For the colonized, speaking itself replaces violence as the first act of self-assertion

Evidence

So it was not just the extra cables and the klieg lights, the hand-carried camera equipment, and the fortuitous presence of Western reporters in “godforsaken” places, but rather some new visibility of the “others” themselves, who occupy their own stage — a kind of center in its own right — and compel attention by virtue of their voice and of the act of speaking itself, which — far above and beyond Fanon’s old punctual act of physical violence — becomes for a language-conscious generation the first primordial violent act by which you force yourself on another’s attention. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 764

Categorization

• DEFINE: Offers a striking inversion of Fanon: speech, not physical violence, is the primordial act of compelling recognition for a language-conscious generation.
• XREF: connects to: Fanon held that revolutionary violence forges collective identity in the colonised. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 869; Marginalized people reclaim themselves in language by turning the oppressor’s tongue against itself — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 349; Seizing the oppressor’s tongue became a form of resistance and self-reclamation (+9 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Fanon held that revolutionary violence forges collective identity in the colonised. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 869; Marginalized people reclaim themselves in language by turning the oppressor’s tongue against itself — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 349; Seizing the oppressor’s tongue became a form of resistance and self-reclamation (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Affirming the colonized self via rupture cannot resolve psychological damage #complicates (0.82) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 106
• Formerly colonized peoples risk adopting the dominating discourse against themselves #complicates (0.78)
• Cornered destructiveness stops distinguishing self-destruction from outward violence #complicates (0.76) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 118