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Jean-Paul Sartre and the philosophy of négritude: Race, self, and society
Author(s): Bennetta Jules-Rosette

Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 36, No. 3 (June, 2007), pp. 265-285
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Theor Soc (2007) 36:265-285
DOI 10.1007/slll86-007-9029-x
Jean-Paul Sartre and the philosophy of negritude:

Race, self, and society
Bennetta Jules-Rosette
Publishedonline:5May 2007
+ Business Media
? Springer Science B.V. 2007
Abstract In this article, Jean-Paul Sartre's relationship to the negritudemovement and

black intellectuals in Paris between the 1940s and the 1960s is examined in sociological
and historical context. Sartre's version of negritude,developed inhis 1948 treatise"Orphee
noir" prefacingLeopold Senghor's collection ofAfrican andMalagasy poetry, is analyzed
in termsof its role in shaping the discourses and debates surroundingnegritude and the
relationship of black intellectuals to the rest of French society. Sartre's phenomenological
theories of race, juxtaposing dominant and subaltem ideologies, are contrastedwith his
dialectic of negritude.The antinegritudemovement of the late 1960s is also consideredwith
referenceto Sartre's theoriesand inspiration.During thisperiod, the relationship thatSartre
established with Martinican intellectual and revolutionaryFrantz Fanon helped to place
Sartre into prominence as an activist and a theoristof decolonization and Third World
politics. Sartre's theoriesof race, self, and societywere integral to both his early and later
works and warrant review as approaches to the sociology of culture and sources of
reflectionfor contemporarypostcolonial studies.
Negritude [is like] .. . livingas a woman who is born todie and senses her own death
even in themost rewardingmoments of her life.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1948b)
Reading Sartre'sworks in relationship to themovements of negritude and post-negritude

in France is revealing and introduces new debates. Sartre's strategic collaborations with
black intellectualswere both instrumentaland mutually beneficial.1 These collaborations
^e concept of strategic collaboration is developed by Klein (2005) in her work on the development of
Nigerian artistic movements during the colonial era. She points out that strategic collaborations between
European art promoters and African artists are hierarchical, and that the sanctions for violating these
hierarchies may result in rupture and exclusion of the subordinate partner in the collaboration.
B. Jules-Rosette (El)
Sociology Department 0533, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla,
CA 92093-0533,
USA
e-mail: bjulesro@ucsd.edu
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266 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
were complex, and their tracesmay be documented across several layers of Sartre's work.
Born in Paris in 1905, Sartre developed his ideas amid the turbulent events of late
twentieth-century Europe. Much of his thoughtwas devoted to problems of alienation,
marginalization, and violence inmodern society.His philosophical writings during the
postwar period addressed these issues both in termsof a psychology - or phenomenology -
of human relations and with reference to a dialectical model of the constraintsof society.
The influencesofMarx, Freud, Bergson, Husserl, and Nietzsche coalesced and collided as
Sartre hammered out his philosophy of free will. In counterpoint to his philosophical
writings, his biographical works, copious notebooks, plays, and novels explored the
problems of existential choice (la contingence) and the vicissitudes of social history
through the troubled lives of individual actors. In the aftermathofWorld War II, Sartre
attempted to confront the causes and consequences of fascism, anti-Semitism, racism, and
social inequality both directly through his political activism and more broadly in his
phenomenological and dialectical writings.
Sartre's version of negritude in historical context
Sartre's growing prominence as a philosopher of the oppressed attractedmany followers

and pushed him to support a variety of occasionally contradictory social and political
causes. Among these causes were the decolonization struggle and the literary and
philosophical movement of negritude emerging among African and West Indian
intellectuals in Paris during the 1940s. Generations of intellectuals are linked by shared
world views shaped by cultural representationsof events such as decolonization, war, and
economic depression and by their interrelationshipsas these events unfold (Mannheim
1952: 286-290). Multiple lives intersectas the philosophies of an era emerge. In this
context,Sartre's impacton the early negritudemovement was incisive and controversial. Its
echoes resonated throughoutthemost active years of themovement from 1948 through the
early 1960s and have led some scholars to refer to Sartre as an "African philosopher" and
one of the ideological founders of the philosophy of negritude because he addressed the
dual processes of racial and colonial oppression (Mudimbe 1988: 83-86).2 Although this
label is richly deserved, itmust be considered in termsof the social currentsof the era in
which Sartre initiallybecame involved with negritude and in the cultural context of his
writings on race, class, and society. The negritude movement also bolstered Sartre's
position with the French left and reinforced his growing concern with the battle for
decolonization.
Black activism has a longhistory inFrance. ImmediatelyfollowingWorld War I, the first
significantmigration of Africans and West Indians to France took place. Although their
numbers were relatively small and inaccurately recorded on census reports, therewas a
criticalmass ofAfrican andWest Indianworkers thatcould be both exploited andmobilized.3
2Mudimbe (1988: 83) contends that Sartre's "Orphee noir" essay was crucial because it "transformed
negritude into a political event and a philosophical criticism of colonialism." Thus, Mudimbe establishes a
direct link between Sartre's (1948b) "Orphee noir" and his preface to Fanon's (1961) Les Damnes de la terre.
It might also be argued that the second essay became a centerpiece for the antinegritude movement.
Mudimbe (1988: 85) refers to Senghor's reaction to "Orphee noir" as negritude's "shroud."
3
The 1962 French census was the first to contain a partial breakdown of Africans from former French
colonies living in France. It recorded only 18,000 sub-Saharan Africans living in France (Dewitte 1987: 18).
In spite of the small numbers, these groups already had a history of political mobilization extending back to
the 1920s.
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TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285 267
In thisenvironment,Lamine Senghor,bom on September 15,1889 in Senegal, immigratedto

France where he became a leading black activist and political strategist.Initially,Lamine
Senghor (not tobe confusedwith futurepresidentof Senegal, Leopold Sedar Senghor) made
his living as a laborerand a postal clerk and laterjoined theUnion Intercolonial^ a wing of
theFrench Communist Party thatattractedyoung studentsfrom the colonies includingHo
Chi Minh (Edwards 2003: 29). During the 1920s, Lamine began to organize laborers firstin
the south of France and then inParis. In 1927, he founded thenewspaper La Voix des negres,
published monthlywith short informativearticles and calls to action.
During the 1930s, a new group ofAfrican and Antillian students inParis began tomeet
regularly in informalstudy groups and salons. They formed two short-livedpublications,
Legitime Defense, a pamphlet founded by Etienne Lero and firstpublished in 1932, and
L'Etudiant Noir, a circular appearing for severalmonths beginning in early 1934. Among
the students involvedwith these effortswere Leopold Sedar Senghor from Senegal, Aime
Cesaire fromMartinique, and Leon Gontrand Damas fromGuyana. Cesaire is creditedwith
having coined the term"negritude" during one of the students' latenight discussions in a
Parisian cafe. In 1967, at a speech given at theMaison Helvetique in Paris, Cesaire
reminisced about the early debates.4
Itmust not be forgotten that theword negritudewas, at first,a riposte. The world
negre had been thrownat us as an insult,and we picked itup and turned it into a
.
. . We
positive concept. thought that itwas an injustice to say thatAfrica had done
nothing, thatAfrica did not count in the evolution of theworld, thatAfrica had not
inventedanythingof value. Itwas also an immense injustice, and an enormous error,
to think thatnothing of value could ever come out ofAfrica. Our faith inAfrica did
not result in a sort of philosophy of the ghetto, and this cult of, this respect for, the
African past did not lead us to a museum philosophy (Cesaire 1967).
Sartre fullyunderstood the intentof Cesaire's assertion. By collaborating with black

intellectuals,Sartre attempted to frame, promote, and lend credibility to theircauses. He
also used theirwork as a source of supportforhis philosophy of the oppressed. In "Orphee
noir," Sartre'smajor philosophical treatiseon negritude,he compares the social conditions
of the European proletariat and blacks in France and the French colonies. Sartre (1946:
xii-xiv) states:5
But if the oppression is a common one, it is based on historical and geographical
conditions: the black man is a victim of it, insofar as he is black in his role as a
colonial native or a deportedAfrican. And because he is oppressed in and as a result
of his race, it is firsthis race of which he must be aware [prendre conscience]. He
must compel thosewho, for centuries,vainly triedto reduce him to a beast, because he
was black [negre] to recognize him as a man.
In spite of his intuitivegrasp of the literaryorigins of negritude, Sartre approached its

