Prejudice against being prejudiced: Racist speech and the specter of seditious libel in Brazil

Abstract

Race is very important in Brazil, but only because it is not supposed to be important. Brazilian conventional wisdom holds that the country is a racism-free “racial democracy,” yet the enduring presence of racism in Brazil forces the law to fight to protect the country’s racism-free image. The purpose of this article is to analyze Brazil’s laws against racist speech. The central argument is that these laws treat racist speech as an affront to Brazil’s national identity, and, therefore, these laws follow the same philosophy as seditious libel. A corollary argument is that Brazil’s laws against racist speech have the potential to chill speech — particularly speech on social media — about important matters of public concern involving race. To make these arguments, the article will provide a comparative analysis of these laws with U.S. theory and jurisprudence regarding racist speech.