“So I got nothing left to lose anymore, no, brother!”:

black youth, violence and cultural pedagogies on the G1 news portal

Abstract

In this article, the complex relationships between black youth, (in)visibility and violence are explored, focusing on the possible reverberations of these contexts in the formation of identities. To do this, we rely on the post-structuralist theoretical scope of Cultural Studies, taking the concepts of black youth, necropolitics and violence as tools through which we seek to better understand these intersections. The objective is to understand how the precariousness of space, the constant coexistence with fear and police action shape the identities of these young people in a unique way. To this end, the theoretical-methodological contributions of authors such as Fischer (1997), Hall (2008), Woodward (2008), Mbembe (2013), Camozzato and Costa (2013) are central. The analytical material considered eight reports from the G1 news portal, produced between June 2010 and August 2019, covering the episode of the hijacking of bus 174, which occurred in 2000, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, having been widely publicized in the by the media. The results highlight aspects of a society that supports the death of the black other as something banal, spinning the cycle of structural racism and police violence that routinely affects these bodies.

Keywords: Black youth(s). Violence. Media. Cultural Studies.