148 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

During the Second World War, teachers went from Guadeloupe to Fort-de-France to correct the examinations of candidates for the baccalaureate, and, driven by curiosity, I went to the hotel where they were staying, simply in order to see Monsieur B., a philosophy teacher who was supposed to be remarkably black; as the Martinicans say, not without a certain irony, he was “blue.” One family in particular has an excellent reputation: “They’re very black, but they’re all quite nice.” One of them, in fact, is a piano teacher and a former student at the Conservatoire in Paris, another is a teacher of natural science in the girls’ academy, etc. The father was given to walking up and down his balcony every evening at sunset; after a certain time of night, it was always said, he became invisible. Of another family, who lived in the country, it was said that on nights when there was a power failure the children had to laugh so that their parents would know that they were there. On Mondays, very carefully got up in their white linen suits, certain Martinican officials, in the local figure of speech, “looked like prunes in a bowl of milk.” — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 995 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Antilleans internalize European archetypes such that their anima and animus are white; The colonial seeks French refinement to prove he has measured up; Antillean neuroses stem from a white cultural situation imposed through media (+13 more)

Related

• The colonial seeks French refinement to prove he has measured up (similarity 0.93)
• Mastering French makes the Antilles Negro whiter, earning honorary white status (similarity 0.92)
• “He talks like a white man” is Martinique’s highest praise for mastering French. (similarity 0.90)
• Mastery of the colonizer’s language confers honorary whiteness on the colonized (similarity 0.89)
• Antilleans going to France to confirm whiteness instead encounter their blackness. (similarity 0.88)
• Language mastery determines how human a colonized black man is considered (similarity 0.88)
• Antilleans internalize European archetypes such that their anima and animus are white (similarity 0.88)
• The Antillean journey to France to become white reveals his real black face (similarity 0.86)
• The colonized Antillean internalizes the culture that enslaves him (similarity 0.86)
• Antilleans claim superiority over Africans by being closer to the white man. (similarity 0.86)
• Antilleans pursue French refinement to prove cultural adequacy to themselves (similarity 0.86)
• A few French phrases in Martinican education shape the young Antillean’s entire worldview (similarity 0.85)
• External education lets whites accept the black man as culturally white (similarity 0.85)
• The Antillean is made white by unconscious processes while lacking white skin (similarity 0.85)
• Education and refinement could qualify blackness in Antillean social judgment (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Mastering French makes the Antilles Negro whiter, earning honorary white status #corroborates (0.95) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 148
• Education and refinement could qualify blackness in Antillean social judgment #corroborates (0.85) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 995
• Antilleans claim superiority over Africans by being closer to the white man. #expands (0.80)
• Mastery of the colonizer’s language confers honorary whiteness on the colonized #expands (0.80)
• Colonized people become psychologically whiter as they adopt the mother country’s culture #expands (0.75)
• Cultural traits like language, clothing, and religious practice can racialize a group. #expands (0.70)
• Antilleans pursue French refinement to prove cultural adequacy to themselves #expands (0.60)
• Colonial rule rewarded mixed-bloods according to their degree of whiteness. #expands (0.55)
• External education lets whites accept the black man as culturally white #qualifies (0.50) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 249