The Geledes Black Women's Institute decided to take on one of the continent's mightiest media giants by suing TV Globo and the authors of a nov- ela called Patria Minha for racial discrimination. According to Geledes Coordinator Suely Carneiro, "the novela's white characters are diverse and com- plex while the black characters are frozen in a sin- gle stereotype-humble, defenseless and servile." In a typical episode, the novela's villain, Raul Pel- legrini, accuses Kennedy, a black adolescent gar- dener, of theft, hurling racist insults: "Negro safa- do [slimy black]...when you don't soil coming in, you soil going out...do you think you could learn anything (in school)? Don't you know your brains are different from ours?" Kennedy lowers his head, cowering in fear. When the police are summoned, Kennedy flees, fearing police violence and know- ing that justice is arbitrary. In its judicial notification-a legal instrument that gives the offending party a chance to repair the offense-Geledes applauded TV Globo's attempt to expose racism, but denounced the nov- ela's authors for clinging to "archaic" images of servile blacks: In whose interest is it for TV Globo to portray blacks as submissive, impotent and incapable of defending their rights?...An image is worth a thousand words. The cowardly and servile image of Kennedy and the lamentations of his grandmother have the same effect as the supposedly scientific demonstrations of blacks' intellectual inferiority recently released by the neo-racists from Harvard... This is an image that...stig- matizes the entire black community which for cen- turies has fought against racism, for respect, for its self-esteem, and for dignity. Along with the notification, Geledes suggested that TV Globo could avoid a court case by demon- strating in the novela how instead of remaining helpless, Kennedy could contact black-movement activists and take legal action to defend his rights. Geledes was not the only group to protest. The Research Institute for Black Culture (IPCN), the Nucleus of Black Consciousness of the University of S&o Paulo and the Black Pastorate of the Catholic Church also publicly denounced the novela. Geledes' court action was, however, widely criti- cized in the mainstream media as too radical. Nationwide, the press published rebuttals by the novela's authors and cited numerous African Brazilian activists, artists and political progressives who failed to see what the fuss was all about, especially since for the first time, a prime-time novela had portrayed how ugly overt racism really is in Brazil. The Public Relations Department of TV Globo was quick to counter-attack in the press, charging that while TV Globo was addressing the important problem of racism, it was "too bad that Geledes tried to grab the headlines, demonstrating its own racism by determining that blacks must conscien- tize Kennedy." Globo went on to claim that "to present the gardener, Kennedy, as a paradigm, reacting (to Pellegrini) in kind by repelling his aggression, might do well for the self-esteem of black audiences, but would not correspond to Brazilian reality."' One of the novela's writers also charged that reactions from the black community were imperious (prepotente), censoring his free- dom of expression. Geledes re-stated its position in a series of public interviews and published several editorials in the press. Within a few weeks, however, TV Globo's posture had changed. The network issued a press release assuring that a black character, Kennedy's godmother, would have a long talk with him to instill racial pride. One of the novela's authors pub- licly recanted: "They were valid demands which we decided to take into account." 1. Cited in Jornalda Tarde, November 10, 1994, p. 3A.
