Black Skin, White Masks is primarily about Antilleans – black French citizens from what was, in Fanon's time, a French colony in the Caribbean. As Fanon notes, everything from history lessons to comic books shapes the young Antillean to think of himself not only as a Frenchman but as a white man, because he identifies with the morally good, civilized and civilizing heroes of children's stories. According to the Antillean understanding of race that Fanon describes, blacks are people who, like the Senegalese, live in Africa and speak "inferior" French. For the young Antillean, the black man is an object of fear and revulsion who epitomizes sin and savagery.

The children of middle-class families like Fanon's were not only educated according to the French system and inculcated into anti-black French ways of thinking, but also frequently traveled to France in order to complete their education. They only learned they were black upon arriving in France, where they were treated as second-class citizens and racial inferiors.

Fanon describes the sense of disorientation and cognitive dissonance that results from this encounter – the Antillean no longer understands who he is. After a lifetime of identifying himself with the white man and considering himself French, he learns that he is in fact black and that his countrymen do not view him as an equal.