Ceremonial Mask & More

Reviews

This is a cute mask. Its not as heavy as some of the other mask I purchased on Amazon. Its a light weight mask.

Reviews

First tried this at a NYC hair salon and purchased the jar for $50! Normally I would never pay this much but I was so impressed with the results I HAD to have it. You only need a very little amount so this jar will probably last me a year! Well worth every penny! Love the smell too!

Reviews

This is a great product, lightweight and easy to use. The foam makes it comfortable to wear for long periods of time.

The mask is very cute on, for older kids possible five and up, the mask is big and extremely hard to breathe out of. It gets warm in there. Good for about two minutes of play.

Reviews

This book has provided me with a tremendous sense, not only as a black person, but an educated minority having difficulty managing the world of white and black. The more I've progressed academically and professionally, the more I felt marginalized by both peoples, particular by other blacks. After a recent haranguing experience with a former co-worker, I decided I had enough and began reading on what it means to be black to be refute such nonsense. And this book provided in ways I could not have possibly expected. The first aspect of critical importance was, what I felt Fanon's exploration of the psychology of being black, both male and female. Males pathologic plight lies in his desire to self-actualize and be seen as a man while women's plight derives from the need to be financial secure and to have assurance that her offspring will be not only taken cared of but in a socio-economic position higher than hers. Because of which, have incentives to go "white." Fanon indentifies the problem to be an economic issue at its root, and the epidermalization of inferiority at its core. The black intellectual is a special case, alienated by his fellow men adopted the vernacular and behavior of whites only to further push him from his people. Worse is the consciousness that the other culture (whites) did not fully accept you as their own, for the simple reason that you were "of a different kind." This was an ugly pathologic death spiral that would lead first to him hating all other blacks then me hating his self. On all account, this describes my very own psychology, and the general tone of so many blacks I've come across. Second critical theme of this book was its exploration at all the "solutions" to the plight of blacks, usually espoused by blacks themselves. The first solution involved adopting "whiteness" (through language, dress, and behavior) Fanon explored and is shown to be naïve, as whites will always believe themselves, at some subconscious level, superior. The next solution of reverting back to some priori of culture, ergo some African culture is argued to be an equally incredulous idea, as, at its root, this also demands an acceptance of socio-economic levels based on non-normative things such as culture or race. Worse is the solution that there "is no race" or blackness not mattering or no longer mattering. This is perhaps the most credulous of all false pretensions provided thus far. There is simply no such thing nor will there ever be, as race and culture is something forever imbued in the genome of man. As seen through personal experience, blacks truly do have an inescapable neurotic inferiority within their sociogenic memory due to the racialist society they reside. It is this environment that lead to, at a subconscious level that slowly ruminates outward, guilt in the presence of whites for being black. While whites will continually provide recognition of blacks only as they show subservience to the values they prescribe upon blacks ("toothy smile" and "docileness") and the degree of adaptation of themselves into their culture. The final theme explores the true solution to blackness. The demanding of blacks of nothing short of is treated with respect and recognition as people and holders of culture of equal value. That since blacks forgone physical strife for their rights, the only option and solution for equality in the eyes of whites, and of themselves, is of demanding the inalienable right that all men have. Their right is to demand certain human behavior from another and duty of not renouncing my free thought or personal choices for another. I need not fit any particular stereotype. "I travel the world endlessly creating myself. Whenever a man presupposes anything about me for the mere reason of my skin color, I will vehemently and unmercifully defend myself and require his thinking and actions change, as this is fundamental to my humanity under god." Thank you Dr. Fanon for writing a book, that despite being 60 years old, still provides a candid and truthful exposé of the pathology of blacks in modernity. Particular those in this day and age stripped of heritage and pride, who all they have in their past is Jim crow and slavery, it is good to know that if youth are willing to look, there are plenty books to enlighten and strengthen them by providing powerful definitions on exactly who they really are. Just as this 232 pager did for me.

I am not going to summarize or highlight this book. I say this because it is important that you read this book on your own terms and interpret Fanon's theories in your way and time. If you are even reading this book you are already aware of some of the theories that Fanon developed and lived. This awareness will guide you to your understanding and hopefully his writing will allow to truly see others and most importantly, see yourself.

This is and was a great book. Even though he discussed the effects of racism in regards to his native land of Martinique we Mr. Fanon has to say still resounds in today's so-called PC world. I do wish he had lived long enough to see Barack Obama elected President of the United States. I would have loved to hear his take on that. The only aspect I found missing from this book is his opinion on Black American ex-patriots living in France. James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Josephine Baker.... Did these African-Americans living in Paris not realize the effect of colonolism on all Africans in the Diaspora?, or were they treated as "Honorary Whites" in France. I truly wish Frantz Fanon had explored that entire subject.

"I am black; I am in total fusion with the world, in sympathetic affinity with the earth, losing my id in the heart of the cosmos... I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth." (p. 27)~ Thus Fanon reaches into the experience and meaning of the black man's alienation. This alienation strikes in an essential sense--it stems from the denial of the black man's very flesh: "The black man is attacked for his corporeality. It is his tangible personality that is lynched. It is his actual being that is dangerous..." (142). The white man, who has been obsessed with eradicating the body out of collective consciousness for millennia, now associates this abjected domain of the body with the black man, and constructs it as the essential evil Other. The white man does this because he is insecure--he does this out of hatred, a hatred that he works to cultivate, that consumes his time and energy. The white man is dehumanized. Projecting his fears onto the black man, the white man shirks his responsibility to acknowledge his guilt (83) in instrumentalizing the black man (206). Even though this work was written over 50 years ago in a literal colony of Europe, sadly it remains only too relevant in the United States today as a condition between people that allegedly have the same legal and human rights. This is largely made possible by the many ever-so-casual-racists (who vehemently deny they are racist)--people who, for example, complain about affirmative action as unfair to them personally (nevermind history and generations of enslavement and stolen opportunities). Fanon writes, "outside university circles there is an army of fools... Granted, these fools are the product of a psychological-economic substructure. But that does not get us anywhere" (18). An education for racial tolerance from which we are sadly very far removed is necessary for moving towards a world of love.

If you want to understand racial identity, you should read Fanon's approach. The most influential author on ethnicity and colonization in the twentieth century.