The representation of racism as a perverse stain in the novel Eu não quis te ferir, by Rinaldo de Fernandes

Abstract

The malaise that accompanies human beings in their civilizing course constitutes, at the same time, a fundamental ingredient in the attempt to ensure a viable and equitable society project, as well as the most emblematic factor of its chaotic and harmful nature. Racism, a manifestation of prejudice related, in a preliminary way, to the distinction of skin color, is one of the clearest signs of how, for some subjects, the communion between equalities and differences creates an unbearable condition in the face of the need to establish a community bond. Literature from Paraíba, being a reflexive corollary of local and national culture, brings countless instances of racism as a social mark/illness. Supported by theoretical considerations from Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory, sociology and history, in this work we weave some analytical notes around the novel Eu não quis te ferir (2022), by Rinaldo de Fernandes, a blunt example of how racism manifests not only at the marginal level, but as an institutionalized mechanism rooted in the experience of individuals and institutions considered as representatives of the civilizing process itself, in order to expose how Brazilian-style racism cannot be understood as something contingent or fortuitous, and rather juxtaposed in the perverse functioning of the performance of a large part of the subjects that make up the social body.