 The effusive optimism and hope of the Conclusion aside, Black Skin, White Masks is an essentially pessimistic book. That is, the book describes a psychological, linguistic, ontological, and libidinal landscape that is structured through and through by anti-Black racism. No desire or mode of being is left untouched. Fanon’s evocation of a total break with the past in the Conclusion confirms this pessimism and shows that his sense of liberation is tied to an apocalyptic revolutionary praxis—something we see developed over the following decade.