“Housemaids in Disney?” Dissecting Racist Convivial Humour in Brazil

Brazilians like to make brincadeiras (jokes) about everything, and these brincadeiras often reveal the contradictions and tensions of the particular ways in which Brazilians behave toward social difference. This article revolves around a remark made by a public figure about domestic workers and the organized resistance of antiracism activists and allies, with a focus on Benedita da Silva, a Black Brazilian politician who called out the racism deeply imbued in the remark. This study is rooted in my observations of the contemporary cultural and historical contexts, publications on Brazilian domestic workers, my research on the recent antiracist movement in Brazil, and equally so in a linguistic anthropological approach to discourse. I demonstrate that, armed with the language of antiracism, Brazilians increasingly metadiscursively dissect convivial humour in Brazil in terms of how it enables racist discourse among Brazilians.