Summary: The Wretched Of The Earth

“Hands up! Don’t shoot!” The protestors in Ferguson, MO, are shouting the message, fighting with their words, at a peaceful protest but their words are the only thing fighting (QUOTE). As the recent grand jury decision over the Mike Brown case has shone a light on the racism and police brutality, alive and thriving in the United States, people across the nation have taken to the streets and to social media as a means of peaceful protest. There is a longstanding tradition of peaceful protest in the United States, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott, to the Flint Sit In, peaceful protest is so deeply enrooted in American culture that TIME magazine even has a top ten list of the “most iconic peaceful protests of all time”(TIME, 2014). In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon explores the relationship between violence and freedom, claiming that violence is necessary in ending colonial conditions. If this is the case, then current peaceful protests occurring in the United States against police brutality and racism will not be effective because violence is necessary to overcome the violence induced state of the nation, however this is a challenge to

Violence has been historically present in the United States, specifically against people of color. The United States has a dark history, systematically oppressing people of color, but specifically African Americans through various means, including slavery, racism, and segregation. These means are reinforced by the systems of the government, such as police forces, who “speak the language of pure force” (Fanon, 2). They are always present and prepared to impart violent force against the marginalized. Even in their positions as “upholder of the peace… (the police bring) violence into the home and into the mind…” of the colonized (Fanon, 2). In this the police are not keeping the peace, but instead maintain and perpetuating the violence in the