The Negro’s neurotic conflict offers only two unhealthy exits before a universal leap

Evidence

One can understand why Sartre views the adoption of a Marxist position by black poets as the logical conclusion of Negrohood. In effect, what happens is this: As I begin to recognize that the Negro is the symbol of sin, I catch myself hating the Negro. But then I recognize that I am a Negro. There are two ways out of this conflict. Either I ask others to pay no attention to my skin, or else I want them to be aware of it. I try then to find value for what is bad–since I have unthinkingly conceded that the black man is the color of evil. In order to terminate this neurotic situation, in which I am compelled to choose an unhealthy, conflictual solution, fed on fantasies, hostile, inhuman in short, I have only one solution: to rise above this absurd drama that others have staged round me, to reject the two terms that are equally unacceptable, and, through one human being, to reach out for the universal. When the Negro dives—in other words, goes under—something remarkable occurs. — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 696

Categorization

• XREF: Directly addresses the reader’s need for the psychological mechanism of the White Skin Black Negro choosing ‘ignore my skin’ vs ‘notice my skin’ as the two exits. — connects to: Both the colonized Negro and the colonizing white man suffer a neurotic alienation — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 214; The Negro’s fear is of his own unknown self being discovered — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 549

Related

• Both the colonized Negro and the colonizing white man suffer a neurotic alienation (similarity 0.80)
• The colonized Negro’s embrace of negritude style feels like theft to the white man. (similarity 0.80)
• The first encounter with a white man oppresses the Negro with his full blackness (similarity 0.80)
• The black man’s only perceived escape from insignificance leads into the white world. (similarity 0.79)
• Ego-withdrawal as a defense is impossible for the black man (similarity 0.79)
• Being limited to one’s own environment keeps the Negro unaware of the myth (similarity 0.79)
• Black consciousness is immanent and whole, not a potential lacking universality (similarity 0.79)
• Achieving morality requires the Negro to erase his own image from consciousness (similarity 0.79)
• The myth of the Negro can itself become a decisive cause of psychological alienation. (similarity 0.78)
• The black man can become locked into his body as mere object (similarity 0.78)
• The Negro’s fear is of his own unknown self being discovered (similarity 0.78)
• The neurosis precedes and motivates the racial obsession, not the reverse (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Both the colonized Negro and the colonizing white man suffer a neurotic alienation #expands (0.70) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 214
• The Negro’s fear is of his own unknown self being discovered #complicates (0.60) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 549