August 22: Brazil’s black movement organizes marches in 17 states against the genocide of Afro-Brazilians and in solidarity with Palestinians

Note from BW of Brazil: When will the madness of the destruction of human life end?!?! The struggle is international. Although the media refuses to show the images, many of us have seen the truly disturbing photos of Palestinian children with their legs separated from their bodies, intestines hanging out and half of their small skulls missing, completely blown open by Israeli weapons. No, our mass media doesn’t show these images on television and we know why! But equally disturbing is the continued genocide of the black population. While the world sits and wonders what’s going on in the US with the murders of five unarmed black men within only one month’s time, the international media still hasn’t give proper exposure to the problem that has existed in Brazil for many years (arguably since 1538 when 4-5 million Africans were shipped to Brazil to work as slaves), particularly in the past two decades.

The numbers of Afro-Brazilians killed in Brazil in only the past decade are numbers that one would expect from a country at war, yet Brazil is not at war with an enemy nation, but rather its black population. Don’t believe it? Well, not even counting this year and the previous three, 272, 422 Afro-Brazilians were killed between the years 2002 and 2010, with a shocking percentage being young men. In fact, one study found that Afro-Brazilian youth have a 3.7 times greater chance of being murdered than white youth. I will also state that I believe that the disparity between Afro-Brazilian (preto/black + pardo/brown) and white Brazilians (brancos) is actually much greater than the official numbers reveal because Brazil’s data on race has always been an ambiguous thing.

From erasing the category of black and slave records, to shifting color categories, to officials and families obsessed with whitening people, why would not be possible that the numbers of whites being killed isn’t grossly overestimated also? Brazil LOVES whiteness and despises blackness and while it is certainly true that there are white Brazilians who have also been killed, I’m sure it would be grossly overestimated if we only counted whites that looked like actors Tom Cruise or Reynaldo Gianecchini rather than those “whites” who think that they are really white but are actually light-skinned mestiços (persons of mixed race). After all, as Brazil’s black movement has been saying for years, “if you want to know who is black in Brazil, ask the police, they know.”

Whatever the case may be, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!! It’s time to take to the streets! Tomorrow, in various states across the country as well as around the world, people are marching to voice their anger, their sadness and their despair in what appears to be a clear agenda to exterminate non-white peoples. In Brazil, Afro-Brazilians are being killed by not only everyday violence and lethal Military Police, they also face vigilante death squads, who are often composed of Military Police as well. We march for the five black men gunned down in one month in the US (Eric Garner, John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, and Michael Brown), against the ongoing slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children, but also for black Brazilians such as Cláudia Ferreira, Amarildo, Raissa Vargas Motta, the dancer DG (Douglas Pereira) and so many others who were purposely killed or was struck by a stray bullet. We march because we must. We march because want justice. We march for life!

Brazil’s Black Movement calls all to participate in the Second March Against the Genocide of Black People

Courtesy of Courtesy of Jornal O Cidadão Online, Brasil247 and SEESP

An international movement will be held tomorrow, Friday, August 22 in 17 Brazilian states and 15 countries. In Rio, the walk will start from Manguinhos toward the group of favelas (slums) of Alemão,  both in the north zone, bringing together residents of different Rio slums, Movimentos Negros (black movements) throughout the country and relatives of victims of state violence. 

On Friday, the II Marcha Internacional contra o Genocídio do Povo Negro (Second International March Against Genocide of Black People) will be held in 17 states and 15 countries. With the motto “Pelo direito à vida. Nossos mortos têm voz!” (For the right to life. Our dead have a voice!) The concentration will be at the Manguinhos train station, on Rua Leopoldo Bulhões (street) (in front of Fiocruz). The event will also be held in cities like Salvador (state of Bahia), São Paulo (São Paulo), Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul), Vitória (Espírito Santo), Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), João Pessoa (Paraíba), Brasília (Federal District), Manaus (Amazonas) and Fortaleza (Ceará) and will feature demonstrations in front of embassies and Brazilian consulates in countries like South Africa, Germany, Spain, United States and Mexico. Various cultural activities, videos, banners and posters are being prepared for the big march

The march is being organized and convened by the “Campanha Reaja ou Será Morta” (React or You Will Killed Campaign) in independent committees composed of black men and women from all over Brazil. There is a membership of more than 17 states and 15 countries participating.

