Of Masks and Veils: Fanon, Du Bois, and the Structural Fact of Segregation

• In Event: 61.039 - Researching School Segregation: Critical Race Theory, Qualitative Methodologies, and the Question of Making a Difference

Abstract

Objective and Overview
Segregation is a structural reality for people of color. It leads predictably to their heightened sense of alienation and social dislocation. Frantz Fanon (1963, 1967) and W.E.B. Du Bois (1904/1989) are scholars whose work on the problem of racial segregation has been generative for education and the social sciences. As a decolonial psychologist and sociologist respectively, Fanon and Du Bois use powerful metaphors as analytical tools to describe the lasting effect of segregation wherein the black and white world remain as two separate and unequal social spheres. This paper compares the conceptual innovations that Fanon and Du Bois use at once to describe the imposition of a white world on Blacks as well as how Blacks cope daily with this imposition as a prerequisite to their survival.

Theoretical Frameworks
For Fanon, the metaphor of the “mask” describes the inauthentic identity that Blacks develop as a result of the colonial violence that distorts the “native’s” world and self-understanding. In the first chapter of Black Skin White Masks, titled “The Negro and Language,” Fanon describes the segregation of social worlds between Whites and Blacks as a “zone” wherein Blacks are forced to assimilate white culture and language in order a) to be recognized as humans (albeit incompletely) and b) to shield themselves from colonial violence by appearing to assimilate the colonizer’s particular culture disguised as universal. In schools, this process is evident in the official culture that the educational system promotes, such as standard English, official history, and general forms of social acceptability. In the end, this mask is betrayed by the Africans’ (or more broadly Blacks’) reality as contained in their “black skin,” which no mask can ultimately hide. Fanon’s goal was to describe this existential complex and by describing it, destroy it.

For Du Bois, the metaphor of the “veil” describes the process of segregation for African Americans who navigate daily racial life through the opaqueness provided by an intervening veil. As a product of official segregation and social separation, the veil prevents both Whites and Blacks alike from an accurate understanding of blackness. Behind the veil, blackness appears ghostly to Whites, a personae at once visible but whose contours are muted rather than sharp. As a result, the veil becomes the marker between the black and white world, a reminder even to Blacks that their true self-reflection is impossible to discern. It comes with the ironic gift of providing true knowledge about racial segregation as a daily experience for Blacks, what Du Bois calls “double consciousness,” the ability to live according to their own values and those imposed by a white social world.

Scholarly Significance
Both Fanon’s concept of the mask and Du Bois’ use of the veil subvert true black understanding as a structured response to a white-dominated world but they represent a symptomatic reading of racial reality for Blacks. They provide analytic metaphors that illuminate the real process of racial segregation and Blacks’ ways of coping with its limitations.

Authors

• Zeus Leonardo, University of California - Berkeley

• Margaret Hunter, Mills College