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RIO and BRASÍLIA – Not to mention the death of João Alberto Silveira Freitas, a 40-year-old black man beaten and suffocated on Thursday at a Carrefour unit in Porto Alegre (RS), President Jair Bolsonaro said at the G-20 summit. , made by videoconference this Saturday, that racial tensions are alien to the history of Brazil and that there is a political movement to “destroy” diversity and divide Brazilians. Earlier on Twitter, the president had said that the country has more complex problems than race problems. The statements provoked the reaction of representatives of entities and the political world.
At the beginning of his speech to the leaders of the world’s richest economies, Bolsonaro took a position:
– Before going into the main topic of this session, I want to make a quick defense of the Brazilian national character in the face of attempts to import tensions foreign to our history into our territory. Brazil has a diverse culture, unique among nations. We are a mestizo people – said Bolsonaro.
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He continued, arguing that the country’s diversity “won the favor of the world”:
– However, there are those who want to destroy it (diversity), and put conflict, resentment, hatred and the division between races in its place, always masquerading as “fighting for equality” or “social justice”. All in search of power.
At the G-20, Bolsonaro also said that, “as a man and as president,” he sees all Brazilians with the colors “green and yellow” and that “there is no better skin color than the others.” According to him, there are “good men and bad men.”
– And it is our choices and values that will determine which of us we will be. Those who incite the people to discord, fabricating and promoting conflicts, attack not only the nation, but our own history.
On social media, Bolsonaro wrote: “We are far from perfect. We have our problems, problems that are much more complex and that go beyond racial issues. The country’s greatest evil continues to be moral, political and economic corruption. Those who deny this fact help to perpetuate it. “
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Bolsonaro’s statements resonated among entities, politicians and society. Historian and anthropologist Lilia Schwarcz says she is impressed with “how this government wants to re-found the ‘myth of Brazilian racial democracy’, which should already be buried and extinct”:
– This was a model created in the 1930s and highly stimulated during the military dictatorship, which produced a lot of cultural, political and social blindness, because it prevented Brazilians from recognizing how racism is part and is intricately complex in our structural and institutional relationships . – said the anthropologist. – Official data show the existence of a black genocide in Brazil. The president’s famous denial, on the other hand, is not a sign of “freedom,” but of a profound lack of respect for the murder of his black citizens.
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Former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said on Twitter that he added his voice “that of those who protest the violence that caused the death of a man, Brazilian and black”:
“I know that racism and prejudice against blacks are strong in our culture. It is up to everyone to fight them. Especially to the leaders and those who know our reality. Enough!”
Deputy Benedita da Silva (PT-RJ) said on Twitter that “racial issues are not alien to our country, which kept blacks as slaves for 388 years and, even after the abolition, racial inequalities continued” .
Alessandro Molon, federal deputy (PSB-RJ), criticized those who deny the existence of racism and affirmed that “that is what Bolsonaro does.”
“Denying racism only reinforces it and condemns the country to continue to suffer its dire consequences. That’s what Bolsonaro does: he helps perpetuate injustices. The opposite of what you should do, ”he posted on Twitter.
‘Nonsense sequence’
The president of the National Truth Commission on Black Slavery of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association, Humberto Adami, says that Bolsonaro’s speech shows that he does not know the population of Brazil:
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– It’s a narrow and absurd idea. The statement embodies a racism that stems from black slavery in Brazil.
The artist Nuno Ramos, for his part, said that with his “sequence of nonsense” the president made a “stimulus and a defense of this barbarism” which was the death of João Alberto.
– Our president is not only a denier of climate or racial problems, he is an active and permanent stimulator of racism and environmental destruction – he criticized.
For his part, Thiago Amparo, professor of International Law and Human Rights at FGV Direito SP, assures that the statements “are typical of those who live in a parallel reality and praise ignorance.”
– In addition, by not showing solidarity with the family of João Alberto, either on Twitter or in the international forum of the G-20, he does not respect the decorum expected of the office of President of the Republic – he says.
The American movement Black Lives Importam also published a post on Twitter in support of the Brazilian protesters. “Let’s defend our family in Nigeria, let’s do the same for our black brothers in Brazil!” The group republished a series of publications from the Movimento Vidas Negras, which also offered solidarity to Brazilians.
