ABSTRACT
Despite his intricately nuanced anatomy of “race” in Black Skin, White Masks and other works, Fanon has been somehow stereotyped as an apostle of the cult of violence. This passage from The Wretched of the Earth seems to have become the touchstone of classical Fanonism:
Violence alone, violence committed by the people, violence organized and educated by its leaders, makes it possible for the masses to understand social truths and gives the key to them. It frees the native from his inferiority complex, and from his despair and inaction.
