The colonial narcissus: whiteness and the authoritarian personality

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to present some theoretical-political observations about the current historical process which Brazil has gone through at least the last ten years (since 2008), and which ultimately resulted in the victory of an extreme-right conservative project in the last elections. It is important to note that, although we are concerned with the re-emergence of what social theory calls authoritarian personality our argument derives from other roots and takes other routes. Here we work with radical black intellectual traditions. By means of thinkers such as Frantz Fanon and scholarly traditions such as for example the postcolonialism and black existentia we want to make intelligible the deep racial divide which constitutes our current context and organizes national political life. The article does not conclude, it follows the designs of the historical process. However, we suggest that, if on one hand, we are facing a requalification and dispute about the racial formation/regulation of Nation, on the other hand, we must stress the need to attribute indispensable attention to black political culture (its epistemologies) and the alternatives which it produced both within and outside (beyond) of the aesthetics of political modernity.