Philosophy of difference and the political question of racial identity

Abstract

This article investigates the relation between Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of difference and the political question of racial identity. At first, we developed the critique of the philosophy of difference in biology to the concept of race. Then, based on Achille Mbembe, we demonstrate how phenomena of the contemporary world, in spite of the denial of biological grounds of discrimination, are reorganized along racially determined hierarchies. From here on, in the particular case of Brazil, we argue that the bet on philosophy as a spokesman for a superior equality, without knowing and absent, translates a regressive political position, that is, induces the reaffirmation of the positive value deposited in the myth of racial democracy. Finally, we seek to point out the initial directions for a readjustment of the relations of the philosophy of difference to the racial question.