Violence against blacks in Brazil: will the pot of racism explode?
Demonstration after the murder of 24-year-old Congolese refugee Moise Kabagambe at the site of his death in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on February 5, 2022. AFP - CARL DE SOUZA
Text by: Martin Bernard
5 mins
The multiplication of assassinations of blacks led a leader of the Afro-Brazilian community to issue such a warning.
The images of the beating to death of a young Congolese refugee at the beginning of the year, in Brazil, went around the world.
And many other non-white people regularly suffer a similar fate.
In this context, some wonder if a revolt movement similar to those that we see periodically in the United States could emerge.
Advertising
Read more
Moïse, Durval, Beto… The impressive series of assassinations of blacks in recent weeks has reinforced the feeling of revolt on the part of the Brazilian population.
In any case, the motives for the violence seem trivial: an immigrant beaten to death after demanding money from his boss in a bar on the beach in Rio, a Brazilian riddled with bullets by a neighbor (marine sergeant) who took him for a thief, also in Rio, or even a supermarket customer suffocated by security guards after an argument in Porto Alegre, in the south of the country… Shocking scenes, often broadcast in a loop on television, which aroused a wave of indignation further fueled by the frequent killing sprees of the police in the favelas, where the victims are, again, most often black.
The death of young African refugee Moïse Mugenyi Kabagambe in January sparked
a series of protests in Rio
and several major cities across the country.
“
This Congolese arrived in Brazil when he was still a child.
Kabagambe fled the wars of his country to succumb to the daily war that the black population endures in Brazil
”, explains Preto Zezé, leader of the Unique Central of Favelas (CUFA), one of the largest NGOs of the Afro-African community. Brazilian, in an op-ed published in the daily
Folha de São Paulo
.
Four men beat him up and murdered him in broad daylight, in front of witnesses and surveillance cameras.
“
We have the impression that they were letting off steam, giving free rein to their rage
“, testifies the prosecutor Roberto Livianu, president of the association “
I do not accept corruption
”, seeing the images of the four men who beat the 24-year-old to death.
Preto Zezé explains that racism has long been trivialized in Brazil, or even purely and simply denied (through a form of “cordial racism”).
But things may be changing, he says.
And the black community would no longer be ready to let it go.
“
In the popular imagination, the Black is perceived as dangerous,
testifies the leader of the Brazilian black community.
Traces of Brazilian racism permeate all social, economic and institutional relations.
This pushes us towards a dilemma: either Brazil manages to establish a pact of coexistence and inclusion for all, or all this will explode.
".
However, it is clear that the demonstrations after the murders of blacks have so far been largely peaceful.
After the death of João Alberto Freitas (known as "Beto", the supermarket customer killed by security guards in a Carrefour hypermarket), a few store windows were smashed and some Black Rights Coalition demonstrators exhibited a bloody Carrefour logo, but there was no physical violence.
Similarly, the mobilization in favor of the family of the young 24-year-old Congolese did not experience excesses and proved to be rather ephemeral.
However, the black community, which is itself the greatest victim of social inequalities, finds itself facing a borderline situation, says Preto Zezé.
“
Either we start sharing wealth and opportunities, or tragedy will blow the pot
,” he says.
Unlikely uprising?
“
I have heard this many times over the past 40 years, but it has never happened
”, tempers Luis Eduardo Soares.
According to this former public security secretary of ex-president Lula, experience has shown that whatever the scale of the tragedy that has struck the black population (mainly young people) since the 1990s, the demonstrations have proved to be limited to small groups, and were ephemeral.
Disproportionate to what we can see in the United States, as the day after the death of George Floyd, asphyxiated in Cincinnati in circumstances similar to that of "Beto" Freitas.
He sees several causes.
Safe, first: "
Police repression is much more violent in Brazil and impunity is often the rule, which opens the way to more police brutality
," he says.
Economic, then: the succession of crises which strike Brazil has sown chaos in the favelas, where the inhabitants must fight to make ends meet, which makes any mobilization more difficult, estimates Luis Eduardo Soares.
Without taking into account the additional challenge posed by the armed gangs which control many districts of the big cities and which subject the population to “
a double tyranny
”, assures the former secretary.
Hence the difficulty in mobilizing a larger part of the population beyond a certain clamor.
for justice
" after the series of assassinations perpetrated against black people.
“
Is there a greater chance of rebellion today?
History shows that this is not the case
”, slice Luis Eduardo Soares.
"
There is no tradition of fighting for civil rights
," adds Roberto Livianu.
There is no such deep sense of citizenship as in the United States.
This is changing, but slowly.
It's a bit of a reflection of our education deficit,
" he says.
With the approach of the legislative and presidential elections in October, racial questions are hardly addressed in the political debate, remarks Luis Eduardo Soares.
" The
[black]
movement may be
gaining a little more momentum this year, but it's not going much further than the leaders of the black movement,
" he said.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_EN
Brazil
Racism
our selection