philosophy and goals with contradictory impulses.He saw his firsttask as clarifyingfor a
French audience where blacks stood in a largerpolitical project, towhich he refersas the
4This speech was tape-recorded at theMaison Helvetique in Paris in 1967 by Serge A. Tornay, a participant
in the discussions. I am grateful to him for sharing this interview tape with me. (See also Jules-Rosette 1998:
34). Note that theword negre has been left in the original French. Elsewhere, I have also elected to translate
it as "black." The derogatory connotations of the term negre are evident in Cesaire's (1967) discourse.
5The translations of "Orphee noir" differ from those of S.W. Allen (1976) inBlack Orpheus (Sartre, 1976a).
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268 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
project of leParti (the Communist Party).While both black immigrantsand theEuropean

proletariat are oppressed and marginalized groups, Sartre considers the oppression of the
proletariat to be "technical" and economic, while theoppression of blacks is both objective
and subjective (Sartre 1948b: xii). ForMarx, the class strugglewas an objective reality that
did not depend on individual experiences or reactions to it. In contrast,forSartre, subjective
oppression is a psychological reality that can be dealt with by self-reaffirmationand
expressive means. While objective oppression requires revolutionary action, subjective
oppression calls for responses that fall into the domains of poetry, the arts, and
psychoanalysis (B? 1973: 171-173). Objective oppression necessitates direct political and
economic mobilization. Subjective oppression motivates intellectualreflectionand personal
choice. For Sartre, as for the followers of negritude, black poetry and the arts constitutea
revolutionaryforce that challenges European society to address an affirmationof identity
and an assertion of freedom (Sartre 1948b: xi-xii).
Sartremodifies aMarxist approach by conceding thatsubjective oppression is an obstacle
ofmajor importance tomarginalized groups and expressive action (writingand art) is a step
toward revolutionarychange - a step, he argues, that is often overlooked in the economic
"technicalities" of the class struggle.Race, in thiscase, overshadows class forSartre,as itdid
for some of the early negritudinistwriters. Sartre,however, could foresee thatgrapplingwith
the issues of race and class simultaneouslywould be critical to thepolitical futureof France
and of theAfrican continent.Contact with the founders of the negritudemovement, and
subsequentlywith Presence Africaine, introducedSartre to a new artisticperspective that,by
itsvery existence, questioned and perhaps even destabilized theFrench literaryestablishment
and the notions of class, culture, and history that it represented (Astruc and Contat 1977:
126). In concrete terms, it is difficult to assess exactly how or to what extent Sartre's
contact with negritude contributes to his critical dialogue with Marxism. Cultural critic
Njami (2006: 143-144) asserts thatSartre's view of negritude as a subjective expression of
"anti-racism" allows him to argue thatdiverse marginalized groups experience subjugation
differentlywithin the constraints of institutionalizedpolitical and economic oppression,
including,but not limited to, the class struggle.
Another approach to examining the influence of the negritudinists on Sartre is to
analyze the evolution of their thinkingvis-?-vis Marxism. Between 1959 and 1962, as he
became more politically active, Leopold Senghor developed a three-prongedcritique of the
application ofMarxism to theAfrican situation: (1) that itwas not sufficientlyadapted to
the emerging historical context of modern Africa; (2) that it lacked a cultural (and in
Senghor's terms a "spiritual") dimension; and (3) thatMarxist determination prioritized
revolutionarypraxis over a dialectic of ethics leading to liberation (Milcent and Sordet
1969: 248-249). While the firsttwo premises of Senghor's critiquemay not have been of
concern to Sartre, the thirdpremise concerning liberationand human freedom was. Here
Sartre and Senghor stood on common ground, but thesephilosophical convergences did not
become evident untilwell over a decade after thepublication of "Orphee noir."
From theperspective of an archaeology and a sociology of knowledge, it is importantto
emphasize thatSartre's links to negritudewere notmerely intellectualand abstract.During
the 1940s, Sartre developed an association with a multitalented, charismatic, and enigmatic
figure inParis-Alioune Diop. Born in 1910 in Senegal, Diop attended theprestigious Lycee
Faidherbe on the island of Saint-Louis and completed his studies at theUniversite d'Alger
and inParis. Excelling inFrench literarystudies,Diop earned a coveted lycee post near Le
Mans in 1943 and was laterappointed as an adjunct professor at theLycee Louis-le-Grand
inParis (Mel 1995: 59-60). There he forged a close friendshipwith a colleague, Emmanuel
Mounier, editor-in-chiefof the journal VEsprit. Mounier was instrumentalin introducing
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TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285 269
Diop to the Parisian literaryworld. In themeantime, Diop briefly returned to Senegal,

where he enteredpolitics as a senatorial deputy specializing in cultural affairs.
Rapidly disillusioned with the political scene, he soon returned to France, where he
continued to teach part-time at the lycee level while pursuing his dream - founding an
international,bilingual journal that would bring together black writers, artists, and
intellectuals. InNovember of 1947, Diop published thefirst issue of the journal Presence
Africaine, with editorial and patronage committees consisting of African, Antillian,
African-American, and French intellectuals.6In 1949, he established thePresence Africaine
publishing house. The original patronage committee for the journal included, among others,
Leopold Senghor, Emmanuel Mounier, Paul Rivet, (director of theMusee de PHomme),
Andre Gide, Albert Camus, Michel Leiris, Richard Wright, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Aime
Cesaire was in charge of internationalpublications on the committee.Thus, Diop brought
togetherhis personal friendsand colleagues from thenegritudemovement with a group of
distinguished French intellectuals. The same pattern was repeated with the editorial
committee,which included sociologist Georges Balandier, jazz andmusic historianHughes
Panassie, and African writers Bernard Dadie andMamadou Dia. Diop lateradded African
American celebrities JosephineBaker and Louis Armstrong to thepatronage committee.
Although theprecise roles of founding committeemembers as promoters of the journal
and ofAfrican cultures are difficultto determine in retrospect,Sartrewas certainlyan active
and vocal participant during the formativeyears of the publication. He also worked with
Alioune Diop as a member of another committee of intellectualsengaged in supportof the
Algerian revolution (Cohen-Solal 1985: 478). With the exception of theircommitment to
equal rights for all and to decolonization, therewas no clear political unity amongmembers
of the Presence Africaine cartel. Some joined or flirtedwith theCommunist Party, others
like Leopold Senghor, considered themselves to be socialists,while still others, including
Diop himself andMounier, viewed themselves as Catholic humanists.Based on his years of
study inAlgiers, Diop also became an active spokesperson for the anti-colonial struggle in
Algeria during the late 1950s. Regardless of theirpolitical allegiances, the idea of negritude
played an importantrole in the intellectual agendas of the Presence Africaine affiliates
during the early years.
For the first issue of the Presence Africaine journal, Sartre published a two-page
article entitled "Presence noire" (Sartre 1947: 28-29). In it,he argued for the importance
of a genuine black presence in European social and intellectual life and criticized
tokenism as an example of bad faith. Sartre (1947: 28) states: "After all, from time to
time,Vassar College near New York accepts a student of color. These few tokens,who
have been admitted afterundergoing all of the initiationrites, are hostages and symbols."
According to Sartre, these tokens are intended to expiate the guilt of a closed European
society that functions in bad faith. But, for Sartre, theAfrican presence, the authentic
presence noire, should be acknowledged for its contribution to a universal culture and
literature. The short article, however, does not tell the reader how this universal
contributionmight be recognized or what expressive and artistic forms itmight take.
These questions are addressed later in Sartre's more explicit 35-page essay, "Orphee
noir." Originally composed as the preface to Senghor's (1948) Anthology ofNew Negro
and Malagasy Poetry (Anthologie de la nouvelle poesie negre et malgache de langue
frangaise), "Orphee noir" delineates the audience for black francophone poetry, defines
6Alioune Diop expanded his Presence Africaine journal into a publishing house, and in 1956 he organized
the Societe Africaine de Culture (SAC), a group of writers and artists who worked together to promote
workshops, symposia, and conferences over a 30-year period.
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270 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
- or -
poetry as a type of politically engaged revolutionary writing, and develops a
dialectic of negritude. The essay was subsequently published in 1949 in thePresence
Africaine journal and later translated intoEnglish by Samuel W. Allen and published as a
book (Black Orpheus) by thePresence Africaine publishing house in 1976 with licensing
rightsfromEditions Gallimard (Sartre 1976a). The officialEnglish translationis occasionally
cumbersome and somewhat misleading but, nonetheless, serves the purpose of further
disseminating Sartre'swork on negritude to an internationalaudience. The translationsfrom
"Orphee noir" in this article aremy own.
After discussing the significance of negritude as a poetic and political innovation that
breathes new life into theFrench literaryworld, Sartre (1948b: xli) presents his famous and
often quoted dialectic of negritude.His complete statementof the dialectic is presented in
"Orphee noir":
Negritude appears to be the upbeat of a dialectical progression; the theoretical and

