Status Updates From Peau noire, masques blancs

I try to read admiration in the eyes of the other, and if, as luck would have it, the other sends back an unpleasant reflection, I run the mirror down: the other is a real idiot. I have no intention of revealing my nakedness when confronted with the object. The object is denied its individuality and liberty. The object is an instrument. Its role is to allow me to achieve my subjective security.

The Martinicans are hungry for reassurance. They want their wishful thinking to be recognized. They want their wish for virility to be recognized. They want to flaunt themselves. Each and every one of them constitutes an isolated, arid, assertive atom, along well-defined rights of passage; each of them is. Each of them wants to be, wants to flaunt himself.