Page 144 - BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK

THE FACT OF BLACKNESS 105

Or this other one:
My brother with teeth that glisten at the compliments
of hypocrites
My brother with gold-rimmed spectacles
Over eyes that turn blue at the sound of the Master’s
voice
My poor brother in dinner jacket with its silk lapels
Clucking and whispering and strutting through the
drawing rooms of Condescension
How pathetic you are
The sun of your native country is nothing more now
than a shadow
On your composed civilized face
And your grandmother’s hut
Brings blushes into cheeks made white by years of
abasement and Mea culpa
But when regurgitating the fl ood of lofty empty words
Like the load that presses on your shoulders
You walk again on the rough red earth of Africa
These words of anguish will state the rhythm of your
uneasy gait
I feel so alone, so alone here! 23
From time to time one would like to stop. To state reality is
a wearing task. But, when one has taken it into one’s head to
try to express existence, one runs the risk of fi nding only the
nonexistent. What is certain is that, at the very moment when
I was trying to grasp my own being, Sartre, who remained The
Other, gave me a name and thus shattered my last illusion. While
I was saying to him:
“My negritude is neither a tower nor a cathedral,
it thrusts into the red fl esh of the sun,
it thrusts into the burning fl esh of the sky,
it hollows through the dense dismay of its own pillar
of patience . . .”
23. David Diop, “Le Renégat.”

4/7/08 14:16:48
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Fanon 01 text 105