Note from BW of Brazil: Stories, reflections and meanings of the massive protests that took place all over Brazil continue to come out. Last week, there were those who asked the question of “where were the black protesters?” to represent black demands during these historic demonstrations. Below Talitha Alves from the nation’s capital city of Brasília offers her personal response, her own protest, and her rebuttal to the way Brazil’s mainstream media portrayed her during these protests. Similar to differences in perception when whites are treated in violent manners as opposed to when blacks are treated with violence, in demonstrations, it seems that black protesters and white protesters are also not seen in the same manner. This is how Talitha saw it…
Black and female at a demonstration? For the Record TV (network), she could only be a vandal and troublemaker!
by Talitha Alves
Since the Record television network liked this video so much to the point of putting it on the air at 2 and in 2 seconds calling me a vandal and troublemaker on a NATIONAL NETWORK, I want, through this (message) to inform them that:
Is vandalism the act of not letting an (unidentified) Military Police officer kick my ass in a public square? Because if it is, I’m proud of that.
Is being a troublemaker is questioning this man about the identification on his uniform?
Is being vandal not accepting that a man, for the mere fact of being a man feeling entitled me to take his frustration out on me because I was the only girl in front of him?
I never touched a spray can or kicked a door in, or vandalized anything in my life..
But what I found most comical about this report was that it “coincidentally” kept repeating the following thing: “This is a demonstrator (white guy) this is a troublemaker confronting who is there handling security (I black woman)”
Now I make this question of you: But wait, does the color of my skin and my hair define who is really a protester or troublemaker? Did you see this Military Police officer club me 3 times in my ribs? Why didn’t you film this assault? Because my BLACK skin, the marks remain, but it’s in my soul that is as black as my skin, that will remain marked by your “modern whipping.”
My struggle is that, the masters, the owners of modern slavery, stop sending their modern “capitães do mato” (slave hunters) (Military Police) after the “runaway slaves” of the periphery (poor communities).
Black people today have death rates of 75% of its youth.
The periphery NEVER WOKE UP because it NEVER SLEPT.
Your bourgeois white movement out on the streets doesn’t represent me.
Young people from the periphery SURVIVE and we are the ones who make your economy take off ..
A person who wears a mask and uses a robot voice with a list of 5 goals by bourgeois people in a “popular” movement doesn’t represent me
An idea of impeachment (a difficult little word, right) doesn’t represent me
The invisibility of the black youth population doesn’t represent me
And for you from the Record TV network, I inform you VANDALISM is your bad journalism you, it’s the failure in the news, it’s the imposition of standards in society.
We are not terrorists, we are not vandals nor troublemakers.
We are the black and peripheral population showing our face and blackening the movements, even though my face is marked BY YOU as the face of danger.
Source: Mamapress
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