Frantz Fanon

Postcolonial theory

Modern influential 98 sayings

Sayings by Frantz Fanon

I am a man, and I have a right to be treated as such.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The oppressed will always believe the oppressor to be stronger than he.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The white man is intelligent. The white man is strong. The white man is good. The white man is beautiful. The white man is everything.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized subject is a man whose needs are not met, whose desires are frustrated, whose emotions are suppressed.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized is a being under the gaze of the other. It is this gaze that constitutes him as an object, as a thing.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The greatest danger that threatens humanity is the existence of a zone of nonbeing, a zone of nothingness.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonizer makes history. His life is an epic, an odyssey. He is the beginning of the world.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized is always presumed guilty. The colonizer is always presumed innocent.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized is a man who is constantly on the defensive, who is constantly reacting to the aggression of the colonizer.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized subject is a being who has been alienated from his own culture, from his own history, from his own identity.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The black man is a sexual object. The white man is a sexual subject.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized is a man who is constantly in a state of tension, a state of anxiety, a state of fear.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonizer's world is a world of values, a world of morality, a world of law. The colonized's world is a world of savagery, a world of immorality, a world of lawlessness.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable

The native is a being without ethics, without morality, without values. He is an animal.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized subject is a man who is constantly searching for his own identity, for his own self.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The black man is a victim of a system that has been designed to oppress him, to dehumanize him, to exploit him.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized is a man who has been stripped of his dignity, of his pride, of his self-respect.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonizer is a man who has been corrupted by power, by privilege, by the desire to dominate.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable

The black man is a man who has been denied his humanity, his individuality, his freedom.

1952 — Black Skin, White Masks
Controversial Unverifiable

The colonized is a man who has been forced to live in a state of perpetual childhood, a state of perpetual dependence.

1961 — The Wretched of the Earth
Controversial Unverifiable