Subjective and Cultural Tensions in the Identity Experience of Being Black

This study aims at relating the ideas of Frantz Fanon to the theoretical perspective of Semiotic Cultural Psychology, analyzing how this latter approach broadens and dialogs with the historical-cultural specificity of the colonized black people. In view of the possibilities that such study allows for understanding of human living experiences and considering the reality of the black individual in Brazil, it was attempted to indicate possible points of understanding about the psychological experiences as they relate to the identity of “being black” from the significations produced from such experiences. A brief case study in the Brazilian context was presented to assist reflection. From this, the contribution of the revolt generated in the contact with the collective culture was discussed, predominantly white, as an important element for the process of cultural de-alienation. At the same time, such a process may lead to an opposition between white and black, which in turn generates hatred and reinforces black identity as an “essence”. It was concluded that, since racism bases social institutions and the scientific enterprise itself, it is necessary to develop a psychology that considers this element, as well as the class and gender factors present in every human person, as valid expressions of this human-generic.