Fanon and the Constructed Black Male Identity in Brother From Another Planet
In Fanon's piece, "The Fact of Blackness," he discusses a number of things, not the least of which is the fabrication of a black male identity. He state's, "Below the corporeal schema I had sketched a historico-racial schema. The elements that I used had been provided for me not by “residual sensations and perceptions primarily of a tactile, vestibular, kinesthetic, and visual character,”1 but by the other, the white man, who had woven me out of a thousand details, anecdotes, stories." (Fanon, 84) In later portions and writings he goes on to discuss the malware intentionally built into this identity that allows for heteronormative white patriarchy to denigrate and control the black man. This idea is outlined quite explicitly in two scenes within the film, the first the walk through with a man named Virgil and the scene at the end where he kills the white guy at the end.
The walk through is the result of, one assumes, a heroine injection that causes hallucinations. In this walk through,Virgil shows him the various results of oppression in the black community within Harlem (drugs, violence, prostitution, etc.) This can be seen in this scene, informed by the prior scenes as an escape from the oppressive hands of society, be it a way to make ends meet, to dominate others in the community in order to elevate oneself, an attempt to mentally escape through drug use, some combination of those and what ever else people happened to b doing in that scene. These are all symptoms of internalized oppression, society has created this narrative for black people to follow and as hegemonic culture controls the representation of the other there is little they can do to subvert or even avoid this message. The walk through is meant to keep The Brother from being consumed by this prolific narrative so he may fight to better his community.
Taking this idea and pairing it with the later scene with Mr.Vance, where it is clarified that this 'business man' is a drug dealer and that he got into the business to stay afloat with his legitimate business. This is almost spoon-feeding the message that white patriarchy has purposefully oppressed the black man in order to benefit monetarily. The Brother shows the man a vision of the child who overdosed earlier in the film, a this action is met with no sympathy and an attempt at bribery. Though the metaphorical message is not too difficult to ferret out a piece the viewer might be missing is that in fact the government did purposefully and with full knowledge of the repercussions disseminate crack cocaine to lower income black neighborhoods in order to maintain their cycle of oppression by giving their tools to members of the community to be used against one another and their selves.
Racism is though by some to have vanished with acquisition of certain 'inalienable rights,' this is a falsehood meant to distract the eye of the public so the real magic of racism can go off without a hitch. Today's oppression is insidious and present in the everyday lives of every black person in America, and as Fanon notes across the globe. This film is effective in it's message and, I think, rather dope.