practical assertion of white supremacy is the thesis; the position of negritude, as an
antithetic value, is the moment of negativity. But this negative moment is not
sufficientin itselfand theblacks who make use of itare aware of this.They know its
aim is to prepare a synthesisor realization of thehuman societywithout races. Thus,
negritude exists in order to be destroyed. It is a transition,not a conclusion, a means
and not an ultimate end.
As is characteristicof Sartre's theorizing in other domains, he juxtaposes a dialectical

model of society to a phenomenology of being. Mudimbe (1988: 85) states of Sartre's
dialectic of negritude: "A substantial part of Being and Nothingness is devoted to the
tension between the for itself (pour-soi) and for others (pour-autrui). Now Sartre
dedicated himself to the analysis of the concrete consequences of thisdialectic as illustrated
by colonial systems." The conflict between being-for-itselfand being-for-others is a
fundamentalphilosophical issue thathas plagued phenomenological theoristsfromHusserl
toHeidegger and Sartre (Sartre 1943; Stack 1977: 57-58). Being-for-others is the basis of
reflective self-perception. The recognition of shame and guilt, for example, becomes
palpable by virtue of the presence of others as witnesses to one's own acts (Sartre 1966:
301-303). Sartre (1966: 302) states: "The Other is the indispensable mediator between
myself and me. I am ashamed ofmyself as I appear to theOther." In thepolitical context,
shame and guilt have even broader ramifications, and Sartre plays upon this register of
being-for-otherswhen he invokes the guilt of the colonizer in his discussions of negritude
and colonial oppression. Fanon (1963:240-241) later develops this aspect of Sartre's
theory inhis discourse on national culture.From the perspective of theblack subject, Fanon
argues that one response to oppression (shame imposed by society) is the assertion of a
positive self-image throughfolktales, literature,art, and other forms of cultural expression.
In this respect, the approaches of Sartre and Fanon converge and overlap.
More fundamentally,in contrasting"being" with itsbinary opposite, "nothingness," and
itscontradictory"nonbeing," Sartre implies that"black" identityfaces annihilationwithout
theassertion of pride and non-existence as the logical outcome of a dialectic. Assertion of a
racial and cultural identity is a moment in a dialectic that is doomed to self-destruction.
Because negritude ismerely a means to an end, no matter how satisfying themoment of
self-affirmation may be, itmust be transcended. Sartre (1948b: xliii) elaborates:
Melancholy myth yet full of hope, negritude born of suffering(leMai) and pregnant
with a good future (Bienfiitur), and living as a woman who is born to die and who
senses her own death even in themost rewardingmoments of her life; it is an uneasy
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TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285 271
repose, an explosive stability,a pridewhich renounces itself,an absolute which knows

itselfto be transitory.. . .
Finally, Sartre (1948b: xliii) concludes thatnegritude is both "the triumphofNarcissism

and the suicide ofNarcissus." The "triumphofNarcissism" entails the power of pleasure
when the scorchingwinds of the tropics engulf itsoffspringin idyllicdreams ofAfrica, and
theEuropean audience is inspired to join the exotic journey.Negritude is poised between
this image of exotic abandon and the obligation of combat. Unable to reconcile its two
poles, it can only self-destruct,for this idyllicAfrica is also the emblem of poverty and
oppression and a reminderof the colonizer's guilt and remorse.Yet, one may ask whether
Sartre's synthesis is possible or rational.Allen translatesthe synthesisas "the realization of
a human society without racism" in Presence Africaine's English version of the essay
(Sartre 1976a: 60). Sartre,however, actually uses the termsans races (without races) in the
original essay, implying the Utopian ideal of a blended societywhere the affirmationof
negritude as a source of distinction would no longer be necessary. For Sartre, this
deracialized society is also an ideal societywithout class and economic distinctions.After
reading Sartre's essay, Frantz Fanon stated thathe gave up all hope because he initially
believed that the self-destructionof negritudewould prevent engaged political and cultural
action and relegate black literatureto an illusorymoment of euphoric resistancewithout
revolutionarychange (Fanon 1967: 29; Mudimbe 1988: 85). Fanon thoughtthata "society
without races" was not an objective embraced by thepurveyors and followers of negritude.
Mudimbe (1988: 85) explains: "In his Peau noire, masques blancs [Black Skin, White
Masks], Fanon accuses Sartre of treason, for Fanon does not believe that 'negritude is
dedicated to its own destruction.' Some years later, inLes Damnes de la terre, theWest
Indian theoristfirmlyapplies Sartre's dialectical principle and bluntly states: 'therewill not
be a Black culture,' 'theBlack problem is a political one.'"
Sartre is concernedwith raising the consciousness of colonizers by encouraging them to
end an oppressive system. But Fanon (1967: 29) claims that the guilt experienced by
colonizers in the face of black cries of injusticeonly concerns the colonizers "accidentally,"
as if theprotest takes place undercover and in a vacuum. When he states that there is "no
black problem" (Fanon 1967: 29), Fanon means that theproblem is one of global political
and economic oppression, regardless of race. At the same time,Fanon acknowledges that
racial difference remains a primary manifestation of the problem and processes of
oppression. Although this argument is complex and at firstglance appears contradictory,
Fanon ismerely stating that this afflictionhurtsme as a colonized individual as much as it
hurts you as the colonizer. For Fanon, colonial liberation is the first step in resolving a
problem that nonetheless leaves many lasting psychological scars for all involved. It is
difficultto discern how Sartre actually intendedhis dialectic to be used as a guide to black
intellectuals, since a philosophical moment is speculative and has no concrete historical
coordinates. Sartre's syntheticmoment of decolonization seems to be one of dialectical
necessity and not social contingency.The debate remainsunresolved, although it stimulated
both criticismsof Sartre and the emergence of the counter-discourses of post-negritude and
colonial liberation.
Race, self, and society
Whether or not one finds Sartre's theorizingabout race to be convincing or controversial in

