The colonial context, as we have said, is characterized by the dichotomy it inflicts on the world. Economic inequality is based on racial inequality, not the other way around. In this context, the fundamental division is racial-the division the colonist makes between colonized and colonizer. Fanon thinks this kind of analysis no longer applies in a colonial context. In this understanding, social and cultural divisions, like gender inequality and racial inequality, actually derive from economic inequalities. In classical Marxism, the economy determines the “superstructure,” or the social and cultural sphere. This is why a Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched when it comes to addressing the colonial issue. The cause is effect: You are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.

In the colonies the economic infrastructure is also a superstructure. The fight for liberation itself creates new subjectivities people can embody. In turn, decolonization creates “new men” by creating the possibility for men to go from a dehumanized “thing” to an empowered man with agency in his world. Colonialism creates a type of man who is submissive and exploited. It also creates subjective categories, like 'the colonized,' that, when people identify with them, dehumanize or disempower them. 2įor Fanon, colonialism does not just exploit people economically and politically. But such a creation cannot be attributed to a supernatural power: The “thing” colonized becomes a man through the very process of liberation. Decolonization is truly the creation of new men.

Fanon wretched of the earth