Altman's commentary challenged this author on both a personal and a theoretical level. On a personal level, she was encouraged to explore her knowing at one moment but not knowing at another, her own self-interest in the position of beneficiary. Thus, the mechanism of disavowal that underpins liberal racism was revisited in a more clinically oriented manner. On a theoretical level, Altman's response invited a more refined exploration of liberal racism as it differs from blatant racism. It also facilitated a more nuanced application of Lacanian and Kleinian theory to this matter.
What happens when governments, institutions, or associations betray our most cherished values and ideals? Through the tropes of melancholia, perversion, and the fetish, this paper examines the complex reactions that such a betrayal may elicit. The author argues that betrayal evokes shame and guilt by association, and that it also engenders the complicated form of mourning implicated in melancholia. A person may disavow the betrayal itself in order to deal with these painful reactions. This disavowal may then become stabilized via the use of the fetish in its various forms (e.g., the commodity fetish, the body fetish, and the fantasy fetish). This has perverse consequences, including subtle enactments of racism and other forms of marginalization and exclusion of Otherness.