contemporaryterms, itwas undeniably courageous. In his earlywork, the concepts of race,
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272 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
self, and society are approached inpsychological terms.He begins by dissecting dominant
ideologies, such as racism, in order to examine theirdamaging effectson the social order
and the individualpsyche. InReflexions sur la question juive (translatedas Anti-Semite and
Jew), firstpublished in 1946 inFrench (Sartre 1946) and in 1948 inEnglish, anti-Semitism
is defined as a set of opinions and practices thatSartre describes as "a poor man's snobbery"
and a dangerous and misguided form of exclusionism (Sartre 1948a: 26). Although anti
Semitism begins with the individual, it is justified and sustained by governments (Sartre
1948a: 33). Only a just*government can destroy and undo the public wrongs of anti
Semitism.7Meanwhile, the subjects of oppression have limited avenues of recourse. They
may attempt to live in denial by casting aside a stigmatized and marginal identitythrough
assimilation and escape. Although Sartre's theoriesof prejudice were firstdeveloped inhis
work on anti-Semitism,denial of racial subjectivity,according to Sartre, is not available to
black subjects. They are, as Frantz Fanon would later argue using a Sartrian vocabulary,
... fixedby dye" (Fanon 1967: 109). Their only hope is to
stampedby "a chemical solution
engage inoppositional practices thatcreate a space for self-expression ina situationof despair.
Denial allows racism to appear innocuous. But no tam-tams and rhythmicpoetry of
assonance can prevent genocide. In this extreme case, Sartre exemplifies the literatureof
oppression by novels like Franz Kafka's The Trial inwhich the subject undergoes an
interminabletrialuntil "men seize him, carryhim off on the pretense thathe has lost his
case, and murder him in some vague area of the suburbs" (Sartre 1948a: 88). Sartrewould
probably see the contemporarygenocides inRwanda, Congo, and Sudan as byproducts of a
distorting colonial legacy in which serialized Western action has gone awry with the
collapse of the state and the disappearance of hope, which could certainlynot be conjured
up by the sonorous rhythmsof negritudinistpoetry.Between denial and genocide, there is
thepossibility of the formationof communal bonds thatoffera safe haven and reinforcea
positive identity.For Sartre,Zionism, like negritude's "triumphofNarcissism," is a fragile
hope that can be realized only so long as communal bonds are sustained.While idyllic
Africa is a poet's dream, Israel is an empirical fact of a differentsort.
In the Critique de la raison dialectique published in 1960, Sartre (1960) introduces
another set of possibilities and imperatives.8Individual action acquires meaning throughthe
"serialization" of multiple behaviors and practices that add up to collective action under
certain conditions (Sartre 1976b: 445-447). Serial acts may result in organized action,
inertia,control, or random spontaneity.The latteroption is pertinentbecause Sartre uses it
to explain the emergence of riots and violent collective action when the social order has
collapsed. Here group effortactually stems from a series of random and uncoordinated
individual acts thathave a cumulative collective impactfromwhich, Sartre argues, very few
moral and political lessons may be learned (Sartre 1976b). Reciprocal passivity is another
possibility,which, in the case of racism, amounts to its collective and official denial. In his
discussion of "other-direction"and anti-Semitism in theCritique, Sartre begins where he
left off in 1946 but demonstrates that other options beyond denial and dreaming are
possible because of the "serializing" and manipulative role of propaganda and themass
media in artificiallystimulatingor quelling collective action. Thus, for Sartre, events such
as the 1992 Los Angeles riots or the 2005 upheavals in Paris would have constituted a
7
for analyzing anti-Semitism predated and was used as an example for his approach to
Sartre's model
negritude. The dialectic begins with the negative and blocking forces, moves to psychological reaffirmation,
and then to a positive resolution in the form of a just society (Sartre 1948a: 31-35).
8I have used the 1976 translation of Critique de la raison dialectique by Alan Sheridan-Smith, edited by
Jonathan Ree. This translation contains excerpts from Tome I and Tome II of Critique.
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mediated serialization in which any quest for freedom or reform is illusory. Sartre
contrasts this type of eventwith organized actions such as workers' strikes and theMay
1968 protest in France. Rioting is alienated pseudo-collective action that does not, in
Sartre's terms, resolve racial conflicts and lays the groundwork for a cycle of further
oppressive action.Mudimbe (1994: 45) asserts that inCritique, Sartre "rewrites the setting
of the limitsof liberty,radically correcting the romanticism of absolute choices" thatwas
characteristic of the individual's isolated existence in Being and Nothingness. These
-
choices, however include inertia,reciprocal passivity, and blind conformity all factors that
contribute to the perpetuation of racism inmodern society. In Being and Nothingness,
Sartre (1966: 307-308) develops the concept of other-directednessbased on sympathetic
reflection,but in Critique, he refers to group practices and action in the face of social
determinism (Sartre 1976b: 643-644). Sartre's theoriesof thehistorical constraintsof social
action deftlyoutline the conditions for racial conflict,but theydo not provide a model for
its resolution.
Dialogues between Sartre and black intellectuals in France
Often uneasy and fraught with innuendo, thedialogues between Sartre and black intellectuals
in France reflected the social barriers excluding black intellectualsfrom theworlds of
academia and high culture.Although Alioune Diop opened up a space of collaborative
discourse, and achieved public visibility for his cultural agendas, social relations between
Africanwriters and French intellectualsremained problematic. In her biography of Leopold
Senghor, Vaillant (1990: 179) points out that as a young scholar and teacher Senghor
seldom found himself at the same social events as Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. The
tokenism thatSartre decried in his 1947 essay on black presence was verymuch a part of
Parisian society in the 1940s and 1950s. Alioune Diop's publishing enterprisewas
tolerated,and even welcomed, when itwas considered useful to French intellectual and
social causes, most notably the battle for decolonization, theAlgerian crisis, and other
political agendas, which were ideologically linked to the class struggleby theFrench left.
But the overall goals of black intellectuals and the French leftdiverged. The instrumental
attitudesof French intellectuals fueled dissension between themoderate and more radical
elementswithin the circle of Presence Africaine, causing some fellow travelersof thegroup
such as Rene Depestre to splinterofffrom Presence Africaine temporarily.Some of the
black intellectuals strove for a type of self-affirmationthatwent beyond social inclusion.
These conflicts ultimately led to an antinegritudemovement in the context of Pan
Africanism.
By introducing the Presence Africaine journal, Alioune Diop espoused humanistic
universalism and the rediscovery of an African cultural heritage.His opening essay "Niam
n'goura ou les raisons d'etre de Presence Africaine" explained that the publication was
"open to the good will of all men (white, yellow, or black) who can help to defineAfrican
originality and hasten its insertion into themodern world" (Diop 1956: 7). As long as
European ''universalism"was modified to includeAfrican cultural and artisticelements, it
would be of service to black intellectuals.The collection of articles by French intellectuals
in the first issue of the journal, however, ranged from platitudes of anthropological
advocacy to transparentconfessionals. This fact did not go unnoticed by some of the fellow
travelersofPresence Africaine,who remained skeptical about theirEuropean collaborators,
including Jean-Paul Sartre.
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274 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
Senghor had a balanced, and even somewhat calculated, approach to Sartre's intellectual
role as a translatorof culture. By asking him to write the preface to the African and
Malagasy poetry collection, Senghor acknowledged Sartre's philosophical prowess and
political contributionthroughcreating a special space forhim in thediscourse of negritude.
Whether Sartrewould have assumed this role anywaywithout an active collaboration with
Senghor and Diop's group is open to speculation. Njami (2006: 144) describes a tension
between Sartre and the original negritude group. Senghor located Sartre's literarywork
within the category offrancite, a term thathe also used to describe the anthropology of
Marcel Griaule and Lucien Levy-Bruhl as well as the literarycontributionsof other French
luminariessuch as Andre Malraux (Senghor 1987: v-vii). For Senghor,francite captured the
cultural essence of a literaryproduction by describing itsFrench roots and inspirations,
much
as negritude did forworks of African origin.Mudimbe (1994: 45) argues: "In Africa,
Leopold Sedar Senghor isvery likely theonly theoretician who, from thevery start,has been
attentiveto the contrastsof the twomoments of theMarxian thesis: thedecisive crudeness of
theright to otherness, the subjectivemoment par excellence, and immediatelyafterwards its
absorption into thebrilliancy of objectivity and the abyss of history."On Senghor's part, the
concrete consequences of this attitudewere a socialist approach to economic planning in his
political agenda as presidentof Senegal and an active culturalcommitmentto theprimacy of
negritude,which was the second moment of Sartre's dialectic.9
By the late 1960s, however, an antinegritudemovement had gained momentum and
Sartre's strategic collaboration once again emerged as crucial. This movement drew its
inspirationfrom the thirdphase of Sartre's dialectic inwhich he argues thatnegritude is a
philosophy destined for its own self-destruction.Although some of the literaryfigures
involvedwith antinegritude are less well known to Anglophone audiences than Sartre's
early collaborators, theircontributionsto the elaboration of his ideaswere equally relevant.
The most stridentand pivotal public statementof antinegritude,expressing the dangers
and internalcontradictionsof negritude,was made at thePanafrican Cultural Festival held
inAlgiers from July 21 throughAugust 1, 1969. It is interestingthat this festival took
place seven years after Algerian independence. The festival was inspired by, but
autonomous from, previous conferences organized by Presence Africaine. A sociologist
by training,Stanislas Adotevi, thenMinister of Youth and Culture from Dahomey (now
Benin) and Haitian poet Rene Depestre presented incisive papers criticizing negritude in
the cultural symposium of the festival. In a paper simply entitled "Discours de S.E.M.
Stanislas Adotevi," Adotevi (1969: 8) emphatically asserted: "Negritude is a vague and
ineffective ideology. There is no place in Africa for a literature that lies outside of
revolutionarycombat. Negritude is dead." The proponents of negritude,however, believed
that theywere promoting politically engaged forms of literature,philosophy, and art.
Subsequently,Adotevi expanded and published his critique of negritude in his 1972 book
Negritude et negrologues, dedicated toAngela Davis. Adotevi (1972: 45) argued:10
First of all, negritude in the fashion inwhich it is broadcast, rests on confused and
nonexistentnotions to the extent that itaffirms,in an abstractmanner, thefraternityof
9In her biography of Leopold Senghor, Janet Vaillant provides only brief glimpses of Senghor's direct
contacts with Sartre, which appear to have been limited (Vaillant 1990: 179 and 213). Similarly, in her
biography of Sartre, Annie Cohen-Solal offers brief but suggestive references to Sartre's interactions with
Alioune Diop and the Presence Africaine group (Cohen-Solal 1985: 478-479).
10Adotevi (1972: 192-195) combined his critique of negritude with an analysis of the colonial roots of
French anthropology. His cultural interventions fulfilled Sartre's prediction of the self-destruction of
negritude.
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all blacks. Thus, because the underlying thesis is not only anti-scientific,but also
proceeds from fantasy, itpresupposes the existence of a rigidblack persona, which is
unattainable. To thispermanentpersona is added a specificity thatneither sociological
determinations nor historical variations, nor geographic realities confirm. Itmakes
black people similar beings everywhere and at all times.
Adotevi's critique of negritude took on not only Senghor, Cesaire, and the Presence
Africaine movement, but also Lucien Levy-Bruhl and themembers of the French Institut
d'Ethnologie. He equated negritude with neo-primitivism and examined how myths of
negritudediscourse bolstered, ratherthanchallenged, theprocess of colonization. The roots
of thisdiscourse can be traced back to Sartre's "Orphee noir," inwhich he argued that the
tensions between a nostalgic past and an ideal futurewere the sources of both negritude's
strengths and weaknesses.
At the 1969 Algiers festival,Haitian poet and social criticRene Depestre supported
Adotevi's claims in a paper entitled"Les Fondements socio-culturels de notre identite"(The
Sociocultural Foundations of Our Identity).11Here he presented an emphatic critique of the
dehumanizing aspects of colonialism that lead to "zombification," passivity, and false
assimilation on the part of colonized subjects. Subtitling his paper "a message from
Havana," Depestre used Cuba as an example of the successes of cross-fertilization,cultural
mixture, and artisticachievement.He argued thatnegritude provided no explanation of the
process of cultural blending (metissage) and could not account for the profound
psychological effectsof colonial oppression on personal identity.Depestre laterpublished
Bonjour et adieu ? la negritude (1980), elaborating on his thesis. In this book, Depestre
(1980: 88-89) asks:
As Haitians, we must respond to the following question: Why did anthropological
knowledge and the negritude that it nourished, afterhaving theirbeginnings in the
social sciences, literature,and the arts, illuminatingand passionately enriching the
political consciousness of the oppressed people of the Americas, quickly become
recuperatedand reintegratedin an organic and operationalmanner into the imperialor
neocolonial problematic?
Responding to this question, Depestre argues that anthropological works on escaped

