"Você nunca vai saber o que é ter o cabelo para o alto": o que dizem as professoras sobre os racismos vividos

Abstract

This research analyzes the narratives of four black teachers, here called walkers, about the racisms that have permeated their development: childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Thus, through qualitative and exploratory research, the objective was to analyze the discursive subjectivities of the walkers. Through autobiographical research, the academic trajectoy of the researcher, as well as her memories at the school institution, in order to understand the silences and invisibilities of my friends and later, of the black students. Through the dialogue with decolonial black authors and also with the tensioning narratives of the walkers, we examined: what has been the perception of four black women about this beauty pattern imposed by white hegemony on their bodies at different stages of their lives? And, as this construction was consolidated as a hegemonic pattern, with regard to beauty and aesthetics. To answer this question, full of premises, a sociological study of the concept of race was necessary, going through theories of eugenics, biological racism and critical studies of whiteness. The methodology used is the narrative, through them, in the encounter with racism in the institutions: family, school, church and work and in relationships that develop in society. It is in the encounter with the other, the white hegemony, that in their life narratives the walkers experienced in their bodies, in the color of their black skin, on thick lips and curly hair, crossroads looks of silencing and invisibility. Thus, we conclude that there is a standard of beauty imposed by white hegemony, as well as the racism placed in the walkers’ lives in the stages of human development, leaving marks, wounds and consequences that affect how they express themselves and experience their bodies and their aesthetics. Despite a recente “spistetic” turn, this pattern is still perpeatrated in society. We also point out that school is an important space in the fight against racism and it must exalt, value and make black aesthetics viable. The product of this dissertation is a book in authorized biography format, bringing a compilation with their life narratives in stories, enabling the construction of educational practices that debate the belonging of black aesthetics.