Frantz Fanon, born on this day in 1925, was a West Indian Pan-Africanist philosopher and Algerian revolutionary most known for his text The Wretched of the Earth.

Fanon was born to an affluent family on the Caribbean island of Martinique, then a French colony which is still under French control today. As a teenager, he was taught by communist anti-colonial thinker Aimé Césaire (1913 - 2008).

Fanon was exposed to much European racism during World War II. After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, a Nazi government was set up in Martinique by French collaborators, whom he describedas taking off their masks and behaving like “authentic racists”.

Fighting for the Allied forces, Fanon also observed European women liberated by black soldiers preferring to dance with fascist Italian prisoners rather than fraternize with their liberators.

While completing a residency in psychiatry in France completing, Fanon wrote and published his first book, “Black Skin, White Masks” (1952), an analysis of the negative psychological effects of colonial subjugation upon black people.

Following the outbreak of the Algerian revolution in November 1954, Fanon joined the Front de Libération Nationale, a nationalist Algerian party. Working at a French hospital in Algeria, Fanon became responsible for treating the psychological distress of the French troops who carried out torture to suppress anti-colonial resistance, as well as their Algerian victims.

While organizing for Algerian independence in Ghana, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia that would ultimately kill him. He spent the last year of his life writing his most famous work, “The Wretched of the Earth” (French: Les Damnés de la Terre). The text provides a psychiatric analysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization and examines the possibilities of anti-colonial liberation

Following a trip to the Soviet Union to treat his leukemia, Fanon came to the U.S. in 1961 for further treatment in a visit arranged by the CIA. Fanon died in Bethesda, Maryland on December 6th, 1961 under the name of “Ibrahim Fanon”, a Libyan nom de guerre he had assumed in order to enter a hospital after being wounded during a mission for the Algerian National Liberation Front.

“In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.”

Biography :fanon:

The Wretched of the Earth PDF

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  • LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    I hate the trope of protagonists withholding world changing knowledge from literally everyone in their lives. Like Im watching this The New Saga slop anime where the protagonist, KYLE, has been apparently sent back in time to before almost everyone he loved died. And then he doesn’t say shit about it to anyone? Including some elf who he was bangin’ and, consequently knew the true name of, like he blurts it out on seeing her which already reveals he has incredibly secret knowledge that he shouldn’t have and instead of like, dumping his nuts on the table and telling everyone all this shit that’s happened to him, he just like, tries to play it off

    this shit always frustrates me like ughhh just tell them you’re from the future or whatever, it’s not like he can’t fucking prove it

      • LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        17 hours ago

        yeah but idk I’d rather the MC at least attempt it so that there’s at least a narrative reason why it doesn’t work out (whether it’s simply not being believed or whatever else), but usually it’s just like, idk, MC going “I’m going to keep everything a secret for no reason at all”

        the MC of Uglymug, Epicfighter is doing this shit too, he’s got twenty quadrillion stat points but instead of being like “heh so uh yeah I already broke the game y’all” he’s just plugging along with his “party” of “friends” just pretending to be a bumbling fat guy and it’s like, idk. Why?

        This New Saga show I’m pretty sure the MC could convince people though, like, his mom is literally an archmage, he has the physical object in his possession of this divine dragon’s heart, which she would certainly be able to appraise for what it is. At least she’d know he’s not just making shit up entirely.

        So like why not be like, hey mom, this is going to be hard to believe, but I’ve traveled back in time from four years from now. In a year or two, the demon army is going to attack and kill you and everyone else here. We need to stop it.

        i cannot imagine any possible consequences to that so it’s like, why the fuck not do that??? instead he’s jerking off trying to “become a hero” so that people listen to him when he could, yknow, start by getting one of the very few fucking arch mages who is also literally his own mother on his side immediately