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The coverage of the death of João Alberto Silveira Freitas, cruelly beaten by two security guards at a Carrefour store in Porto Alegre, has been the main topic of Brazilian television news since Friday (20).
As I have shown, the main newscasts of almost all the stations gave a decent treatment to the subject during prime time on Friday. They went beyond the mere recording of the news and expressed outrage at the case, underlined the cowardice of the security guards and expressed astonishment at the speech of Vice President Hamilton Mourão, who said that there is no racism in Brazil.
However, one aspect of the coverage divided the audience. The invasion and raid on some Carrefour stores were described by Globo and CNN Brazil as “vandalism”, an act of “vandals”. The words were used by William Bonner in JN, Patricia Poeta in “É de Casa”, Monalisa Perrone in CNN Brazil and on the news channel’s website.
In theory, limiting itself to what the Houassis dictionary says, for example, the terms apply. Vandalism is the “act or effect of causing damage or destruction of monuments or any public or private property; riots with violence.” Vandal is “one who spoils or destroys public property, beautiful, valuable, historical things, etc.”
The terms have, however, a pejorative meaning, associating the protest and the person who practiced them with something negative.
Diego Sarza, presenter of CNN Brazil itself, expressed his position on Twitter: “Vandalism is being afraid of being beaten, of dying because of the color of your skin. Vandalism is having fewer opportunities and so on … My solidarity with all the members of the Beto family and, by extension, all the victims of racism in Brazil. Windows return to their place. There are no lives. Night! “
The journalist Víctor Ferreira, from GloboNews, also used the dictionary to question the use of these words. In his opinion, the word “revolt” better expresses what happened. Houaiss says: “Disturbance, feeling of anger, nausea that is usually expressed in attitudes, opinions more or less aggressive; indignation, disgust”.
“Carrefour’s broken glass has much more to do with the revolt than with vandalism. Vandalism, moreover, presupposes gratuitous destruction. A drunk who drops a pay phone for sport is a vandal. Revolt, indignation, insurrection … they are something else, “Ferreira wrote on Twitter.
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