Racism in the Family and Constitution of the Subject

Abstract

This article aims to address the impacts that the experience of racism within the family environment has on the subjectivity of the individuals. Accordingly, it questions the ways in which this experience interferes in the formation of the subject’s identity, in their self-image, and in the construction of self-esteem. These multiple and complex processes will be observed from the analysis of the story and life experiences of a person, Mariana. Although the study considers Mariana, many others speak through her voice. Lots of Brazilian families are represented here, in the painful experience of many women and men who have experienced racism since early childhood. Told and enlivened by her, as well as interpreted in the light of the signifiers and meanings she attributes to these experiences, her report allows one to think about the psychosocial effects of the experience of racial violence and racism when it is experienced by black subjects in the family arrangements in which the white person of the family is explicitly racist.