Sharpening sensitivities

radical timelessness of racism and its sinister scripts

Abstract

This article aims to reflect the theme of racism, with its radical timelessness. This is understood as the persistence of a traumatic that was, and continues to be, inscribed and not transcribed, drawing sinister scripts for the psychic life of the black people. Thus, they work on the need to sharpen sensitivities and discomfort perceptions, in the sense of making ruptures in the narcissistic walls erected by whiteness. In that sense, the film Get Out! – the black body on stage – will be used as a sublimatory stage, to exercise a connection with all our senses, which allow us to listen, look, think and talk about the systemic racism that structures us. To make this proposition a reality, the authors establish a dialogue with Freudian thinking, with Das Unheimliche (1919/2010a) as a central text, and some of Mbembe’s ideas, contained in the Critique of Black Reason (2018). They seek to approximate their ideas that are distant in time (100 years), but close in understanding the human suffering, tracing the strange paths of black reason. Black reason is a part of a social order, which aims to continuously expropriate black men and women from their uniqueness.