The Black Mother and the Name-of-the-Father: Questions with Lélia Gonzalez

Abstract

In the essay Racism and sexism in Brazilian culture, Lélia Gonzalez works on the thesis that racism is the symptom of Brazilian cultural neurosis. This idea refers to psychoanalytic theory, bringing the need to explain its conceptions of symptom and neurosis. This article contextualizes the argument of Gonzalez’s essay in relation to psychoanalysis and other aspects of her thinking (specially the concept of amefricanity) and emphasizes the theme of the black mother, which, being inserted in the theoretical environment of Lacanian psychoanalysis, implies the way it deals with the Oedipus complex, placing the Name-of-the-father as its central operator.