New book: No Laughing Matter: Race Joking and Resistance in Brazilian Social Media

A new book entitled “No Laughing Matter: Race Joking and Resistance in Brazilian Social Media” has just been released. | Authored by Luiz Valério P. Trindade (Vernon Press, 2020) | https://vernonpress.com/book/861 | SUMMARY: This book examines the main ideological motivations and the embedded meaning of racist jokes on social media aimed at upwardly mobile black women. Trindade argues that “disparagement humour on social media reveals the deep-seated colonial ideologies still present in Brazilian society”. These ideologies, the author argues, “maintain white privilege while undermining black women’s upward social mobility”. Social media platforms grant these people a powerful mechanism for disseminating hate speech and attract many other like-minded users to engage in the spread of this racist rhetoric. Moreover, “social media allows for the racist discourse to be spread widely and instantaneously in the online environment and echoing for up to three years”. The consequence, Trindade says, is the amplification of the negative impacts on the life of the victims. In addition to that, the book also sheds lights on the main anti-racist discursive strategies championed mostly by black women on social media. On this aspect, the author says that “praising Afro hairstyle seems to represent one of the strongest symbols of resistance and empowerment utilised by black women to deconstruct discriminatory ideologies”. This book is of great interest to humanities and social science students and scholars but also to leaders of non-governmental organisations, human rights advocates, policymakers and educators.