In this essay I explore the intersections between phenomenology and critical race theory by way of Frantz Fanon's seminal work, Peau noire, masques blancs. Here, Fanon takes a phenomenological approach on describing the experience of how racialization works through bodily and socially mediated practices. He find Merleau-Ponty's works on the phenomenology of the body useful, yet unsatisfying, when describing this experience. I intend to outline his position 'with and against' Merleau-Ponty on this issue.
For Fanon, phenomenology offers us instruments for understanding racism as something more than ideological dialogue on the one side and/or psychological desires on the other (both of which tend to subjectify racism). Instead - and herein lies the core of my thesis, as I will argue with support from prominent Fanon scholars such as Sara Ahmed and Michael Staudigl - this phenomenology aims at grasping racializations and racism as it is mediated between body consciousnesses, i.e. within the intersubjective meaning of habitual and emotional forms of communication and furthermore through how it is reproduced in spatial and institutionalized schemes.