I was fourteen years old when I began to understand the meaning of what I now call cultural imposition. I had an acquaintance, now dead, whose father, an Italian, had married a Martinican. This man had lived in Fort-de-France for more than twenty years. He was considered an Antillean, but, underneath, his origin was always remembered. Now, in France, from a military point of view, an Italian is despised; one Frenchmen is the equal of ten Italians; the Italians have no guts. . . . My acquaintance had been born in Martinique and he associated only with Martinicans. On the day Montgomery routed the Italian army at Bengazi, I wanted to mark the Allies’ victory on my map. Measuring the substantial advance of the lines, I could not help exulting: “We really murdered them!” My acquaintance, who was not unaware of his father’s origin, was extremely embarrassed. For that matter, so was I. Both of us were victims of a cultural imposition.

Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, loc. 677