(Trigger warning for mentions of misogynoir, psychiatric ableism, rape apologism, lynching, and homophobia.)

Listened to this via audiobook.

First, while the analysis itself tends to be dated and thus not as relevant as it was when it was written (or, just not relevant in the same way), the cultural impact of it, and Fanon's work in general, is not lost on me and I see how it's been foundational to many other revolutionary writers and literature that grew and expanded from this. Simultaneously, there are several critiques to be made.

The central point of the book is how assimilation into whiteness and colonial societies such as France (which Fanon had the most experience with, being Martinican) changes the internal and external perception and experience of Black manhood. While analyzing that particular experience is not a problem in itself, doing so in a kind of contempt and disregard for Black womanhood and a lack of critique / comprehension of gender norms and cisheteronormativity (including how they were created and spread via colonization) definitely stunted Fanon's analysis here. Additionally, so did the pathologization and ableism inherent in psychiatric psychoanalysis that his intellectual background and arguments hinged on.

Further, Fanon has some acknowledgement of the pitfalls of 'the family' as an institution being a big focal point in psychoanalysis, but he still lacked an awareness for how that unit and term has been shaped by and for cisheteronormativity and European colonialism. I also wish that how correlation (to family dynamics) does not equate to causation (by family dynamics) was acknowledged, but it was not and the flawed psychoanalytical lens remained. I did, however, enjoy his critique on how other psychoanalysts like Jung did not consider Blackness in their work which meant that their lack of perspective and thus, lack of reckoning with white supremacy, assumed and further perpetuated the false notion that whiteness = the "Human". The dehumanization of Black men is a big theme in this book, especially as it is connected to internalized and externally-enforced colorism, linguistic and accent discrimination, pseudoscience, twisted narratives and stereotypes and terms, commodification, and hyper-sexualization.

In that last topic, there was a very jarring and disturbing statement he made in regards to studying white women who were having nightmares about fearing rape from Black men that 'because they have a "phobia" of it, they must internally desire it'; Fanon quite literally said: "is she not asking for it?". I think being clear and honest about the way white women have historically hyper-sexualized Black men and lied about them making advances on them to justify lynching them, instead of saying fearing rape means you desire it, was absolutely an option for Fanon -- that he did not take. I don't believe Fanon's intention was to encourage rape; I do believe, however, this is still rape apologism and very, very harmful and misguided. Another statement he made in connection to this is that a white man must be "a repressed homosexual" for his hatred of Black men; this is also very blatantly wrong and homophobic. For all of these reasons, I cannot say that I recommend this book.

Before, during, and after reading this, something that's been on my mind is how intellectual revolutionaries such as Frantz Fanon get dehumanized and glamorized in/by their reputation and thus, when people read works like this, it's not uncommon for them to be either disillusioned and reject it/him completely or uncritically revere it without truly comprehending it. Both of those, I believe, are the opposite of how revolutionary works and people deserve to be engaged with and treated; I don't mean that to excuse nor downplay the harmful messages I mentioned above in this book, but that those precise themes have to be interrogated and reckoned with not with the goal of necessarily "condemning" Fanon as a person but, rather, with the goal of ensuring his mistakes do not get repeated and we heal the wounds caused by such mistakes. I believe people live on in how we remember them and that their multiplicity of truths should not be flattened or that their humanity should be disposed of. I also don't believe that anyone who experiences the harm perpetuated here owes Fanon, or the book itself, their attention and grace.

Lastly, I did appreciate how solidarity (even though he himself did not exactly live up to that...) across and beyond oppression/s was a major message in this book. Other such messages included were the liberatory power and necessity of memory, truth, relationship, empathy, innovation/imagination, futurity, determination, and sovereignty over apathy, individualism, assimilation, neoliberalism, or letting your reality and self and desires be defined and decided by your colonizers.