A percepção do racismo e suas influências na construção da identidade das mulheres negras na cidade de São Paulo

Abstract

This article is the result of scientific initiation research, which investigated how racism can influence the construction of black women's identity and what these women's perceptions are about it. Bringing the processes of identity development and seeking to relate to the experience of being black in a society that was structured in a racist way, it aims to demonstrate how structural racism crosses different factors in these women's lives and, more precisely, how it can affect their mental health and the construction of their identity. Using a qualitative methodology, bibliographical research and interviews based life history method were carried out with women residing in the city of São Paulo, where we highlighted the main themes found in each of these. We conclude that the psychosocial effects of racism can significantly harm the mental health of black women, which can influence their self-esteem, impair the development of their affective relationships and change their self-concept, their way of seeing themselves and its environment