The difficulties of the brazilian black body being a “victim”

an analysis of the engineering of racial terror through the theoretical lens of de(s)colonial and critical victimology

Abstract

Violence only raises awareness when it causes social commotion or when the media promotes this awareness, otherwise, the pain of certain groups, especially the black Brazilian body, does not cause any social impact. In critical studies of victimology, it is presented what requirements the subject needs to bear in order to be considered a victim. When this study is mainly confronted with the historical context experienced in Brazil during the period of slavery, where black bodies were treated as objects and animalized, even after more than 130 years have passed since the abolition of slavery (1888), black pain does not sensitize the society. Faced with such assumptions, the question is: what is the difficulty(s) for the black body to be considered a victim in Brazil? The answer to this research problem will be given by the deductive method, starting from pre-established premises, seeking to verify their connections, such as, for example, analyzing the concept of victim for victimology, in particular emphasizing what refers to the body black as a victim. Using the technique of bibliographical research, the theory of the ideal victim will be analyzed in confrontation with the perspective of (s)colonial and critical victimology. This research has as its general objective to analyze the difficulties of the black body being considered a victim in Brazil and as specific objectives, to describe the concept of ideal victim and to analyze this relationship with the de(s)colonial bias. As a result, even after the abolition of slavery in Brazil, black pain is not socially sensitive, this is due to the fact that racialized bodies still suffer from the effects of objectification to the present day, making it difficult for them to be considered victims, both socially and through the criminal justice system.