‘Instead of Trying to Help You, They Try to Screw You’: The Feeling of Certainty and the Mexican-Origin Border Patrol Agents

Abstract

In this chapter I argue that the phenomenon of discrimination and prejudice between members of the same ethnic group can be understood as the manifestation of the need for certainty. In particular, I argue that this can be understood as the manifestation of the need to expel unconscious and unwanted feelings, wishes and thoughts by projecting them upon others. I apply Karl Figlio’s psychoanalytic account of certainty to different case studies of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants who claim that the Mexican-origin Border Patrol agents lack ‘ethnic solidarity’ and are harsher than white agents. Although Figlio’s theory makes sense of the unjustified certainty displayed here, it runs aground if the choice of the specific target of the projection is sought. I propose to answer this problem with the help of Fakhry Davids’ psychoanalytic approach to Franz Fanon’s ‘black problem’. Namely, I argue that it is only once the postcolonial context is brought into view that the role of the self-hatred of dark skin allows us to see that it is the Mexican-origin Border Patrol agents that provide the clear opportunity to project unwanted (and possibly unconscious) feelings about Mexican identity (as opposed to the white Border Patrol agents).