Being something besides what you are: identity and body racization in short stories from Cadernos Negros

Abstract

This study analyzes the literary representation of the identity construction and racization of the black body in short stories from Cadernos Negros: Cristiane Sobral´s “Pixaim”, Serafina Machado’s “As máscaras de Dandara” and Michel Yakini´s “Orvalho da manhã”. In these short stories, identity construction highlights skin color and hair, which are taken as diacritical marks, emphasizing how it is in and through the body, the material location for all aspects of identity, that racial conflict is experienced along the individual’s life story. Without resorting to stereotypes or being limited to an obvious and simplistic duality (black versus non-black), the selected works bring characters whose identity construction processes are developed both as self-definition, from a gaze interior to the group, and from the perspective of a gaze exterior to it. The works present conflicting processes of rejection/acceptance of the black being which highlight both the psychological damage arising from the refusal of recognition, continuous discrimination and the internalization of such offenses, and the gains that come from the pride of belonging to a racial ethnicity and the appreciation of diacritical marks. The analysis relies primarily on the thought of Gomes (2002), Munanga (2008), Hall (2000), Silva (2000), Woodward (2000) and Todorov (2001).