African American Colonialism

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Colonialism
According to Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin in Post-Colonial Studies- The Key Concepts (2000) colonialism is ‘‘the specific form of cultural exploitation that developed with the expansion of Europe over the last 400 years’’ (p. 45). It is the implanting of settlements on a distant territory (p.122). Ania Loomba defines colonialism as the conquest and control of other people’s land and goods (p. 8).
The African continent has experienced direct European colonialism from the 1880s. According to A. Adu Boahen ( 2000), the period 1890-1910 represents the conquest of Africa by whites and the period after the World War 1 up to 1935 is called ‘‘high noon’’ (p. 13) of colonialism. It was conquest from 1880 to 1900 and …show more content…

One woman named Mayotte Capecia even feels proud that her grandmother was white (Fanon, 1952: 32). The Negro women suffer from neurotic orientation as they hate black men as savages and live in an illusionary Cinderella like world. Because of all these gaps, both races suffer from neurosis according to psychoanalytic study.
In ‘‘The man of Color and the white Woman’’, black men marry white women, the emblem of white culture, white beauty, white whiteness (Fanon, 1952: 45). It is not love but a way to elevate oneself and to get statuesque to the white man’s level, the master illustrious race. It is a ritual of initiation into manhood (Fanon, 1952: 52) and a way to be subject, not the other (Fanon, 1952: …show more content…

Firstly, Fanon upholds the thesis that decolonization which means the replacing of a certain species of men by another species of men is always a violent phenomenon (Fanon, 1961: 27). He believes that as the colonized states were maintained through genocide and extermination it would take violence to reverse this power relationship. To the natives, their land is their survival and through rebellion they will free their land from the foreigners. Fanon adds ‘‘Europe is literally the creation of the Third world’’ (Fanon, 1961: 81). Secondly, Fanon thinks that within the natives there are the elite intellectual bourgeoisie who dress and speak like Europeans and they betray the national heritage by not putting their theoretical knowledge to the service of the Africans. These betrayers promote internal civil war to strengthen their power. Decolonization does not end the problems of the proletariat as bourgeoisie looks down upon their own race. Anti-democratic regime can be sorted if, Fanon counsels, policies are made for the masses. The party should be the direct expression of the masses as the land belongs to those who till

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