Between Invisibility, ‘Discursive Whitening’ and Hypersexualization: ‘Controlling Images’ Over the Term Black and Its Place in Enunciation

Abstract

Based on the statements that (1) the word in interaction manifests itself as an ideological sign, oriented to a precise social audience, circumscribed in a given historical time; (2) that race is a language and (3) that geographic displacement involves a clash between different systems of meaning, I interpret data from the cultural translation process for the term black [negro, in Portuguese], based on the enunciations of two Portuguese language learners in a course for immigrant mothers held in Southern Brazil. The data presented were generated as part of an ongoing ethnographic investigation.1 The discussion points to controlling images that persist in the social imaginary from effacement procedures, discursive whitening and hypersexualization of the term negro [black]. Data also reveals that the processes of attributing meanings around race are in full dispute in the current socio-historical context.