Black Lives Matter in Brazil: Police killed 28 people in a Rio de Janeiro Favela
Anti-Black police violence in Rio de Janeiro continues unabated. One policeman was killed.
More than 250 policemen invaded the Rio de Janeiro favela community of Jacarezinho last Thursday. Over the course of three hours, 29 people were killed, including one policeman. Based on released photos, all were Black men. Brazilians are calling this the most lethal police-involved massacre in the history of Rio de Janeiro. The operation itself, is not unusual. In recent years, Rio's police have often invaded communities, killing whoever they thought might be involved in drug trafficking (note: the biggest drug traffickers don't live in favelas). This made Rio de Janeiro the most lethal police force possibly in the world: almost 2,000 people were killed at their hands in 2019.
I encourage you to go back to this newsletter article where I break down Brazil's Black Lives Matter movement and how it has been fighting against this Black genocide for the last four decades.
Here are a few English articles that explained what happened:
Stop Killing Us! Jacarezinho Experiences Worst Massacre in Rio History #VoicesFromSocialMedia
Deadly Police Raid is a reminder of the terror that Rio de Janeiro residents face - Washington Post
Video: Deadliest police raid in Rio de Janeiro history - The Intercept
How the Brazil's top law school violated the body of a black woman for 30 years, by Ponte on April 9:
Jacinta Maria de Santana had her body embalmed, exposed as scientific curiosity and used in student prank calls at Largo São Francisco—the site of the University of São Paulo law school. And the person who led this wicked experiment, Amâncio de Carvalho, is now the name of a street and a room at University of São Paulo (USP).
Art: Paulo Bruno/Ponte.
Jacinta Maria de Santana felt bad. She was a poor woman, without a fixed occupation and used to roaming the center of the São Paulo capital. Familiarity with the region, however, would not mitigate the misfortunes reserved for it that Monday morning, November 26, 1900.
Jacinta was breathing hard. His abdomen felt heavier and heavier. Astonished and nauseated, she fell at the beginning of Rua Dutra Rodrigues, seven hundred meters from Estação da Luz.
Employees are forced to stay at their employers 'as long as the pandemic lasts', by Correio 24 horas on April 10:
For some maids in Brazil, the pandemic has meant that they have been confined to their bosses’ house for the entirety of the pandemic.
In the Union of Domestic Maids of Bahia, in the neighborhood of the Federation, there is a notebook in which the requests for help from employees confined to work are noted. There are already 28 of them. But these numbers don't reveal the true number of those who are scared to report their situations. This article in a Bahian newspaper explains the sad situation that many maids are facing in Brazil.
What is genocide - and the forms it takes in Brazil, by Ponte on April 2:
When I first arrived in Brazil in 2015, I was struck by the ease in which Black activists used the term genocide. I'm pretty sure my eyes bucked when I heard the term. The only genocides I had heard of was that of European jews during World War II and the Armenian genocide that happened in the early 20th century. In a previous newsletter, I explained how Brazil's fight against anti-black police violence is generally referred to as the Movement Against Black Genocide.
Today, many Brazilians, white and Black, are starting to refer to Bolsonaro's poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as a genocide. Bolsonaro
Researchers answer how the concept came about, the political disputes that exist about the term and how black intellectuals have been using this idea for decades to explain Brazil. Demonstrations denouncing the Federal Government's policy regarding the treatment of Covid-19, using the words “genocide” and “genocide” are becoming more and more frequent in Brazil.
Dancer/choreographer Ismael Ivo: The ebony god that Brazil didn’t know and the world revered dies from complications of Covid-19, by Black Brazil Today:
São Paulo dancer and choreographer Ismael Ivo, a reference in contemporary dance, died in March at the age of 66 from complications of Covid-19.
Brazilians lost almost 2 years of life expectancy in the pandemic, and 2021 will likely be worse, says demographer from Harvard, by Correio Braziliense on April 14:
Brazilians lost almost two years of life expectancy in 2020 because of the covid-19 pandemic. On average, babies born in Brazil in 2020 will live 1.94 years less than one would expect without the current health situation in the country. That is, 74.8 years instead of the previously projected 76.7 years of life.
I want to see this number broken down by race, socioeconomic factors and regions. I just know the disparities will be great.
Realizing Anti-Racist Education in Favelas: Affirmative Action through College Prep [PODCAST], by Rioonwatch:
This article is the latest contribution to our year-long reporting project, “Rooting Anti-Racism in the Favelas: Deconstructing Social Narratives About Racism in Rio de Janeiro.” Follow our Rooting Anti-Racism in the Favelas series here.
The idea of Brazil’s Black Movement, of supporting socially disadvantaged groups’ access to Brazil’s elite universities by providing free college entrance exam preparatory courses dates back to the 1970s. In the 1980s, more courses were created, but it was only in the subsequent decade that a mass diffusion of this practice took place. The most considerable expression of this was the Preparatory Course for Blacks and the Needy (PVNC), owing to the number of centers created and due to its seminal nature. According to professor Renato Emerson (IPPUR/UFRJ), PVNC constituted a network of over 70 courses in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region.
Culture
10) Back to the roots: Quilombola travel in Brazil and West Africa, by Tandfonline:
In the African Diaspora, travel remains an integral component of diasporic exchange and aspirations of belonging. For many, visiting continental Africa or segments of its Diaspora can foster or strengthen self-recognition and narrative ownership. In this article, we examine how these potential outcomes related to different forms of Quilombola travel, such as transatlantic return (Quilombolas travelling to Africa) and destination-making (Quilombos as travel destinations).
On April 7th, one of Brazil’s most beloved humorists, Mussum, would have turned 80; musician’s life and career symbolize changing attitudes on race in Brazil, by Black Brazil Today:
I can’t say for sure when I became aware of the late, great Mussum as a comic figure. I was familiar with him through his music, well, to be more specific, the music of his group Os Originais do Samba, meaning the originals of samba. If you like Brazilian samba, you have to know at least a few of their songs, as they were one of the genre’s most popular groups from the their beginnings in the 1960s up to the mid-90s.
Photo: Black Brazil Today.
In fact, I can’t diminish Mussum’s accomplishments. As a poor, dark-skinned black man in Brazil, he managed to make it in music, television and film and become one of the most famous personalities in Brazil’s history. On the other hand, his image and success also makes me wonder what it says about Brazil that a black man reached such levels of fame by playing on the very stereotypes Brazilians had about black men.
After a year apart, the Afro-Brazilian musicians Larissa Luz, Luedji Luna and Xenia França are looking forward to a reunion, by NY Times Magazine:
Photo: Reproduction/TMagazine.
Brazil has experienced the pandemic in a very extreme way, which has amplified the inequalities that have always existed here. People have become much more conscious, and I think the past year showed people that the only way the world changes is when people change.
Larissa, Luedji and I all have careers, we all have our goals and objectives — it could’ve made it difficult to maintain our friendship. But to see other Black women shining: That inspires my whole life, not just my art. When it’s safe again, I’m excited to get back to crossing paths backstage, having lunches and celebrating Luedji’s little baby.