Mastering French makes the Antilles Negro whiter, earning honorary white status

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

Categorization

• XREF: Defines the core mechanism of ‘Black Skin, White Masks,’ the book’s central concept. — connects to: The colonial seeks French refinement to prove he has measured up; For the Antillean Negro, mastery of French proportionally increases perceived whiteness and humanity.; “He talks like a white man” is Martinique’s highest praise for mastering French. (+3 more)

Related

• “He talks like a white man” is Martinique’s highest praise for mastering French. (similarity 0.94)
• For the Antillean Negro, mastery of French proportionally increases perceived whiteness and humanity. (similarity 0.92)
• The colonial seeks French refinement to prove he has measured up (similarity 0.92)
• Mastery of the colonizer’s language confers honorary whiteness on the colonized (similarity 0.89)
• Language mastery determines how human a colonized black man is considered (similarity 0.89)
• External education lets whites accept the black man as culturally white (similarity 0.82)
• The Antillean is made white by unconscious processes while lacking white skin (similarity 0.82)
• Antilleans pursue French refinement to prove cultural adequacy to themselves (similarity 0.82)
• French colonial freedom only lets the Negro mimic, not be, a master (similarity 0.82)
• The newly educated black man speaks French to mark rupture from his past (similarity 0.81)
• Antilleans going to France to confirm whiteness instead encounter their blackness. (similarity 0.81)
• The Antillean journey to France to become white reveals his real black face (similarity 0.81)
• Arriving in France transforms the colonized black man because France represents civilization itself. (similarity 0.81)
• A few French phrases in Martinican education shape the young Antillean’s entire worldview (similarity 0.81)
• Western language defined the Black intelligentsia before they mastered it. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Mastery of the colonizer’s language confers honorary whiteness on the colonized #exemplifies (0.95)