Fanon and Kendrick on being enslaved to their own appearance, and not merely to an idea
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Fanon argues that, while Jewish people are sometimes able to blend in with their white neighbours, black people like him cannot. He writes that “the Jew is disliked from the moment he is tracked down” (87), with the implication that the tracking is itself a kind of privilege that he is not spared. Those able to pass as part of the dominant group have a chance of engaging in the world without the burden of their difference, whereas he is subject to the judgements of white people with only a look. There is no opportunity for him to establish himself as an individual in their minds without first being categorized as an inextricable other. He is “fixed” (87) in their image of him – similar in some ways to the concept of the looking-glass self. Even when a white person expresses a degree of sympathy, it is shrouded in the fact of his race. Fanon demonstrates this through a quote from an unknown speaker who incessantly repeats their alleged absence of racial prejudice (85).
Similar themes are also explored in Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry”, in which various lyrics grapple with the negative stereotypes attributed to black Americans. He uses second-person pronouns (“You hate me, don’t you?”) to address the non-black audience, aware of the way that he is perceived as “a killer” or a caricature of his race. Assassin’s chorus features a patois line stating, “All them say we doomed from the start cah we black”. This might allude to the curse of Ham, an idea created by white people (“all them”), which posits that black Africans are descended from Ham and are cursed to be biologically inferior. In essence, they are “doomed from the start” because of the circumstances of their birth. This constant awareness of how black Americans are perceived is reminiscent of Fanon’s triple vision, in which Kendrick views himself not through his own eyes but through the eyes of non-black people. Whether an academic or an artist, both Fanon and Kendrick have to reckon with the image forced on them by the outsider.
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After reading Fanon's "The Fact of Blackness" and listening to Kendrick Lamar's "The Blacker the Berry", I found myself grappling with the similarities in the ways these men perceive and handle their "blackness". Both men speak at length about the hate they receive simply due to the nature of their skin. They are oppressed, discriminated against, feared, just for being black, due to the abhorrent assumption that black people are uncivilized, dangerous, and brutish. They talk about how they are being perceived by white society, how they are expected to act "thuggish" and how their every move and motive is being combed over by the Whites around them. Both of these men know that they are confined by their race, that all judgements made about them are made at the instant they are seen, and that at present there is no way to avoid these unjust and racist stereotypes. They both talk about giving in, truly being a black man, but Kendrick Lamar's ideas here seem to diverge from Fanon's.
When Fanon comes to the conclusion that he will always be known for his race first, he realizes that attempting to go unnoticed and be invisible is both an impossible task and also one that doesn't actually benefit him or other black people at all. He must stand as a black man, and do his best to dispel the myths of the black savage. Kendrick Lamar similarly understands that attempting to avoid being seen as a black man is an impossible task, but instead of talking about dispelling mythos he instead speaks on how these myths perpetuate themselves in black communities, how some black people allow themselves to (or are forced to, more accurately) become the very black devilish caricature that white society wishes for them to be. This is why he calls himself "...the biggest hypocrite of 2015" at the beginning of every verse, because while he discusses how society has demonized and forced the black man to assume a violent, aggressive persona and how this is obviously a detrimental form of oppression on the black community, he himself acknowledges that he plays this caricature himself in the way he walks, talks, carries himself and presents himself to the world. He laments the oppression that killed Trayvon Martin while he himself helps to perpetuate this society of violence.