Ministry advises avoiding “dark humor” and “things are black”, against racism

The Ministry of Health decided to adopt the same line of argument as Anielle Franco, Minister of Racial Equality, and promoted an internal campaign against alleged racist terms. The advertising pieces distributed to employees by the Ministry of Health state that expressions such as “things are black”, “denigrate”, “clarify”, “dark humor”, “bad hair” and “I’m not like your denies!” must be avoided. The guidelines were released to celebrate Black Awareness Day, celebrated on November 20th.

Based on the materials, the expression “dark humor” can “embed a prejudiced idea, as it associates something outside the norm of normality, including with black people”. The text suggests replacing “black humor” with “acid humor”. “Things are bad” would be a way of associating “black people with bad things”, and should be replaced with “things are complicated” or “the case is complex” or even “the situation is difficult”.

“Clarifying” would be racist because it “conveys the idea that understanding something occurs under clarity, keeping dark things in the field of doubt and ignorance”. The text suggests changing the verb to “explain” or “elucidate”.

Campaigns against alleged racism in language are not exclusive to the Executive Branch. The Superior Electoral Court has also instructed its employees not to adopt similar terms. In November 2022, the organization launched a booklet entitled “Racist expressions: why avoid them”.

The Federal Supreme Court began judging an action against “structural and institutional racism”. If the decision is favorable, public bodies must prioritize black movement agendas in their management and allocate budget to the cause. The PT was responsible for the action. Among the party’s requests, even private companies may be forced to recognize and adopt measures to combat institutional racism.