Blackness-In-Itself and Blackness-For-Itself: Frantz Fanon's Program for Racial Change.

Is another world possible? When viewed in the context of race, Jean-Paul Sartre (1946, 1963a, 1956, 1964, 1988, 1989) and Frantz Fanon (1967) definitely agree on the possibility of another, more egalitarian world. They agree on the means by which this world needs will be achievedâ?”temporal re-articulation. Both identify unity of the temporal ecstasiesâ?”past, present, and futureâ?”as the key to revolutionary racial change. However, they seem to disagree on what will be the end result of this revolutionary process, and their seeming disagreement on how to approach this problem reveals a key underlying dynamic in their work. In Sartre's "Black Orpheus" (1988), and Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1967)â?”their two respective major formulations of blacknessâ?”the emancipatory struggle that subordinated racialized beings undertake is implicitly framed in terms of an in-itself, and a for-itself(s). However, with Fanon (1967) there is blackness-for-itself. Rather than having G.W.F Hegel's (1975) "being-in-itself" and "being-for-itself," or Karl Marx's (1978) "class-in-itself" and "class-for-itself"; with Sartre's focus on the authentic racial being (1946, 1988), and most clearly with Fanon's (1967) program for black liberation we find blackness-in-itself and blackness-for-itself. By examining Sartre's theories of race (1946, 1963a, 1988, 1989), and juxtaposing them with Fanon's (1967) theoretical formulation of blackness we will illuminate new possibilities for investigating the phenomenon of race. Sartre (1988) sees the efforts of blackness to emancipate itself, as an inevitability. Fanon (1967) takes exception with this, establishing the individuality and primacy of black agency, establishing blackness-for-itself. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]