Performing and expanding online communities:

thinking about an antiracist education in slam activities during the pandemic

Abstract

Slam das Minas RJ is a Brazilian poetry group which emerges in the public space, on the streets, and in the occupation of the city, promoting a way of public imagination from where it is possible to be read, interpreted and comprehended. During the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the group migrated from the streets to the cyberspace. Therefore, we can assume that the globalized communication through internet allowed the continuity of artistic groups, acting in social media during these years. In this essay, I present a debate on antiracist education, in which I evidence the important trajectory the Slam das Minas RJ has been treading by means of emerging black history reports. Most of the time, these stories were kept erased. In order to enrich this analysis, I also reflect on social media as an activism space, stepping into the studies of poetries published on the collective's Instagram account. These videos are related to discussions on protests encouraged by the politically pressured moment of George Floyd's death in the USA, the booming of the Black Lives Matter movement in Brasil, and debates about the necessity of protesting on the streets during the pandemic. To sum up, I present a reflection about the use of social media as a storage space to the work of Slam das Minas RJ.