Meaning effects of silences that constitute racism: the 80 shots case

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the effects of meaning of racism's constitutive silence in newspaper and magazine headlines. This discussion crosses words and, beyond its physical aspects, considers silence in its process of signification, based on history and ideology. When entering Portuguese Language classes, this proposal tends to redirect teaching situations, often centered on descriptive, mechanistic and normative approaches, sustained by a view of language that is restricted to the linguistic system, in order to move senses and destabilize them. Considering this process, the text aims: (a) to present results of an analysis that investigates the effects of meaning of silences constitutive of racism from news headlines that, on April 8, 2019, reported the murder of Evaldo Rosa, a black musician, in Guadalupe, in Rio de Janeiro; (b) to propose an approach to teaching Portuguese Language as a social and antiracist practice. To theoretically and methodologically support the analysis, the study is anchored in investigations on the forms of silence, within the scope of Discourse Analysis (ORLANDI, 2011), and in discussions on structural racism (ALMEIDA, 2019), within a decolonial perspective.