Page 174 - BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK

THE NEGRO AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 135

passive, unashamedly exhibitionistic, devoid of self-pity in his condition of
concentrated suffering, exuberant. . . .

But Harris always had the feeling of being handicapped.
Therefore Wolfe sees him as frustrated—but not after the classic
schema: It was the very essence of the man that made it impossible
for him to exist in the “natural” way of the Negro. No one had
barred him from it; it was just impossible for him. Not prohibited,
but unrealizable. And it is because the white man feels himself
frustrated by the Negro that he seeks in turn to frustrate the black,
binding him with prohibitions of all kinds. And here again the
white man is the victim of his unconscious. Let us listen again
to Wolfe:

The Remus stories are a monument to the ambivalence of the South. Harris,
the archetype of the southerner, went in search of the Negro’s love and
claimed that he had won it (the grin of Uncle Remus). But at the same time
35
he was striving for the Negro’s hatred (Br’er Rabbit), and he reveled in it,
in an unconscious orgy of masochism—very possibly punishing himself for
not being the black man, the stereotype of the black man, the prodigious
“giver.” Is it not possible that the white South, and perhaps the majority
of white America, often behave in the same way in their relations with
the Negro?
There is a quest for the Negro, the Negro is in demand, one
cannot get along without him, he is needed, but only if he is made
palatable in a certain way. Unfortunately, the Negro knocks down
the system and breaks the treaties. Will the white man rise in
resistance? No, he will adjust to the situation. This fact, Wolfe
says, explains why many books dealing with racial problems
become best-sellers. 36
Certainly no one is compelled to read stories of Negroes who make love to
white women (Deep are the Roots, Strange Fruit, Uncle Remus), of whites
who learn that they are Negroes (Kingsblood Royal, Lost Boundaries, Uncle
35. The character of Uncle Remus was created by Harris. The fi gure of this gentle,
melancholy old slave with his eternal grin is one of the most typical images of the
American Negro.
36. See also the many Negro fi lms of recent years. And yet all the producers were
white.

4/7/08 14:16:52
Fanon 01 text 135
Fanon 01 text 135 4/7/08 14:16:52