The disavowal of racism in Brazil

Abstract

The history of migrations to Brazil is the history of the country itself, since the original inhabitants of the territory - the natives - were almost completely exterminated by the Portuguese. In Brazil, any child of school age learns that our land is mestizo and welcoming, and that its population is the result of the mixture of Portuguese, Italians, Spanish, Germans and Japanese, among other peoples. Curiously, the majority immigrant group that formed the country usually does not appear on that list: the Africans. In that case, immigration was forced, originating one of the main traumas that still mark the Brazilian culture and society. This trauma were not left in the past: it was not overcome and it continues to be updated – according to the logic of traumatic functioning, that of the compulsion to repetition - present in the entire structure of social relations in the country. In this paper I intend to deal with the peculiarity of Brazilian racism, articulating the memory of the slavery regime to psychoanalytic concepts – such as repression, narcissism of minor differences, splitting of the ego, and disavowal – capable of denouncing silent segregation that the black population suffer in the country.

Key words:

• racism
• trauma
• slavery
• repression
• narcissism of minor differences
• disavowal

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jô Gondar

Jô Gondar, PhD, is a psychoanalyst, full member of the Psychoanalytic Circle of Rio de Janeiro, PhD in Clinical Psychology (PUC-Rio), and full professor of the Post-Graduation Program in Social Memory of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro State.