Do Black Lives Matter in Psychoanalysis? Frantz Fanon as Our Most Disputatious Ancestor

Each psychoanalytic tradition traces its lineage to an ancestor-Sigmund Freud as the "father" of psychoanalysis, Sandor Ferenczi as its once-lost "mother," or Jacques Lacan as the prodigal son calling for a "return to Freud." Drawing on these ancestors, a growing body of scholars has articulated psychoanalytic perspectives on race, class, sexuality, and gender in the consulting room and in society. These diverse authors-Black, White, and Brown-represent a "decolonial turn" in psychoanalysis that has yet to claim a primary ancestor, ambivalently inhabiting Freudian, Relational, and Lacanian theories as a "secure base." In a world under siege by anti-Blackness and COVID-19-pandemics restricting the capacity to breathe for indigenous, immigrant, poor, and Black people-a global voice roars through masks that Black Lives Matter. Trapped between thin blue lines, overlapping pandemics, and the limitations of institute and graduate school training, this article is an outburst claiming Frantz Fanon, the revolutionary Black psychiatrist, as ancestor to this movement. Inspired by Edward Said's insight that Fanon is Freud's "most disputatious heir," I will review his thinking as a decolonial psychoanalytic theorist through his classic works and his translated clinical papers. Tracing his psychoanalytic-specifically Lacanian and Ferenczian-influences, I will argue for Fanon's inclusion within the psychoanalytic canon and curriculum, and outline how his contributions are foundational to the decolonial turn. More urgently, I want to draw on Fanon to ask the following question: Do Black Lives Matter in psychoanalysis?