slaves and theirculturesdemonstrate thattheessentialist theses of negritude are unworkable.
Cultural hybridityand combinations occur in a variety ofways, often as a consequence of
political domination and in reaction to an oppressive culture.Although it is also born of
oppression, cultural syncretism is a robust alternative to negritude because it reflects the
power of history.For Depestre, negritude as a philosophy explains neither the subtleties of
these cultural combinations nor thepolitical conditions underwhich they takeplace.
Depestre, however, was not always consistent and equally strident in his critique of
negritude.Returning to the Presence Africaine fold tomake a contribution to a festschrift
forAlioune Diop published by Presence Africaine in 1978, Depestre addressed a quasi
confessional lettertoDiop (Depestre 1978: 59-60):
My radical and fiercely"Stalinist" anticolonialism could not conceive of a journal as a

place of dialogue, a forumfor thefree confrontationof opinions ofmen from different
nDepestre (1969: 11-12) analyzed the depersonalizing aspects of colonialism and outlined the conditions
for revolutionary writing based on his experiences in Cuba and Haiti.
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276 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
horizons. I acknowledged fellow-travelersfrom our ranks of the extreme Left, but I

did not see myself in the inverse situation: a fellow-travelerof a young and groping
apparatus of decolonization. I could not imaginemyself dialoguing freelywith you,
nor with Richard Wright, Balandier, Claude Julien and the other intellectualswho
frequented 16, rue Henri-Barbusse. I was still on my guard vis-?-vis Andre Gide,
Sartre, Camus, R.R Maydieu, Merleau-Ponty, Griaule, Naville, and Senghor, who
formed thePatronage Committee. At that time, I took as an enemy or an agent of our
enemies anyone who was not on exactly the same wave lengthas us, in philosophy,
aesthetics, human sciences, or any other domain of culture.
In concluding his letter,Depestre (1978: 60) acknowledges Diop for continuing to

include him in the publications and cultural activities of Presence Africaine in spite of his
persistent criticisms.While adhering to his critique of negritude and a belief thatCuba had
achieved a nearly ideal deracialized society,Depestre recognized the importantrole that
Presence Africaine had played in giving voice to intellectualsfrom diverse backgrounds.
His skepticism of Sartre and other French intellectualswas muted by his respect for the
open political debate that had made negritude and its antithesis possible as public
discourses. Although Depestre agreed with Sartre's thesis concerning the eventual
philosophical and ideological self-destructionof negritude, he also believed that French
intellectuals, including Sartre,were not trustworthyallies for Presence Africaine because
theywould place theirown political interestsbefore those ofAlioune Diop's cause.
Sartre and Fanon: The limits of dialogue
This open debate serves as a useful background for understanding the strategic
collaboration between Sartre and another leading Antillian intellectual,Frantz Fanon. As
with Adotevi and Depestre, Fanon had expressed ideological dissatisfactionwith both the
negritude movement and Sartre's initial conception of its philosophy as expressed in
"Orphee noir."When he was a lycee student in Fort-de-France,Martinique, Fanon was a
pupil of Aime Cesaire who was already a well established surrealistpoet by the 1940s.
Cesaire served as a mentor for Fanon and opened up many contacts for him in France.
Upon arriving inFrance in 1946 to studymedicine, Fanon was already well connected to
Alioune Diop's emerging circle of intellectuals throughthe effortsof Cesaire and Senghor.
In 1951 and 1952, he prepared a thesis inpsychiatryat themedical school of theUniversite
de Lyon.12 Fanon ultimately decided not to submit the firstversion of his thesis, entitled
Peau noire, masques blancs, to the university but instead published itwith Editions du
Seuil (Fanon 1952) in Paris. He submitted an alternative thesis on mental traumas and
spinal degenerationwritten in a more scientificmode while he continued to read and study
philosophy, inparticular theworks ofMarx, Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre.
Writing at the intersectionof political critique and psychoanalysis, Fanon examines the
damaging psychological effectsof racism, thedynamics of oppression, and theconsequences
of powerlessness. In Peau noire, masques blancs, he explores the desires and neuroses
created by racial prejudice and exclusion. His argumentbears many similarities to Sartre's
work on anti-Semitism in its dialectical formulation and its examination of the dual
12In her doctoral thesis in medicine, Razanajao (1974: 4-6) describes Fanon's early background in
Martinique and his years as a medical student at theUniversite de Lyon. She emphasizes that, as an author,
Fanon was constantly torn between his medical research in psychiatry and his philosophical writings.
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psychologies of the oppressor and the oppressed. Fanon, however, differsfrom Sartre in
significant ways, addressing specific critiques to Sartre's theoriesof race, language, and the
dialectic of negritudepresented in "Orphee noir" (Fanon 1967: 29-30; 197-198). He argues
thatFrench is a language thatshould be manipulated and preserved, ratherthandiscarded, by
Antillians and that the logical resolution of Sartre's dialectic of negritude is an empirical
impossibility.This argumentgoes beyond the ideas of social contingencyand racial blending
in Sartre'swork to suggest thatnew formsof black expression transformheritage, tradition,
and futurepossibilities of assimilation, integration,and mobility in a liberated society.
At Diop's 1956 Congress of Black Writers and Artists inParis, Fanon presented a paper
entitled "Racisme et culture," examining the evolution of racism from biological
determinism to a fascinationwith the exotic (Fanon 1956: 33-45).13 He condemned the
anthropometricvision of race and argued that there are no gradated degrees of racism or
fascism in any society. The presence of these virulent ideologies implies all of their
virtualities as absolutes from social and political oppression to concentration camps.
Nuanced versions of racism, however, play upon a false ideological chord by attemptingto
convince colonized and oppressed people to assimilate intoa liberal,dominant society and
forget all vestiges of uniqueness and cultural traditionthatmight be considered inferior.
Fanon concludes that the solution to problems of racism lies in revolutionarywriting and
direct political action,whereby a more just society,based on cultural reciprocity, might be
developed. His description of the psychological strategies for overcoming racism by
resistingmindless assimilation became the inspiration for political tactics employed by
liberationmovements in the 1960s and 1970s. Fanon, however, did not exclude the
possibility of violence both as an emotional reaction to thepsychological traumasof racism
and oppression and as a legitimate strategy of revolutionary action. His comments on
violence alienated him from some of the other participants at Diop's (1956) Congress.
One may raise thequestion ofwhether Sartre and Fanon agree on theuse of violence in
decolonization or simply specifydifferentconditions thatcould justify itsuse. Fanon (1963:
163) argues: "TheWestern bourgeoisie has prepared enough fences and railings to have no
real fear of the competition of thosewhom it exploits and holds in contempt." For Fanon,
the solution to this condition of exploitation includes strategicviolence, which results in
considerable psychological sufferingforboth the recipients and theperpetratorsof violence.
Thus, Fanon does not see violence as a first resortor a final conclusion of problems. Sartre
agreeswith thisposition, and inhis "Preface" toThe Wretched of theEarth, he recommends
thatreaders carefullyconsider Fanon's concluding chapter on themental disorders resulting
from colonial wars (Sartre 1963: 29). Both Sartre and Fanon agree that any form of
violence, from tortureto resistance, should ultimately be deemed unnecessary in a just
society.Because both Sartre and Fanon circled around thequestion of violence in so many
ways, contradictions in what they said emerge, but the overall message in both cases
contains cautionary statementsas well as graphic descriptions of thenegative consequences
of theuse of violence on all sides of political conflicts and struggles.
In spite of his earlier controversial comments on the colonial conditions provoking
violence, Fanon returned to Diop's group to present an article at the second Presence
Africaine Congress of Black Writers and Artists held in Rome in 1959. His essay on
national culture as an outgrowth of grass-roots efforts ("Sur la culture nationale") was
13Fanon's (1956) "Racisme et culture" was initially published in a special issue of Presence Africaine and was
reprinted in a posthumous collection of Fanon's (1969) political writings entitled Pour la revolution
africaine.
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278 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
subsequently reprintedinThe Wretched of theEarth (1963: 206-248). In this article,Fanon