Movements summon all to march against the genocide of black people

“This march is for the weary brother being framed returning from school, work or walking around, due to the fact of always being seen as suspicious, needing to prove that he is a worker, often in order to not be killed.” That’s how the call for 2nd International March Against Genocide of Black People will begin in São Paulo, starting at 5.30 in front of the MASP building on Avenida Paulista. Thousands of participants who have confirmed their presence on social networks is expected.

The genocide against blacks, particularly against black youth, has been denounced by various organizations of the Movimento Negro. According to records from the Sistema de Informações de Mortalidade (Mortality Information System) recorded in the report “Mapa da Violência 2012 A cor dos homicídios no Brasil” (Map of Violence 2012: The color of homicides in Brazil), between 2002 and 2010, 272,422 blacks were murdered in the country, with an average of 30,269 murders a year. In 2010 alone there were 34,983. The homicide rates of young whites between 2002 and 2010 wet from 40.6 to 28.3 – down 30.3% – while the rate for young blacks increased from 69.6 to 72.0 – an increase of 3.5%. The study was conducted by the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies, FLACSO Brazil and the Secretariat of Policies to Promote Racial Equality, linked to the Presidency. The Movimento Negro has denounced that most of the deaths are caused by police.

On the night of Monday (18), representatives of the Movimento Negro joined the Ciranda Internacional da Comunicação Compartilhada (CIRANDA International of Shared Communication) and the Palestinian Front (that brings together various organizations and political parties that act in defense of the Palestinian people), in the activity “Levante contra o Genocídio – no Brasil, na Palestina, nas mídias livres” (Stand Up against Genocide – in Brazil, in Palestine, in the free media), held in the auditorium of the Ação Educativa building.

“It is a state that kills in the name of security. Genocide is a state policy that acts to inferiorize a people by terrorism dressed as a public policy. Genocide is supported by the state and favors a particular social class,” exclaimed Katiara Oliveira, of the Kilombagem group, demystifying the so-called called Brazilian racial democracy.

According to the activist, the march has international support, in countries like France, Spain, Portugal, Venezuela and African countries. “The struggle is international. The Palestinian struggle is our struggle. Let’s denounce a state that, because of their ideology of degrading a people to keep their order, uses the same weapons here and there,” added Oliveira, who requested full disclosure of the activity.

For her, “the left is mobilized to denounce the Palestinian genocide” but not yet awakened to the systematic coverage of the criminalization of the black population. “We don’t see any media of the left putting the problem of black Brazilian genocide as a problem of humanity,” she said, referring to the media that widely disseminate agendas of social movements.

Ketu Riahb, of the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU or Unified Black Movement), criticized the construction that the traditional commercial media makes of the Palestinian people, who are always portrayed as “terrorists” and not contextualizing the events. “You cannot accept that Hamas is terrorism. It is actually Palestinian resistance. The greatest terrorism today is from Israel. We are sympathetic to the Holocaust, but now when it comes to genocide in Palestine, they counter saying that it’s war. How can it be war if one side has no army, has no planes. We cannot accept that. And the media, local and international, treats it in this way,” said the activist, who is also Muslim.

He reinforced the invitation for all to participate in the march on Friday: “We are already marching from the moment we stepped in this country. On Friday, the 22th, it will be an act of resistance and solidarity is important at this time. In this way we will unmask the racial democracy, the task that the Movimento Negro has currently is to prove to the world that Brazil is, today, a genocidal country,” he stressed.

Source: SEESP, Brasil 247