How do We Listen to the Symptom in the Brazilian Cultural Neurosis? Significant Articulations in the Culture

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the ideas developed by Lélia Gonzalez, who discusses racism as a symptom in Brazilian Cultural Neurosis through what is concealed, beyond what is shown. The myth of racial democracy, analyzed by Lélia Gonzalez in most of her texts, is employed in this article as a conceptual tool enabling the interpretation of racism in Brazilian culture. To this end, the paper examines the statements of Sergio Camargo, former president of the Palmares Cultural Foundation during Jair Bolsonaro's government, as one of the repetitions of the symptom in Brazilian Cultural Neurosis. Drawing from the imagery of the "Black Mother" and Zumbi dos Palmares, this research analyzes the fear of whiteness towards Black people, especially those who are not compliant and are viewed as "tyrants". Like Lélia Gonzalez, the article employs psychoanalytic theory to contemplate Brazilian culture. In dialogue with Jacques Lacan's concepts of symptom, the Symbolic, and the signifying chain, the paper examines the connections between symptom and the Symbolic. In addition to Lacanian theory, the article engages with racial, feminist, and post-structuralist studies with the aim of identifying racism as a symptom and analyzing its recurrence in Brazilian Cultural Neurosis.