scrutinizes the paradoxes of using violence as a method of decolonization. He also attacks
some of the foundingmembers of thePresence Africaine movement forwhat he considers
to be theircomplacency and bad faith in failing to supportmovements of national political
liberation.Fanon contends thatan elite intellectualcadre can never designate theparameters
of national culture.He states that the effortsof "men of culture" tomold African cultural
unity are in vain. All they "amount to is to make comparisons between coins and
sarcophagi" (Fanon 1963: 234). From Fanon's psychoanalytic perspective, an irony lies in
the fact thatAfrican men of culture have been emasculated by the European colonial
system,which they paradoxically internalize in order to reassert their dignity. Instead,
national cultures and literaturesshould reject this internalizationof European cultures in
favor of the shared values and experiences of colonial combat, suffering,and violence.
Therefore, according to Fanon, elitist cultural groups such as Presence Africaine are
impotentas sources of leadership for theAfrican masses. Fanon believes that thesemasses
are capable of organizing their own cultural priorities, and that a national culture will
emerge spontaneouslyfrom the cadres of combat. Thus, negritude, as a unifyingdiscourse,
is an impediment to the pragmatics of struggle.Fanon (1963: 237) also warns against the
self-servingand opportunistic actions of intellectualswho engage in the "franticacquisition
of the culture of the occupying power," even afterdecolonization has occurred. Only when
intellectualsand writers are no longer alienated from theirown cultures can a trulynational
literaturebe achieved. Fanon (1963: 240) asserts:
[N]ow thenativewriterprogressively takes on thehabit of addressing his own people. It

