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Honestly, I don’t know what’s pushing me to understand � okay, that’s a lie... hmm.. I am being pushed towards trying to understand the man. The black man. Myself and how I fit into that dynamic. Others. Older folks. Younger folks. Folks my age. Partners. Socialization. Conditioning of folks. International attitudes surrounding Blackness. I’ve got a lot of personal reasons this is intriguing me right now but it’s also, it’s black history/futures month, so I’m opening up black texts up around me and just trying to dive in..

Frantz Fanon � I bought this book late last year and sat on it and Soul on Ice until just recently.

There’s so many heavy heavy conversations and subject matter here. It’s so hard for me to get around the blatant disregard for black women in these black men’s texts. It’s troubling for me that the more I read, the more I think of my own life and interactions with black men, unnecessary burdens black women shoulder or just blatant disregard for us in place of the other � even with black men I love that are close to me..

These types of reads are ones that push you into you long and clear analysis of black life through the eyes of men and really there are so many emotions that took over me.. especially when it comes to the feeling of shared pain that is distinct in the black experience.

Black Skin, White Masks really takes you into a variety of viewpoints on blackness in relation to whiteness, and the black man’s pursuit of a type of equity/equality/freedom that Fanon sometimes manages to reduce down to singular yet multifaceted concepts that are complex as fuck. His words have so many layers of meaning on them that they look solid at first glance but when you intersperse your own experience and the current times and blackness as we know it today, you realize that his words and thought processes are totally quick sand when you want to step on them and test their validity.

I read so many things in here that I agreed with, so many indisputable things.. and then I read so many things that just gave me pause because they aren’t wrong but they only consider one half of the black community as if the black woman’s experience holds no weight as reflection of said community experience. For example:

"The black man is comparaison. That is the first truth. He is comparaison in the sense that he is constantly preoccupied with self-assertion and the ego ideal. Whenever he is in the presence of someone else, there is always the question of worth and merit." 68%

I find that quotes like that, when trying to be shared as a quintessentially amalgamated black experience, are debatable. However, if you’re speaking about just men then maybe it’s correct.

Anyway, this stirred my brain up and I feel like I could read this a slew of times and get different shit out of it every single time. For the rest of black history/futures month though, I think I’m going to open myself up to predominantly women/women’s work and change up the vibes.