Returning Antilles Negroes adopt a critical, oracular superiority over their compatriots

Evidence

There is the newcomer, then. He no longer understands the dialect, he talks about the Opera, which he may never have seen except from a distance, but above all he adopts a critical attitude toward his compatriots. Confronted with the most trivial occurrence, he becomes an oracle. He is the one who knows. He betrays himself in his speech. … They meet and talk. And if the newcomer soon gets the floor, it is because they were waiting for him. First of all to observe his manner: The slightest departure is seized on, picked apart, and in less than forty-eight hours it has been retailed all over Fort-de-France. There is no forgiveness when one who claims a superiority falls below the standard. Let him say, for instance, “It was not my good fortune, when in France, to observe mounted policemen,” and he is done for. Only one choice remains to him: throw off his “Parisianism” or die of ridicule. For there is also no forgetting: When he marries, his wife will be aware that she is marrying a joke, and his children will have a legend to face and to live down. — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 94 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Returning from France radically transforms the Antilles Negro’s identity and local status; Returning from France mutates the Antilles Negro into a deified demigod back home; The returned Negro’s adopted superiority is punished by his community’s unforgiving scrutiny — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 94 (+2 more)

Related

• The returned Negro’s adopted superiority is punished by his community’s unforgiving scrutiny (similarity 0.95)
• The community punishes the returnee’s Parisian pretension with unforgiving ridicule. (similarity 0.86)
• The returning colonial subject adopts a critical, know-it-all stance toward his compatriots. (similarity 0.86)
• Returning Antilles Negroes are diagnosed by family as European if French prevails (similarity 0.85)
• Returning from France mutates the Antilles Negro into a deified demigod back home (similarity 0.85)
• Returning Antilleans signal allegiance through French speech or dialect (similarity 0.83)
• Returning Antilleans are diagnosed by their dialect choice as European or unchanged (similarity 0.82)
• Antilleans arriving in France wage war on the R-eating stereotype through diction drills (similarity 0.80)
• The Antillean journey to France to become white reveals his real black face (similarity 0.80)
• For the Antillean Negro, mastery of French proportionally increases perceived whiteness and humanity. (similarity 0.80)
• Antilleans going to France to confirm whiteness instead encounter their blackness. (similarity 0.79)
• Returning to the colonies, the Europeanized Black finds both races reject him. (similarity 0.79)
• The colonial seeks French refinement to prove he has measured up (similarity 0.78)
• Arriving in France transforms the colonized black man because France represents civilization itself. (similarity 0.78)
• Antilleans pursue French refinement to prove cultural adequacy to themselves (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The returning colonial subject adopts a critical, know-it-all stance toward his compatriots. #corroborates (0.90)
• Returning from France mutates the Antilles Negro into a deified demigod back home #expands (0.75)
• The returned Negro’s adopted superiority is punished by his community’s unforgiving scrutiny #complicates (0.60) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 94
• Returning educated blacks appear to have gained something previously lacking #expands (0.55)