is only from thatmoment thatwe can speak of a national literature. . . .This may
properlybe called a literatureof combat, in the sense that itcalls upon thewhole people
to fightfor theirexistence as a nation. It is a literatureof combat, because itmolds the
national consciousness, giving it form and contours and flingingbefore it new and
boundless possibilities; it is a literatureof combat because itassumes responsibility,and
because it is thewill to libertyexpressed in termsof time and space.
Although the Presence Africaine project provided Fanon with venues for public
expression and introducedhim tonetworks of intellectuals includingSartre, tensions always
existed. Fanon was quick to condemn the founders of Presence Africaine for theirelitism
and complacency and Sartre forwhat he saw as the flaws in thephilosopher's dialectical
reasoning about negritude. Fanon believed that Sartre's approach to the philosophy of
negritude should take into account how negritude was used to empower its followers.
Although his critique of negritude differedfrom Depestre's by virtue of his involvement
with Cesaire, Fanon thoughtthatSartre's initial interpretation
of negritude in 1948 distorted
the political dimensions of thephilosophy as an identitydiscourse.
Sartre had been involved with theAlgerian revolution since its explosion onto the
national scene inNovember of 1954. Fanon shared this commitmentwith Sartre.While
residing inAlgeria and helping with the liberation cause, Fanon continued to read Sartre's
works and was inspired by his firstreading of Critique in 1960. For his part, Sartre had
become involved as a long-termspokesperson forAlgerian liberation and gave his public
support to demonstrations for the national liberationfront (F.L.N.) during various rallies
and political meetings in Paris in the late 1950s. He had also read Fanon's controversial
1959 book L'An cinq de la revolution algerienne (translated as A Dying Colonialism,
1965) published by Francois Maspero (Fanon 1959). Here Fanon analyzes the results of
his research on medicine, psychiatry, and colonialism in Algeria and calls for a just
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TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285 279
resolution to the armed struggle and an antithesis of the psychological traumas that it
created.According toCohen-Solal (1985: 554), Sartre and Fanon actuallymet for the first
time in Rome during the summer of 1961 in the context of political planning for the
Algerian resistance. Fanon had already read Critique de la raison dialectique closely, and
he spent hours with Sartre discussing politics and philosophy. He had recently completed
a draftof Les Damnes de la terre inApril of 1961 and asked Sartre to read themanuscript
with the idea of writing a preface, which Fanon arranged to be published by Francois
Maspero.14 In turn,Sartre used the preface as an occasion to rally furthersupport for the
Algerian cause and exhorthis French compatriots to take action. Cohen-Solal (1985: 556)
argues that this preface established Sartre as a "ThirdWorldist" and linked Sartre and
Fanon as intellectual and political allies through theirwork on behalf of theAlgerian
struggle. In certain respects, however, Sartre's universalistic, post-enlightenment
philosophy separated him from Fanon, and he used his position in themedia to promote
the causes of social justice and political liberation.
Suspended across the contrastingparadigms of psychiatry,philosophy, and activism,
Fanon's writings provide an interestingcounterpoint to Sartre's work on race, self, and
society.The preface toLes Dammes de la terre(The Wretchedfor theEarth), firstpublished
in French in 1961, appears to mark an intellectual rapprochement between Sartre and
Fanon, even though thebasic dialectical model introduced in "Orphee noir," and critiqued
by Fanon, is redeployed. Sartre's essay presents a dialectic of colonialism with three
movements - colonial oppression, revolutionary action, and decolonization. The diegetic
audience for the article is, once again, French intellectualswho according to Sartre,directly
or indirectly,have been culprits, collaborators, and psychological victims of the colonial
enterprise.The point is to help themunderstand how Fanon's thesis of colonial oppression
and the option of violence against colonial exploitation representhistorical imperatives
from the point of view of the oppressed population. Sartre uses the preface to exhort his
compatriots to join in the battle against colonial domination.
The devastating consequences of colonialism outlined in Sartre's preface include its
negative effectson thepsyches and politics of the oppressors and the oppressed. Although
they approach this program from differentperspectives, Sartre and Fanon agree on the
termsof the conclusion. The economic profits and wealth reaped from colonialism are a
bitterpill swallowed by the colonizing nations as theyabsorb theguilt for theiractions and
thepotential internalviolence that theymay cause in the long run.15 In the preface, Sartre
(1963: 16) argues:
Poor settler;here is his contradictionnaked, shorn of its trappings.He ought to kill
those he plunders, as thedjinns do. Now, this is not possible because he must exploit
themas well. Because he can't carrymassacre on to genocide, and slavery to animal
like degradation, he loses control, themachine goes intoreverse, and a relentless logic
leads him on to decolonization.
14Cohen-Solal (1985: 554-555) describes Sartre's encounter with Fanon in Rome in 1961. Fanon was
terminally illwith leukemia, and he urgently requested that his book, Les Damnes de la terre be published
(Fanon 1961). He asked Maspero to request a preface from Sartre and to let Sartre know that he thought of
him constantly. Fanon considered his book to be an important contribution to the decolonization struggle in
Algeria and sub-Saharan Africa.
15In his short book Discours sur le colonialisme, Aime Cesaire (1955: 7-10) begins with a similar
critique
of theEuropean role in the colonial enterprise and draws parallels between colonization inAfrica and fascism
in Europe.
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280 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
But this process of decolonization does not occur without continued exploitation, the
fomentingof internecineviolence, and the repression and co-opting of colonial subjects.
Although the colonial elite may attempt to assimilate, the masses alternate between
destructivepassivity and random,potentially cathartic,violence. Sartre is ambivalent about
violence, both abhorring its demagogic use and conceding its necessity as a tool of
resistance and revolutionary action in an extreme case. He is even more critical of
alternatives that sublimate violence, referringto themas the "psychoses" ofmagic, trance,
dance, and religion (Sartre 1963: 19). These defense mechanisms cannot exorcise the
"demon" of colonialism, which must be removed by strategicpolitical action. To thosewho
believe that this revolutionaryaction is always peaceful, Sartre (1963: 21) counsels: "They
would do well to read Fanon; forhe shows clearly that this irrepressibleviolence is neither
sound and furynor the resurrectionof savage instincts. ... it isman recreatinghimself."
This moment of revolutionaryaction is only one stage in the dialectic, which reverberates
for the colonizer in the formof guilt and moral accountability and for the colonized in the
formof psychosis, suffering,and death. For Sartre, the end of thedialectic is themoment of
assuming responsibilityfor the colonial enterpriseand of working through the violence of
resistance to thepossibility of unconditional autonomy.Both Sartre and Fanon agree on this
point.
Postcolonial theorists addressing Fanon's contributionmust necessarily include the
influence of Sartre's perspective on his theorizing and examine the short period during
which theyworked together in 1961. The rioting of French youths of North African
descent in the banlieue areas of Paris inNovember of 2005 and 2006 represents the type
of other-directedviolence described by Sartre and Fanon in theirwork on decolonization.
This violence rebounds on the immigrant communities in which it is initiated and
challenges both government authorities and the structureof the communities themselves
(Smith 2005: 3). Predicting the occurrence of this type of violence suggests the
productive value of Sartre and Fanon's theories four decades later. Both Sartre and
Fanon foresaw that the wounds of colonialism, if unhealed, would fester intomore
violence and discord.
Sartre and Fanon are in philosophical agreement about the structureof the dialectic
of decolonization, but not about the exact processes and strategies for achieving
freedom. Sartre's concern with the consequences of decolonization for the colonizer,
although it is critical, is less relevant to Fanon than the debilitating effects of the
colonial enterprise that create a psychologically split and powerless colonial subject.
In his preface to The Wretched of theEarth, Sartre (1963: 21) states: "The native cures
himself of colonial neurosis by thrustingout the settler throughforce of arms.When his
rage boils over, he rediscovers his innocence and comes to know himself in that he
himself creates his self." This statement,however, is very general and does not offer a
strategic solution to the anticolonial battle,which requires a coalition of forces of political
support. The exact strategies of political liberation extend beyond the scope of this
discussion and are posed neither by Sartre nor Fanon. The support of black intellectuals
forAlgerian liberation, and colonial independence more generally, still leaves open the
question of their own situation in France. Although Fanon shifts his position in The
Wretched of theEarth to argue that the "black problem" ismore political than cultural, his
approach is still somewhat at odds with Sartre's assertions. Sartre's written dialogues with
Fanon and other black intellectuals in France were part of a prolonged debate thatwas
both repletewith tension and fecund. Sartre contributed his skills as a philosopher and
dialectician to the debate while the African and Antillian intellectuals grappled with
theories of culture, identity,and strategicaction throughpoetry and prose as theypursued
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the goals of decolonization and assimilation. Both parties viewed their strategic
collaboration as instrumentaland effective. In retrospect,when we read the publications
resulting from these debates, much of the backstage dialogue evaporates leaving the
impression that Sartre and the Afro-Antillian intellectuals shared an unequivocally
common cause. Sartre, however, differedfrom these intellectuals in his conceptions of
the role played by identity politics, and more broadly the processes of cultural
identification,in relationship to the class struggle.
Re-envisioning Sartre's ideal society without races
The societywithout races envisioned by Sartre is a Utopian world inwhich racism, class
cleavages, and colonialism have disappeared. This ideal state is the conclusion of Sartre's
dialectics of both negritude and colonialism. For Sartre, this endpointmay be reached only
through the political victory of egalitarian societies (which he calls socialist) everywhere
and at all times. The egalitarianism towhich Sartre refers is not to be confused with the
French ideal of republicanism inwhich all sources of racial and cultural difference are
denied under the cloak of citizenship (Kristeva 1993: 58-64). Instead Sartre argues thatthe
denial of differencemasks thepower of racism. The victory of egalitarian societies is part
of the legacy thathe hopes thathis generationwill bequeath to "the history ofmankind"
(Sartre 1963: 31). Sartre sees thisvictory as one over social class cleavages inEurope and
colonialism abroad. But he does not specifypreciselywhat form thenew egalitarian society
will take. Instead,we can glean only a general message of egalitarian universalism from
Sartre's promise. As Gates (1991: 470) states of Fanon, assessing Sartre's legacymeans
"reading him" in the context of his role as an historical actor and an intellectual.16 In
analyzing this historical period, Lambert (1993: 259) asks: "What if therehad been no
secondworld war, no Algerian revolution,no Vietnam conflict?"Would Sartre and Fanon's
theorieshave changed or become irrelevant?Only timewill tell.
One of Sartre'smost importantcontributionsto theoriesof race, self, and society centers
on his elaboration of the Hegelian master/slave dialectic with relationship to the split
colonial personality.Bhabha (1994: 51) refersto thisproblem as the "doubling of identity"
or "the differencebetween personal identityas an imitationof reality... and theproblem of
identification... ."When a degrading concept of self is internalizeddue to racism, sexism,
ormarginalization, the split colonial selfmust be transcended and reintegratedinto a new
configuration in order to achieve what Bhabha describes as "the self as a site of identityand
autonomy" (Bhabha 1994: 49). This process of reintegration is critical to Sartre's
discussions of racism, anti-Semitism, and negritude. Postcolonial theoristshave analyzed
identityconstruction as a process that is simultaneously cultural, social, and political. In
other words, the social mirror reflecting the personality must change along with the
evolving self. Sartre saw thisprocess as an ideological challenge to the dominant society,
reflectedby colonial remorse and redressive action, as well as a transformationin the self
conception of the dominated and marginalized subject. Only if the two transformations
work simultaneously can therebe an end to racism and theviolence that itgenerates.
16Gates (1991: 457-470) offers a model for rereading Fanon in the context of decolonization and political
alienation. He reviews poststructuralist and postmodern interpretations of Fanon and urges that Fanon be
reconsidered with reference to his era and the problems of colonialism that he struggled to resolve in his
writings.
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282 TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285
Regardless of whether one approaches this problem from the perspective of Sartre or
Fanon, the results remain the same. A psychological change cannot be effectedwithout a
change in the politics of representation.There are, however, differences in how the "self
and the "other" are configuredby each theorist.If the racial self is conceived of as a fixed
point, as it is in the essentialist identity discourses of early negritude, the point of
psychological reintegration is the assertion of a fundamental identity,e.g., African vs.
European or black vs. white. Since, however, the conflict is both internalto thepersonality
and externalwithin the society,an essentialist resolution to theproblem isnot feasible. Hall
(1996: 445) phrases thisproblem incisively inhis discussion of new ethnicities:
[A]s Fanon constantly reminded us, the epistemic violence is both outside and inside,
and operates as a process of splittingon both sides of thedivision - inhere as well as
out there.That iswhy it is a question not only of 'black-skin' but of 'Black-Skin,
White Masks' - the internalizationof self - as-other. Just as masculinity always
constructs femininityas double . . . racism constructs theblack subject: noble savage
and violent avenger. And in the doubling, fear and desire double for one another and
play across the structuresof otherness, complicating itspolitics.
These issues of representationare furthercomplicated by the virtualityof the identity

