The Geledes Black Women’s Institute decided to
take on one of the continent’s mightiest media
giants by suing TV Globo and the authors of a nov-
ela called Patria Minha for racial discrimination.
According to Geledes Coordinator Suely Carneiro,
“the novela’s white characters are diverse and com-
plex while the black characters are frozen in a sin-
gle stereotype-humble, defenseless and servile.”
In a typical episode, the novela’s villain, Raul Pel-
legrini, accuses Kennedy, a black adolescent gar-
dener, of theft, hurling racist insults: “Negro safa-
do [slimy black]…when you don’t soil coming in,
you soil going out…do you think you could learn
anything (in school)? Don’t you know your brains
are different from ours?” Kennedy lowers his head,
cowering in fear. When the police are summoned,
Kennedy flees, fearing police violence and know-
ing that justice is arbitrary.
In its judicial notification-a legal instrument
that gives the offending party a chance to repair
the offense-Geledes applauded TV Globo’s
attempt to expose racism, but denounced the nov-
ela’s authors for clinging to “archaic” images of
servile blacks:
In whose interest is it for TV Globo to portray blacks
as submissive, impotent and incapable of defending
their rights?…An image is worth a thousand words.
The cowardly and servile image of Kennedy and the
lamentations of his grandmother have the same
effect as the supposedly scientific demonstrations of
blacks’ intellectual inferiority recently released by the
neo-racists from Harvard… This is an image that…stig-
matizes the entire black community which for cen-
turies has fought against racism, for respect, for its
self-esteem, and for dignity.
Along with the notification, Geledes suggested
that TV Globo could avoid a court case by demon-
strating in the novela how instead of remaining
helpless, Kennedy could contact black-movement
activists and take legal action to defend his rights.
Geledes was not the only group to protest. The
Research Institute for Black Culture (IPCN), the
Nucleus of Black Consciousness of the University of
S&o Paulo and the Black Pastorate of the Catholic
Church also publicly denounced the novela.
Geledes’ court action was, however, widely criti-
cized in the mainstream media as too radical.
Nationwide, the press published rebuttals by the
novela’s authors and cited numerous African
Brazilian activists, artists and political progressives
who failed to see what the fuss was all about,
especially since for the first time, a prime-time
novela had portrayed how ugly overt racism really
is in Brazil.
The Public Relations Department of TV Globo
was quick to counter-attack in the press, charging
that while TV Globo was addressing the important
problem of racism, it was “too bad that Geledes
tried to grab the headlines, demonstrating its own
racism by determining that blacks must conscien-
tize Kennedy.” Globo went on to claim that “to
present the gardener, Kennedy, as a paradigm,
reacting (to Pellegrini) in kind by repelling his
aggression, might do well for the self-esteem of
black audiences, but would not correspond to
Brazilian reality.”‘ One of the novela’s writers also
charged that reactions from the black community
were imperious (prepotente), censoring his free-
dom of expression.
Geledes re-stated its position in a series of public
interviews and published several editorials in the
press. Within a few weeks, however, TV Globo’s
posture had changed. The network issued a press
release assuring that a black character, Kennedy’s
godmother, would have a long talk with him to
instill racial pride. One of the novela’s authors pub-
licly recanted: “They were valid demands which we
decided to take into account.”
1. Cited in Jornalda Tarde, November 10, 1994, p. 3A.
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