Is racism (just) a lack of information?

paths between information and disinformation

Abstract

Information, understood as a social construction, is permeated by intentions and power relations, which ends up deconstructing the idea of ​​neutrality or impartiality attributed to it. Then, the concern arises to investigate the informational dynamics that pierces ethnic-racial relations, in the sense of understanding their role in the emancipation and colonization of these subjects, especially blacks. The objective was to reflect on whether information and misinformation - understood here as nuances of the same phenomenon - are contributing to the representation of blacks in our society being stereotyped and misleading, and whether this alone would be enough to feed racism and the condition of subordination that is imposed on them. We also tried to point out the contributions that the informational field has made to the struggle of these subjects. The considerations of this research are developed from a bibliographic approach on the themes: information, disinformation, coloniality and decolonization, everyday racism and ethnic-racial information. It is concluded that, although information and disinformation are fundamental tools for the maintenance of inequalities and oppression, only their use cannot be held responsible for racism, however, they are used to perpetuate it. Conversely, the production of content that meets normative information is a way of deconstructing the structural and structuring narratives of coloniality.