discourses and postcolonial desires towhich Hall refers.Identitydiscourses are expressions
of virtual states and desires (Dakou 1988: 41-42). They convey thewish to be special, to
belong to a universal culture, and to be recognizedwith human dignity.Negritude, whether
considered as part of Sartre's dialectic or independentlyof it, idealizes a virtual state of
being. So, too, do the discourses of racism, anti-Semitism, and fascism as analyzed by
Sartre.These discourses rely on projecting a subalternand deficient "other" and reaffirming
conceptions of the self in relationship to the ostracized group. Recent research on popular
culture has demonstrated the dialectical twist that Sartre predicted when the dominant
culture latches onto aspects of a subalternculture as a way of embracing cultural taboos and
exploring forbidden territory.In his analysis of the contemporaryreception of theworks of
blues legend Robert Johnson,Lipsitz (1998: 119) argues that "the consumption of black
culture salves the alienation and identityproblems of European Americans." From the
traditionsof late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century minstrelsy to hip-hop dance and
culture, the appropriation ofmusic and fashion styles of subalternand marginalized groups
has filled a void in thedominant culture.Although he does not cite Sartre,Lipsitz contends
that attitudes toward spontaneity, sexuality, and musicality have been romanticized and
projected onto southernblack blues culture in a manner that resembles Sartre's dialectical
discussion of race relations. In Critique (1976: 644-646), Sartrehimself uses the recording
industry in theUnited States as a paradigm formedia conformityand the diffusion of
negative stereotypes of marginalized groups. His theories laid the groundwork formore
detailed models of cultural appropriation and border crossing.17
17Much more may be said about the importance of Sartre's writings, in particular Critique de la raison
dialectique, for the development of theories of contemporary society and popular culture. The concepts of
serialization and totalization are particularly relevant in this regard (Sartre 1976b: 363-370).
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TheorSoc (2007) 36:265-285 283
Conclusions: Sartre's legacy
By combining a dialectical model with theoriesof self and society, Sartremade unique and
pathbreaking contributions to the study of race relations and colonial discourse. His
collaborations with African and Antillian intellectuals bridged political and cultural
discourses. He helped to integratehis collaborators intomainstream French philosophical
debates. In turn, they introducedhim to a new realm of literaryand artisticproduction.
Although some of these collaborations appear strainedand asymmetrical in retrospect,they
were definitelyproductive.18
Some scholars of Sartre's work in relationship to black intellectuals overlook his
influenceon thenegritudemovement and focus primarily on his collaboration with Fanon
in The Wretched of the Earth. This discussion has endeavored to trace the historical
trajectoryof Sartre's relationship to both the negritude and the antinegritudemovements.
The complexity of Sartre's involvement in this regard had an impact on two opposing and
antithetical streams of thought among black intellectuals in France and in the African
disapora. While overtly supporting Senghor and Presence Africaine, Sartre voiced
disagreementswith Senghorian essentialism. These criticismswere used as a resource for
the antinegritudemovement of the late 1960s. Sartre's philosophy led to political awareness
and direct action as opposed to the cultural reaffirmationsof negritude. But philosophical
disagreements did not prevent Sartrefrom engagingwith Alioune Diop, Frantz Fanon, and
other black intellectuals on issues of decolonization and social injustice. The exchanges
between Sartre and black intellectualswere instrumental,symbolic, and political. This
mutual influence did not occur without debate and contestation, and it deserves detailed
historical attention.
Further in-depthresearch situatingSartrewithin the social and intellectualnetworks of
black Paris will contribute to a mulitdimensional view of his philosophical creation as a
cotextual convergence of European philosophy and black intellectual thought. Sartre
provides a social theory and a program for extensive social change in societies where
oppression and social inequalities persist on a large scale. For Sartre, the ideal of an
egalitarian societywithout racial and class barriers served as a creative inspirationas well as
a political goal. He wished to see his legacy both in termsof his creative
literaryproduction
and his political work, and he viewed his writing as a modest testament to his
"immortality."For scholars of race, self, and society, Sartre lefta full agenda of unfinished
business.19 In termsof the sociology of culture and postcolonial studies, he outlined the
theoreticalbasis for a phenomenology of oppression and a psychology of conformity.These
theories elucidate the social conditions leading to fascism, alienation, and liberation in
contemporary society. Sartre's protocols include nothing short of envisioning an ideal
society that restructuresthe balance of power and concepts of human dignity for all. As
Sartre himself concluded: "But, as they say, that's another story: the history ofmankind.
The time is drawing near, I am sure,when we will join the ranks of thosewho make it"
(Sartre 1963: 31).
18Sartre's collaborations with Senghor, Fanon, and other members of the Presence Africaine group were
strategic and often positioned him as a translator and spokesperson for the cause of decolonization (Jules
Rosette 1998: 36-38).
I9Sartre's copious notebooks and the posthumous farewell composed by Simone de Beauvoir indicate the
extent towhich he considered his various personal,
political, and philosophical projects to be ''unfinished
business" (Sartre 1984; de Beauvoir 1984).
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284 Theor Soc (2007) 36:265-285
Acknowledgement Iwish to thankmembers of the seminar on Art, Culture, and Knowledge (ACK) Group
of the University California, San Diego for their helpful comments on this article and to acknowledge the
critical input of Gerald M. Platt of theUniversity ofMassachusetts, Amherst and San Diego colleagues J.R.
Osborn and Lea Ruiz-Ade. Their critical comments have been invaluable tome in rethinking Sartre's theories
of race, self, and society.
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Cesaire, A. (1955). Discours sur le colonialisme. Paris: Presence Africaine.
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Cohen-Solal, A. (1985). Sartre, 1905-1980. Paris: Editions Gallimard.
Dakou, Y. (1988). La Quite identitaire dans 'j'appartiens au grand jour' de Paul Dakeyo: Approche
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de Beauvoir, S. (1984). Adieux: A farewell to Sartre, translated by Patrick O'Brian. New York: Random
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Depestre, R. (1969). Les Fondements socio-culturels de notre identiti, paper given at theOrganizing Cultural
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Bennetta Jules-Rosette is Professor of Sociology and Director of theAfrican and African-American Studies
Research Projectat the University of California, San Diego. Her areas of interest include contemporary
sociological theory and sociosemiotic studies of religious discourse, tourism, and African art and literature.
Her most recent books include Black Paris: The African Writers' Landscape (University of Illinois Press,
1998) and Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image (University of Illinois Press, 2007).
Springer


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Jean-Paul Sartre and the philosophy of négritude: Race, self, and society

Author(s): Bennetta Jules-Rosette

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.138 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 10:12:01 AM

Jean-Paul Sartre and the philosophy of negritude:

Abstract In this article, Jean-Paul Sartre's relationship to the negritudemovement and

Reading Sartre'sworks in relationship to themovements of negritude and post-negritude

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Sartre's version of negritude in historical context

Sartre's growing prominence as a philosopher of the oppressed attractedmany followers

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In thisenvironment,Lamine Senghor,bom on September 15,1889 in Senegal, immigratedto

Sartre fullyunderstood the intentof Cesaire's assertion. By collaborating with black

In spite of his intuitivegrasp of the literaryorigins of negritude, Sartre approached its

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project of leParti (the Communist Party).While both black immigrantsand theEuropean

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Diop to the Parisian literaryworld. In themeantime, Diop briefly returned to Senegal,

workshops, symposia, and conferences over a 30-year period.

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Negritude appears to be the upbeat of a dialectical progression; the theoretical and

As is characteristicof Sartre's theorizing in other domains, he juxtaposes a dialectical

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repose, an explosive stability,a pridewhich renounces itself,an absolute which knows

Finally, Sartre (1948b: xliii) concludes thatnegritude is both "the triumphofNarcissism

Race, self, and society

Whether or not one finds Sartre's theorizingabout race to be convincing or controversial in

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.138 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 10:12:01 AM

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.138 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 10:12:01 AM

Dialogues between Sartre and black intellectuals in France

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Responding to this question, Depestre argues that anthropological works on escaped

My radical and fiercely"Stalinist" anticolonialism could not conceive of a journal as a

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horizons. I acknowledged fellow-travelersfrom our ranks of the extreme Left, but I

In concluding his letter,Depestre (1978: 60) acknowledges Diop for continuing to

Sartre and Fanon: The limits of dialogue

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subsequently reprintedinThe Wretched of theEarth (1963: 206-248). In this article,Fanon

[N]ow thenativewriterprogressively takes on thehabit of addressing his own people. It

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Re-envisioning Sartre's ideal society without races

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These issues of representationare furthercomplicated by the virtualityof the identity

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Conclusions: Sartre's legacy

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(pp. 441-^49). New York: Routledge.

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