DISCURSIVE DISPUTES ABOUT RACIAL RELATIONS IN BRAZIL AND THEIR EFFECTS ON SOCIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS

Abstract

Our purpose is to discuss how the process of racialization of the black subject in Brazil has been explained through the discourses of pacification, democracy and racial harmony. In order to evidence the existence of a narrative dispute, we bring as counterpoint, the analyses of the Brazilian black movement, especially some of the contributions of Luiz Gama, Lima Barreto, Virgínia Bicudo and Abdias Nascimento, i.e., black intellectuals of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We analyze, then, what are the effects and implications of these narratives in sociology textbooks, highlighting mainly how the debate of racial relations are approached in them, since there is a silencing of black intellectuals and their theses. Based on a bibliographic review and a documentary analysis, it was possible to observe that the didactic materials in question lack a more solid approach about the history and performance of the Brazilian black movement in the political agenda, presenting a superficial discourse on racism, having as the main thread of the debate, either presenting or criticizing, the theory of racial democracy, formulated by Gilberto Freyre.