HOW TO COUNT 80 SHOTS? THE QUESTION OF THE FIRST SHOT, ACCORDING TO CLARICE LISPECTOR

Abstract

How to count violence? In 2019, members of the Armed Forces fired more than eighty shots at a family in the west zone of Rio de Janeiro, killing Evaldo Rosa and Luciano Macedo. To deal with yet another episode of police violence, many interpreters sought in the newspaper column “Mineirinho”, by Clarice Lispector, a way of making the “counting” of shots a “telling” of the history of Brazilian necropolitics. In the present article, we will continue on this basis, proposing a “jusliterary” reading of the case. Clarice’s text will serve as a starting point for a brief analysis of changes in the dynamics of police violence in Rio de Janeiro, from the Mineirinho case to Evaldo’s death. We will emphasize Clarice’s perspective of justice, that is, the way in which the author contradicted the emerging “legal sensitivity” of Brazilian society, which began to be demarcated by the dichotomy “I” versus “other”, by the opposition “worker” versus “bandit”. Seeking to deepen this alternative perspective of justice, we will delve into the issue of the first shot because, if the bandit Mineirinho died, according to Clarice, with “thirteen bullets when only one was enough”, Evaldo did not deserve to be shot with a single bullet.

Keywords

• 80 tiros
• violência policial
• clarice lispector
• jusliteratura