Blackness Let’s talk about it?
Brazil is a culturally very diverse country and 54% of the population is black. But its historical heritage is full of injustices toward the black people which starts at the beginning of the country's history. Today most of the poor population is black and if we look closely at the history, we will understand why.
Brazil
54%
European colonization in Latin America, speciďŹ cally in Brazil, had consequences that affected our identity, our culture and our habits. The original population was composed of Indigenous people who were murdered en masse by the colonizers. Today there are around 900.000 natives, before colonialism they were almost 7 million.
The colonizers enslaved the Indigenous people in Brazil for years, but there was an audible opposition by members of the church(es), so this practice was diminished. Instead, since 1530, the deportation of Africans to Brazil began.
This was the beginning of the so-called Atlantic Trade Triangle: metal products, alcohol, and arms to West Africa, enslaved people from Ghana, Senegal and other countries to the Americas, where they were "used" on the plantations - cotton, sugar, coffee to Europe. During the 18th century 55.000 enslaved people were deported every year, all together estimated 9 millions.
The conditions of slavery in Brazil were completely inhuman and the lifespan of an adult enslaved person was around 10 years. First, they faced the deportation from Africa to Brazil in the basement of slave ships, where many died before their arrival to Brazil.
After their arrival they were sold like any merchandise, they were forced to work for hours in the burning sun, every day, they were fed food of terrible quality, obliged to wear rags and live in 'senzalas', dark, damp locations with low hygiene, built in such a way that it prevented enslaved people from escaping.
Making mistakes was not allowed and could be penalized by painful punishments, many of them executed in public squares. Also, many deaths occurred because of these punishments. They were forbidden to profess their faith or to perform their feasts and rituals, having to do this in secret, because they were supposed to embrace the Catholic religion. Hence arises the syncretism (a mixture of the Catholic and African religions) that we see in 'CandomblĂŠ'.
They were taken from their home country and land and forced to serve white people. That meant separating mothers from their children (many of them never came back to see them again) to work in the service of the sons of farmers and take care of their children.
They have brought unique techniques from Africa to increase the production on the plantations. The wealth of the country was built by black enslaved people.
During the last period of slavery, there was a movement of people, including politicians, lawyers, doctors, journalists, artists, students, etc ., who were called abolitionists. It is important to say that the abolitionists had a great political return and visibility in society, but they had hardly ever actively involved or were in contact with the black enslaved people. They are usually presented as the heroes of abolition, like Princess Isabel, but the real heroes were others.
We, the black people, also reacted to slavery, seeking a decent life. Revolts on the huge farms were very common. And groups of enslaved people ed, forming the famous 'quilombos' in the forests. These were wellorganized communities, where the members lived in freedom, through a community organization following the life style which existed in different african societies. In the quilombos, they could practice their cultures, speak their languages and practice their religious rituals. The most famous one was the Quilombo dos Palmares, led by Zumbi, hero and symbol of black people's freedom.
During slavery Brazil also adhered to a theoretical line called Eugenics created by the Englishman Francis Galton. This theory basically afďŹ rmed that white people were intellectually superior to black people: According to that theory, the more light-skinned you are, the more developed your brain is. This theory had long-lasting consequences in people's mentality. Even in our days the darker-skinned you are, the more you risk to suffer from discrimination.
This racist ideology also led to an inux of European immigrants around 1830, because they were offered of land and access to government services such as health and education. Besides economic interests, one of the main reasons for this policy was to make the Brazilian population -that included many blacks and people of color -"whiter".
With the end of slavery in Brazil, in 1889, after almost four centuries of slave work, another great problem arose for black people. Unlike the European immigrants, black people received no support from the government once they gained their freedom. They were not paid as free workers, nor they were included in inclusion policies.
Therefore, in order to survive, they recurred to various informal activities.
It was at this point in history that the first “favelas” emerged. Improvised houses where the black people lived far from the big urban centers, without basic sanitation and in very precarious conditions.
The writer Gilberto Freire was a great collaborator of racial segregation in Brazil, because he was one of the creators of the myth of "Racial Democracy". According to this idea, that there was no racism in Brazil because we were a mixture of races. They did not mention though, that this mixture was due to the rape of black enslaved women by white men: Young masters needed to have sexual experience before getting married, while white women had to get married as virgins. That is why the masters systematically raped black enslaved women.
In the 1950s, the Brazilian sociologist Florestan Fernandes began a series of studies sponsored by the UNESCO with the goal of verifying the supposed democratic character of race relations in Brazil. These studies show that in addition to a strong racial discrimination against black people and people of color (POC), the consequences of this discrimination have an impact on the black people's place in Brazilian society yet today: the historical heritage of slavery has left black people and POC as second-category in the social context and has denied them basic rights for centuries.
He said: "[...]Brazilian society abandoned the black to their own destiny, laying on their shoulders the responsibility of re-educating and transforming themselves to correspond to the new standards and ideals of man, created by the advent of free labor, of the republican and capitalist regime."
Today, the majority of Brazil's poor population is black.
Only since 2003, during the Luíz Inácio“Lula” da Silva government, they have had some advances in social policies for the black population. One of them was the implementation of Law 10.639 / 03, which makes it compulsory to teach AfroBrazilian, African history and culture in public and private education networks.
In the city of Porto Alegre, (where I live) some social initiatives also had a direct and indirect impact on poor and black populations. It is worth mentioning two of them:
The World Social Forum was an international event organized by social movements from many continents in order to develop alternatives for a global social transformation. Its slogan was "Another world is possible".
And the Participatory Budget that empowered poor communities to tell the government what improvements should be made in regions of the city that were most in need.
The creation of quotas for black people in universities is also a device that tries to reduce the inequalities practiced for centuries. The interesting thing about this initiative is that we are questioning the academic programs and, little by little, transforming the Eurocentric model of education.
This also helped the access to jobs for black people that were traditionally occupied by white people.
The concept of beauty in Brazilian advertising is also changing and including black people in their campaigns, magazines and other products. But many pieces still avoid showing a genuine black beauty. For example, this edition of the Brazilian Vogue Magazine shows a black beauty, but with almost white facial features.
The black women's movement also has an important role in the discussions about 'Negritude' (Blackness and culture of black people). They have set feminist issues to think over citizenship in a more democratic way.
The Historian Sueli Carneiro is an important figure in this movement; she has a PhD in History from the University of São Paulo and is the foundress of Géledes – Instituto da Mulher Negra (Institute of Black Women).
To conclude, we still need to make much progress on racial issues in Brazil through honest education and equal opportunities. In this moment, in our country, we are going through a period where these ideals are menaced by a wave of anti-democratic politics that threatens our conquests. But we will resist and education is undoubtedly one of the most important means of raising awareness and stimulating the self-esteem of the black population that for many years has been invisible.
END Perseu Pereira Porto Alegre - Brazil