The Unmarked Whiteness of Brazilian Linguistics: From Black‐as‐Theme to Black‐as‐Life

Abstract

The racist ideology of traditional, ruling‐class Brazilian nationalism, which denies the existence of racial divisions, is inherently anti‐Black. For example, in 2020 the Federal Government of Brazil revoked affirmative action programs for graduate degrees in universities. These anti‐black ideologies also influence linguistics in Brazil. In the twenty‐first century, one of the high‐profile representatives of this initiative is the Educated Urban Linguistic Norm Project that chose the urban speaker, who is mostly white, as the norm for all the speakers. Similarly, a series of daily online lectures hosted by ABRALIN, the national professional association for linguistics, beginning in May 2020, was without Black Brazilian speakers over the first month and a half of the schedule. In this work we seek to provoke discussions towards rethinking the role of whiteness in Brazilian linguistics moving from the Black‐as‐theme to Black‐as‐life framework.