What would Fanon say to former Education Minister Decotteli?

It is incomplete to say that structural racism prevents Black people from making mistakes. In fact, as one of Brazil's greatest intellectuals, Jurema Werneck, rightly said, racism prevents Black people from making mistakes. In her words: "structural racism is the impossibility of the Black subject." Period! That's why I say that, in the face of structural racism, success keeps us under suspicion; and failure cancels us. Therefore, making mistakes or getting things right only serves to determine whether Black people will face more abuse, less abuse, or if they will simply try to cancel us. 

That's why Decotteli was naive. He lacked racial awareness. After all, if he had it, he would have understood that the black man, as Fanon says, is not a man: "El negro es un hombre negro."

If this is so, then, however brilliant you might be, dear Decotteli, it would be of no use. Fanon would explain it to you with a good example: “If they love you, they will say it is despite your color; and if they hate you, they will say it is not because of the color of your skin.” Here or there you will be a prisoner of this infernal circle.

Structural racism, therefore, means that everything – criticism or praise – is always in spite of our skin color. 

That's why racial consciousness, according to Brazil's leading intellectual today, Silvio Almeida, ends up being a form of self-defense, because it ensures that "we never enter a place without looking at the exit door." Therefore, and paraphrasing the philosopher and jurist Silvio Almeida: it is very naive to think that within a racist structure you – as a Black person – can do the same things that a white person does, with the same consequences. A grave mistake. Indeed. If a white person can be analyzed in their individuality, even having distinctions within their own whiteness (very white, white, and the dark-skinned, according to the beautiful analysis by Lia Vainer Schucman), a Black person, in turn, is always Black. This explains why the mistake of one Black person always ends up being the mistake of all Black people, as Fanon would say, because the Black man is not a man, but rather a "hombre negro" (Black man). In a context of structural racism, therefore, while whiteness possesses individual subjectivity, which allows it to be analyzed individually, Black people are always seen collectively, causing everyone to be judged by the actions of one person and, not infrequently, by actions that always aim to call into question our intellect, the famous: "I told you so, didn't I?!" This happens, among other things, but mainly because Western philosophy spoke of man, and not of men, as the greatest philosopher of Mexico, Leopoldo Zea, said. In his words: "Western philosophy treated man as an abstraction that, containing all men, contained none. Groups of men who considered themselves agents of the human and in its name crushed every expression of humanity that was not the one they represented." 

The importance of intellectuals like Guerreiro Ramos, Silvio Almeida, Lelia Gonzalez, Sueli Carneiro, Djamila, and so many others stems from the fact that they, unlike traditional intellectuals, realized that it is pointless to speak of man, thinking that in doing so they will be speaking of everyone. This does not mean, however, that we are suggesting here that we should not study Western doctrine.

On the contrary: we must read Heidegger, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Descartes, Marx, among others, because, in order to criticize existing philosophical paradigms, we need to know them in order to "destroy" them, as is often said in Heideggerian terms, so that we can open ourselves to the most original philosophy possible.

In closing, the following lesson remains: never board a boat full of strangers because, if they need to empty it, you will be the first to be thrown overboard. You were thrown overboard to be devoured by sharks, but I, unlike the sharks that attack you, will not do as they do, do you know why? Because I, knowing that every excess reveals a lack, as Lacan taught, know that most of those who attack you do so as a way of overcoming the personal ignorance they carry with them. 

Therefore, the excessive criticism leveled at you goes beyond racism because, in psychoanalytic terms, it was the way most of these people, who read nothing – or very little – found to feel intelligent; that is, instead of sitting down to study, they seek easy "intelligence," the kind that makes them feel wise through the belittling of others. Poor things! To you, my silence and my pity in knowing that you keep the worst company: yourselves!