STRUCTURAL RACISM AND TRANSGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION: BETWEEN THE SILENCE OF INSTITUTIONS AND THE UNSAID OF INTERRACIAL FAMILIES

Abstract

This article investigates the articulation between structural racism and the transgenerational transmission of whitening in interracial families, analyzing how institutional and family silences reproduce inequalities and psychic suffering. The central problem is to understand how these mechanisms reinforce each other and what possibilities of resistance may emerge. The objective is to examine the persistence of racism at the macrostructural level, which organizes institutions and policies, and at the microfamily level, where silences perpetuate traumas and identity ambiguities. Methodologically, this is a theoretical and bibliographic interdisciplinary study, based on classical authors (QUIJANO, 2005; ALMEIDA, 2019; MBEMBE, 2018; MUNANGA,  2004;  FANON,  2008;  BENTO,  2022;  SCHUCMAN,  2018)  and  recent contributions on institutional racism, ethnic-racial socialization, racial motherhood, and racial literacy. The results indicate that racism simultaneously permeates institutions and families, but also that resistance dynamics emerge at multiple levels. Collectively, social movements challenge necropolitics and claim rights, in the intimate sphere, practices of socialization and racial literacy break silences. It is concluded that confronting racism requires an integrated project of recognition (HONNETH, 2003), articulating love, law, and solidarity, thus creating emancipatory fissures capable of sustaining new forms of belonging.