Response on The Second Sex and Black Skin, White Masks

Letter #4 one page:
The reading readings for letter#4 De Beauvoir, The Second Sex,
Your letters should focus on the readings, independent reflection, and responding to your colleague’s letter. Your letters should aim to explain what you find interesting or what strikes you as important, accurate/inaccurate, confusing, or just plain odd.
Colleague’s letter:
Although I have some critiques towards the notion of forgiveness from what Arendt said, I heavily agree with you in how forgiveness can give a peace of mind towards both parties involved and that because “people act because they are” that forgiveness saves action. The retelling becomes something more significant and informative, the meaningfulness of the story has an even greater meaning I feel in regards to personal growth. To make it less vague, forgiveness I feel doesn’t necessarily need to be forgiveness towards the other party (or whatever subject of that matter) but of the story, this gives way for relief, a “new beginning.”
In this weeks readings we discussed psychology and philosophy through perception specifically to that of our bodies. Merleau-Ponty says “Thenceforth the experience of the body degenerated into a “representation” of the body; it was not a phenomenon but a fact of the psyche.” in criticism of the objective knowledge of physics and biology. Ponty aligns consciousness with experience and how the world, the body, and other people directly correlate with each other, we use this experience as a means of not only simply relation but of existence. This reminds me of Kant’s idea of transcendental apperception where we tie appearances into one sole experience. This sole experience I feel can’t have an “object” description, because when I look at a anatomical diagram of the human body I already know that’s NOT my body, when I look at my own body in relation to another object I know my present perspective can be changed, while the idea of the object is invariable. Here we can say that experience is not invariable.
Monty tells us “In so far as it sees or touches the world, my body can therefore be neither seen nor touched. What prevents its ever being an object, ever being “completely constituted” is that it is that by which there are objects. It is neither tangible nor visible in so far as it is that which sees and touches.” If the experience refers to the body as a whole that cannot be objectified or commodified (especially in the present day Neoliberal conditions) then history isn’t as simple as not being to walk on its head or think with its feet but it’s the body that has the focus.
Sincerely, 
Letter #5 one page:
The reading for letter#5 Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Intro and Ch 5
Your letters should focus on the readings, independent reflection,Your letters should aim to explain what you find interesting or what strikes you as important, accurate/inaccurate, confusing, or just plain odd.