Compare and Contrast - Essay Example

Racism and Culture (Frantz Fanon) vs. Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Paulo Freire) There are actually similarities between Frantz Fanon’s essay on Racism and Culture and Paulo Freire’s literary work entitled Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Of these similarities, there are three which are most apparent. First, both articles mention about the oppressed people. In Fanon’s understanding, the people who are discriminated because of their racial background are the oppressed ones. He therefore associates oppression with racism.

He considers racism as an act of oppression, an oppression that is performed by the so called superior race as against the inferior race. According to him, in racism, the oppressing people destroy the cultural values of the people (Fanon 33). To note, culture is an aspect showing one’s racial identity. In a sense, Fanon thinks that the main effect of racism is the debasement of one’s culture. Freire on the other hand, uses the term oppressed to refer to people who can easily be corrupted due to poor education.

In a sense, he is concerned with intellectually oppressed people. Education is the key to stop this kind of oppression for him. If an individual is educated, he or she could liberate himself or herself out of the oppressive environment. He believes that education accords the oppressed an opportunity to regain honor and respect in the community which he or she belongs to (Freire 4). Also, Freire contends that through education, the oppressed could achieve a higher social status. For Freire, education opens the eyes of the oppressed to the truth and widens his or her horizons of opportunity in the society.

Second, Fanon and Freire’s literary works are both aimed at liberating the oppressed. In both of them, freedom is to be associated with the liberty to achieve the highest potential of human beings without any hindrances. For Fanon, the oppressed could be liberated through the grant of basic rights. Rights which could afford them an equal opportunity to grow and utilize their potential. Equal opportunity to grow could only be had if racial identity is devalued. This means that in a community, one’s racial background is not being considered as long as the person could perform his or her responsibilities in the community.

On the other side, liberation of the oppressed for Freire could only be achieved if education is given importance (8). Freire believes that only education could stop oppression. In a sense, he thinks that an act of oppression happens because of one’s ignorance. Freire could have analyzed that true liberation could be attained if ignorance is substituted with awareness. Third, oppression is considered in both articles as an effect of colonization. Frantz Fanon postulates that racism as a systematic form of oppression is a consequence of colonization (33).

The colonizers actually bring with them beliefs and practices which they introduce to the colonized society. It can happen that these colonizers adhere to racist acts. These racist acts are then practiced by the colonized people. Freire supports this finding by asserting that colonizers have the tendency to maintain their superiority. In lieu of this behavior, they execute ways to affirm their superiority in terms of racial identity. Works Cited Fanon, Frantz. “Racism and Culture.” Toward the African Revolution. Trans. Haakon Chevalier.

New York: Grove Press, 1988. 31-44. Print. Freire, Paulo. “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” PDF file.