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The black body lying on the ground has a name and a face, João Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40 years old. The black body lying on the ground is called Beto, a nickname he received from his godmother when he was an old man. The black body lying on the floor of the Carrefour supermarket in Porto Alegre leaves behind a woman, Milena Borges Alves, who had loved her very much. He was playful, he loved his cat, which he adopted from the street and from which he did not let go. Beto loved the São José soccer team.
I wanted to start this text with your life, Beto, not with your death.
Beto, the human being behind the black body lying on the ground, is being beaten to death by security guards Magno Braz Borges and Giovane Gaspar da Silva. There, next to this scene, people are filming lynching entertainment, the ultimate catharsis of racial violence that characterizes us as a country.
It takes a whole country, a denial of its own racism, to defeat a black man.
João Alberto dies twice: from the brutal beating that victimized him and from the pen and the word of those who could do him justice and do not do it. For a black man to be beaten to death, it takes a justice system that is actively acting to close its eyes to racism.
It was not racism, said the Porto Alegre Homicide Police. From the highest of his authority, the delegate doctor is wrong. It must be said that its authority comes from the law and the law says otherwise. The case must be investigated as a crime of homicide combined with a crime of racism. You don’t see young white men beaten to death. The act itself brings with it the racist hatred that the law punishes as a crime.
For a black man to be beaten to death, an entire country is needed to observe the scene and do nothing. All the people who witnessed Beto’s beating must be investigated for the crime of non-attendance. And his executioners must be sentenced to compensate the family, “taking into account the probable duration of the victim’s life” (art. 948, Civil Code).
Stop the machines that write notes of repudiation, the hour of justice and not of regret is urgent. When Vice President Hamilton Mourão says there is no racism, he shows us that racism still exists. The vice president has a history of racist phrases. In 2018, he linked Indians with “indolence” and blacks with “deception.” He has already praised his grandson for the “brachialism of the race.” Considering the vice president of the republic as moderate normalizes the fact that Mourão regurgitates racism whenever he can.
Beto, your body lying on the ground should make an entire nation stop for a second and look in the mirror. Maia and Alcolumbre, replace their repudiation with concrete actions: they initiate a CPI investigation into torture and death in commercial establishments, including supermarkets, and review the corporate responsibility of the contractors. Federal agencies, such as the Federal Public Ministry and the Federal Police, must investigate private security in the country.
From the company, the minimum that is expected is that it assumes its responsibility. The event happened in his dependence on his agents. The person responsible may be the owner of the establishment regardless of fault, given the risk suffered by black people in their establishment (art. 14, Consumer Protection Code). The liable party may be the company in class action to restructure its practices, including civil liability to pay class damages.
Until when will the black bodies be destroyed with impunity? Two years ago, Fábio Rodrigo Hermenegildo was gagged with a nylon rope in a supermarket and beaten with a broom. In August 2019, a 17-year-old teenager was tortured accused of stealing a chocolate in a Ricoy supermarket in São Paulo. Exactly 326 years ago, Zumbi dos Palmares was killed, ambushed and murdered on November 20.
“Be careful, it doesn’t fly so close to the sun. They will not see you free, “Emicida wrote in Ismalia. A black body cannot be free to live in a country entertained by a new black death every 21 minutes. Turn your repudiation into justice.
