DA RECUSA À CONSCIÊNCIA: AS POSSIBILIDADES PARA A CONSTRUÇÃO DA IDENTIDADE NEGRA

Abstract

From the process of European colonization in Brazil, an ideology of physical and cultural whitening of the population was imposed on the country, which achieved partial results due to the confrontation made by black organizations in promoting a reflection on race among blacks. The hierarchical, violent and domineering relationship established the white identity as the reference in opposition to the black person, symbolically classified as different and other, and objectively kept in subordinate positions. Considering the Brazilian context and its historical formation, the article aims to show how different authors can be mobilized to theoretically analyze the acceptance or rejection of the black racial identity, a process that is part of the life trajectory of black people. In order to do this, I draw primarily on the writings of Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu, Kabengele Munanga, Lia V. Schucman, Cida Bento, Neusa S. Souza, Isildinha B. Nogueira, and Lewis R. Gordon. The concepts offered by these authors proved to be useful and pertinent for understanding and explaining the stages that the subject goes through, from the subjective to the social, before possibly recognizing himself as black, going through the concepts of identity, blackness, whiteness, black consciousness, symbolic power and ego. With these authors, it is possible to understand, albeit briefly, the historical, social, and psychic/subjective reasons for the aversion that many blacks feel toward their racial group, and to think about subverting it.