Insisting on Her Rights : and Other Afro-Brazilian Repertoires of Resisting Everyday Grey Racism

This paper, the first sociolegal study of the evolving nature of racial discrimination disputes in Brazil, examines the ongoing exchanges between racial domination and Afro-Brazilian resistance to racism. This paper argues that Brazilian racism as an everyday behavioural racism is fully embedded in convivial relations, that resistance to Brazilian racism is also fully embedded in convivial relations, and that the juxtaposition of the three, domination, resistance, and conviviality, have contributed to the misinterpretation of both racial domination and resistance. The paper explores the structural features of behavioural racism and borrows the notion of a grey structure of oppression that deconstructs and compromises the oppressed. It argues that this structural greyness shapes everyday resistance and constitutes a collective action problem for victims seeking to contest racism. The study presents an illustrative case of racism and resistance in which her repertoires of resistance responded to the ebb and flow of racial domination. This study shows that so-called “milder” Goffmanian repertoires of resistance have been utilized by victims who subsequently engaged in other acts of resistance that challenged racist hierarchy.