Page 97 - BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK

58 BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASKS

myself to be taken in by the good will shown me, suspicious as I
am of this excessive cordiality that has rather too quickly taken
the place of the hostility in the midst of which they formerly tried
to isolate me.” 30
He accepts the drinks, but he buys others in return. He does
not wish to be obligated to anyone. For if he does not buy back,
he is a nigger, as ungrateful as all the others.
Is someone mean? It is simply because he is a nigger. For it is
impossible not to despise him. Well, it is clear to me that Jean
Veneuse, alias René Maran, is neither more nor less than a black
abandonment-neurotic. And he is put back into his place, his
proper place. He is a neurotic who needs to be emancipated from
his infantile fantasies. And I contend that Jean Veneuse represents
not an example of black-white relations, but a certain mode of
behavior in a neurotic who by coincidence is black. So the purpose
of our study becomes more precise: to enable the man of color to
understand, through specifi c examples, the psychological elements
that can alienate his fellow Negroes. I will emphasize this further
in the chapter devoted to phenomenological description, but let
us remember that our purpose is to make possible a healthy
encounter between black and white.
Jean Veneuse is ugly. He is black. What more is needed? If one
rereads the various observations of Germaine Guex, one will be
convinced by the evidence: Un homme pareil aux autres is a sham,
an attempt to make the relations between two races dependent
on an organic unhealthiness. There can be no argument: In the
domain of psychoanalysis as in that of philosophy, the organic,
or constitutional, is a myth only for him who can go beyond it. If
from a heuristic point of view one must totally deny the existence
of the organic, the fact remains, and we can do nothing about it,
that some individuals make every effort to fi t into pre-established
categories. Or, rather, yes, we can do something about it.
Earlier I referred to Jacques Lacan; it was not by accident. In
his thesis, presented in 1932, he violently attacked the idea of the
constitutional. Apparently I am departing from his conclusions,

30. Maran, op. cit., p. 103.

4/7/08 14:16:43
Fanon 01 text 58
Fanon 01 text 58 4/7/08 14:16:43