The Black Movement in Brazil

Remember Tiago, the young kid I told you I met at the environment program I went to a couple weeks back?(If not flip´back a few posts) Well he hit me up with this message this weekend:

´Entrei em contato com o lider do movimento do povo Negro do Espirito Santo.
ele esta esperrando eu marca uma reunião coom vocs e eles bom espero que voces
entre em contato.

me passe seu fone´

My poor gringo tranlsation:

I made contact with the leader of the black movement of Espirto Santo. He is waiting for me to mark a day for a meeting with you guys and they cant wait to meet you.

Send me your number.

Crazy excited yall! Seek and you shall find. So I did a little research so as to not be entirely in the dark about the movement when we meet these guys. I had no idea how connected Raybans was with these social movements. Im folowing the blog, actually, for this movement so check the sidelink if you wanna check it out(go to google translator to read some of the speeches, it translates a little better than I thought it would.) The leadership is intellectually powerful, the words and metaphors provoked to describe Lulas new Estatuto de Promoção da Igualdade Racial(A bill on racial equality), is reminiscent of America civil rights movement and black consciousness in South Africa. All in all, Im feeling it. Theres an energy there, check this out:

Os anos pós-Abolição; com o subemprego, a favelização, o preconceito aonde chegava em razão da cor de sua pele e a discriminação racial que sofria ao bater as portas do mercado de trabalho, mostrou à negrada a outra face - a verdadeira se alguém tem dúvida - daquela “lei redentora” e dissipou suas esperanças de uma vida melhor como emancipada, até porque, as novas relações de trabalho “estranhamente” o único beneficiado era o branco, o imigrante europeu.

'The years after abolition, with underemployment, the shanytowns, the prejudice where the bias existed because of his skin color and racial discrimination that he suffered while hitting the doors of the labor market, demonstrated to the negro the other face-the truth if anyone has any doubt-that the ´law of redemption`(abolition) dispelled his hopes of a betetr life after emancipation,because the new working relationships ´strangely´ only benefitted the white European immigrants.´

Wowwow, what does this sound like yo? Thas some Frederich Douglass, James Baldwin, Steven Biko shit! If for nothing more than, this literature, Im hooked. These are some strong words, blantantly evoking the history of slavery to addrress current inequities-a feat most moderate african americans activists have recently tended to avoid due to the negative reaction of the American public at large. I am inspired by these guts Im reading-and Brazillians like even less to look their past in the face than Americans do.

I am an emerging advocate of ethnocentricity for all the good reasons like cultural cohesion and progress and none of the bad reasons like cultural isolationism. If you are proposing that the reason for social inequities goes beyond the coincidence of geographic location and touches the subject of racial discrimination then you are already talking to me about the importance of advocating for the civil rights of these targeted racial groups. International development requires a partnership beyond racial lines but we dont address the problem if we dont look institutional racism in the face. Were somehow missing the point if we make it illegal to pay men more than women on the basis of gender and then dont focus any of our resources on unteaching sexism, a movement is necessary. So much inequality, so little time.