O PERFIL ÉTNICO-RACIAL NAS HISTÓRIAS EM QUADRINHOS DE MAURÍCIO DE SOUSA: Uma reflexão sobre o personagem Jeremias

Abstract

This study aims to analyze how ethnic-racial relations are presented in the Comics (C) by Maurício de Sousa, based on one of the first black characters to appear in Brazilian comic books: Jeremias. For this purpose, some comics were selected in order to outline the character profile regarding to the narrative constructed throughout history about Africa and the condition of black people in Brazil. This reflection is guided by a qualitative and Afro-centered methodology in which contemporary, social, pedagogical and linguistic studies are relevant and potentiating in the destabilization of hegemonic discourses repeated as official “truths” in the school context (MUNANGA, 2005, 1999; MOURA, 2005). They are also present outside of school context in the analysis of the statements, those said and not said, of discursive formations (FOUCAULT, 2008; ORLANDI, 2003) available in productions that instruct and participate in the construction of cultural identities and the subject's symbolic imaginary; agencies or their opposite that is granted to black Africans and Afro-descendants (ASANTE, 2009). Finally, the analysis of some statements from edition “A prince who came from Africa”, by Maurício de Sousa, has showed the presence of biased and stigmatized conceptions in the treatment of ethnic-racial issue, observing that black lives are targets of “ achievement”, if possible benefits in their talents and skills are evidenced; and of annihilation, when one does not invest in equitable educational policies, in social projects that minimize the asymmetries established in the process of enslaving,  through the “liberation” of enslaved people untill current days.