‘Racism’ in Ponta Grossa is a symptom of a sick city

The ten “racists” of the State University of Ponta Grossa (UEPG, PR) inaugurate a kind of news story for which I must give up my reservations about the use of quotation marks, so I can comment in peace. That is, the “allegedly” festival kicked off in full force in the week’s journalism.

I recorded a video about two major discomforts regarding the news of the subject (in Portuguese), not exactly about the subject itself. The journalism undergraduates were basically watching a lecture that was unpleasant to them, and abused the group’s trust by posting terrible stickers.

Whether they were under the city’s conservative banner, we do not know. In 2017, a city councilman threatened to arrest a drag queen with a show scheduled there. It may be that the city’s water is contaminated with ignorance, and a tiny bit of what I call “wounded agro pride.”

I find it possible and probable, however, that it is a case of immature sarcasm, since, in choosing to study journalism, they may have some appreciation for letters. I can argue, on personal and psychoanalytic levels (from Wilfred Bion), that humor corrodes prejudice, perhaps later.

The state’s main TV network reported the subject, and was moved by its own act of having signed a joint note with the journalists’ union against the students. In the role of viewer, I am grateful but I did not ask for anything. I prefer an analytical anchor, feet on the ground.

As for the “complaint” of racism at UEPG, I am obliged to ask: was it the Ombudsman’s Office that received the screenshots? If the proceeding against the students is administrative, what was the administrative path of the complaint? Or are we dealing with a complaint seated in a morality superior to regulations?

Another aspect is the legal one. And the situation gets a bit worse. Sarney, Cardoso and Lula signed laws on the subject. In general terms, the ten “racists” of Ponta Grossa must (i) have offended an ethnic group, a race, color or religion; and (ii) have intended to offend. What was the aim of the conduct? What was the intent (dolo)?

Ponta Grossa is sick

Added to seven other agronomy students from the same university, that makes 17 people from Ponta Grossa featured in the paper for being the mouth, the arm, the leg of Paraná’s hickishness (caipirismo). I reiterate my argument that the Paraná native of this stripe is not a fascist; he is worse, he is a hick.

The hick who should be offended in these terms is not the one of “Tristeza do Jeca” (a Mazzaropi film released in 1961). Those 17 are not worthy of carrying the bags of a man of the countryside. The hick I refer to needs Bia de Luna: “The most beautiful stupidity, and ignorance by choice.”

In a social psychoanalysis, an organizational transactional analysis, in religious terms of the Christian faith, from these roles that I can occupy and do occupy, I understand that Ponta Grossa is sick.