Fifty years after the formal end of European colonialism, and almost a decade after the United States had seemed to some to turn the corner on racism by electing its first black president, the specter of Frantz Fanon has returned—with a vengeance. Largely consigned to academic studies and debates over postcolonialism, difference and alterity for many years, Fanon’s name suddenly went viral in December 2014. Within days of a New York City grand jury’s decision not to indict the police officers who had strangled to death Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who was trying to sell a few cigarettes, a comment by Fanon appeared on numerous social media sites that was quickly picked up and quoted around the country—and in many parts of the world. It