Law and Order in Postcolonial Racial Cities

Abstract

This work analyzes two class actions contesting the racial violence of Rio de Janeiro’s state police during operations in majority black neighborhoods, assessing both the narratives and social mobilization denouncing black genocide and the role of legal thinking in deviating or denying racism. The analysis of this case reveals that, on the one hand, spatial, racial and juridical structures - established by the racial colonial project and perpetuating in the legacy of racial slavery - create the conditions for genocidal acts to be produced as a long-lasting process. While on the other hand, legal knowledge sustains the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part” a specific group, which is fundamental to the crime of genocide. Considering that black genocide results from institutional racism, the conditions allowing it to happen are not just associated with intent. Black genocide is implemented through the normal functioning of justice institutions, as we discuss in the case study. In this context, black death is central to sustaining power relations, normalized by the use of racial stereotypes for the racialization of space, creating zones of dehumanization as criminality. Denialist discourses use this condition in perpetuity, to normalize genocide and extra-judicial killings. Nonetheless, the concept of institutional racism enables us to understand that genocide can also result from day-to-day decisions taken by politicians, legal professionals, and institutions.