Close Reading Fanon “The Fact of Blackness”

“All the same, the Jew can be unknown in his Jewishness. He is not wholly what he is. One hopes, one waits. His actions, his behavior are the final determinant. He is a white man, and, apart from some rather debatable characteristics, he can sometimes go unnoticed.” (Fanon 8)

In this passage from Fanon’s “The Fact of Blackness” there is a central message that Fanon is trying to portray. Fanon is comparing the hate in the world towards Jews and the hate towards Blacks. What he establishes is that the Jews are able to hide within their society because when a Jew is not easily visible based on appearance, whereas a black person is easily identifiable. The only thing that sets a Jew apart from other white men are his religious beliefs, but a black man cannot hide from his appearance and experiences the hatred of the world even more. An interesting part of the passage is when Fanon writes, “One hopes, one waits” because it builds suspense within the reader as if he were the one waiting and hoping not to get caught. Fanon does this to emphasize how the Jews were able to go unnoticed and did not have to be discriminated on a daily basis because of their religious beliefs. The simple sentence that Fanon is able to bring about these emotions within the reader where they feel not only how the Jew would feel trying to hide the fact that he is Jewish, but also how the black man feels in that situation. The Jew knows that the can try to blend in and his only hope is that he can pretend he is like the rest of the men and not disclose that he is in fact Jewish. Those feelings of being scared and nervous are brought out in the reader when Fanon writes that he is hoping and waiting. At the same time you feel bad for the black man because he has no hope and he cannot wait. Every day he must face the fact that he is black and deal with what happens to him because of it. Fanon also brings up an interesting point when he talks about how the Jew is judged on his actions, behavior, and character. It helps to establish a theme within in the text where Fanon wants to show that blacks should not be judged based on their appearance, but on what their actions tell you. This theme can be seen throughout the text, but it is evident that Fanon wanted to make this point and use the comparison of the prejudice against the Jews with that against the Blacks to prove it. Fanon clearly believes that men should not be judged on what they look like, but on what kind of a person they are and how it is unfair to be judged in that light. It is interesting how Fanon discusses how the Jew is not wholly what he is meaning that he is not completely Jewish like a black man is completely black. This is a reference to the idea that the black man is an object because he is not a human who can be judged on his actions, but is simply something that is judged by what he looks like, as an object would be. The motif of the Blacks being considered objects is clearly evident in this passage even though Fanon does not simply state it. He instead focuses on how the Jews are not objects because they are not wholly Jewish, but simply a belief they have makes them different. In the black man’s world he is wholly black and cannot escape it, which brings to light another one of Fanon’s major themes within the text. While this passage may seem to revolve around how Jews can hide within society and not be judged for being Jewish, it is also about the Black community. While the Jews can hide from their Jewishness, the blacks cannot escape their blackness. They are forever stuck in their blackness and Fanon brings up this point consistently throughout the text. He uses the idea of the Jews being able to hide to bring up the point that the Blacks are prisoners; unable to escape their source of pain and misery. Fanon uses this passage in unique ways to not only discuss the issue of differences in prejudice toward Blacks and Jews, but also to introduce and expand on themes and motifs central to the text. Fanon is able to bring about different emotions within the reader through his syntax and word choice, but also to make them think about the big picture and what the text is really trying to portray.