“I’m black and have proudly celebrated my race since waiters of a famous hotel in Rio didn’t serve blacks in the restaurant”: Legendary singer Elza Soares’s powerful response to Vogue Brasil controversy

Elza response to Vogue Brasil
Elza response to Vogue Brasil
Elza response to Vogue Brasil
Legendary singer Elza Soares writes a powerful response to controversial photo of Vogue Brasil director

Note from BW of Brazil: Well, what else can be said? The legendary singer Elza Soares just shut it down with her response to the recent photo controversy involving the director of Vogue Brasil magazine. The 81-year old Soares, who was named the BBC’s “Singer of the Millenium” back in 2000, has long been an icon for Brazil’s black women. Brazil’s Tina Turner and Celia Cruz, Soares’s career has represented the struggle of black women for representation for decades, with her 2002 song “A carne mais barata do mercado” (the cheapest meat on the market is the dark meat) becoming an anthem for black women and the struggle against racism. In a recent post from her Instagram, the living legend weighed in on the controversial photo of Donata Meirelles, director of Vogue Brasil, that many proclaimed being racist. Having witnessed many of the humiliations of Afro-Brazilians over long life and career, as well as Brazil’s attempts to deny this, Soares’s words show that she still understands, represents and is in an important position to represent ‘The Struggle’. 

Elza-Soares-1
In 2000, the legendary Elza Soares was named the BBC’s “Singer of the Millennium”

The powerful response of Elza Soares to the party of the director of Vogue

Courtesy of Hypeness

The racist photo on Donata Meirelles’ birthday was the most talked about subject of the weekend. The director of Vogue Brasil magazine appears sitting in a chair next to two black women dressed as baianas.

festadonata
Recent photo of Vogue Brasil director provoked controversy in social networks

The composition of a white woman courted by two black women referred to the worst in Brazilian history, slavery. In addition to the annoyance generated by the image, the silence of celebrities like singer/musician Caetano Veloso – who played on Donata’s birthday, drew attention.

Elza Soares did not remain silent. The “mulher do fim do mundo” (woman of the end of the world) reaffirmed the role of fighting racism in a forceful posting on  Instagram. “Well, I’m black and I have proudly celebrated my race since when it was not ‘elegant’ to be black in this country,” she writes.

“I protest for the rights of my race”

Elza-Soares-2- video still
Still from Soares’s 2017 video “A Carne”

Seated on a throne, Elza highlighted the struggle for the right to exist of pessoas negras (black people) in a country as racist as Brazil. The artist’s decades of experience show how slave-like customs remain rooted in the society.

When blacks didn’t use the ‘boss’s’ elevator. When black tram drivers were replaced by whites in festivities with the presence of authorities with pele branca (white skin). From the time when players from a futebol club from Rio de Janeiro put rice powder on their faces to enter the field, since it did not “take well” having dark skin. Since the waiters of a famous hotel in Rio did not serve blacks in the restaurant. We were invisible.”

Elza-Soares-album cover
1974 Elza Soares album cover

Elza Soares’ own career is filled with such markers. A carioca (native of Rio) of the “planet hunger”, this way the singer was self-declared in the program of freshmen of composer, talent-show, radio and TV host Ary Barroso in the 1950s. The artist went through a lot to maintain herself to take care of her children. A common reality among black Brazilian women.

Elza spoke bluntly.

Elza response
Soares published her response via her official Instagram account

“I have celebrated my race from the time that record labels didn’t give a release cocktail to the ‘discos dos pretos’ (black records). I have celebrated my ancestral origin since “música de preto” (black music) was a definition of musical style. I screamed for my people from the time that if a famous man separated from his wife to be with a black woman, she got the ‘title’ of a slut, but it would not happen if her skin was ‘light’.”

The outburst in the form of an alert from Elza Soares shows how the exploitation of the labor and bodies of black people is still an open scar in the heart of Brazil. Either by the absence of these bodies in spaces of power and abundance of them in cemeteries and penitentiaries, or by the attitude of figures such as Donata Meirelles.

The throne for those who are entitled to it.

“I am the great-granddaughter of slaves, the granddaughter of slaves, and my mother knew in the source the stories about the scourge of the povo negro (black people). I have protested for the rights of my race since blacks didn’t enter the room of sinhás (slave master’s wife). Well, all these wounds I have carried in the soul and I bring the scars. The majority the povo negro brasileiro (black Brazilian people). Wounds that have not healed and are poked to keep them open demonstrating that “lugar de preto é nessa Senzala moderna” (place of the black is in this modern slave quarters), disguised, lurking, as if watching over our people. People descended mostly from the blacks who colonized and built our country.”

Source: Hypeness

About Marques Travae 3747 Articles
Marques Travae. For more on the creator and editor of BLACK WOMEN OF BRAZIL, see the interview here.

4 Comments

  1. I have been following this controversy in this website, in geledes and in almapreta, among others. It is amazing to see that almost all those known black personalities who have responded strongly are women: Elza Soares, Congresswoman Olivia Santana, Djamila Ribiero and others. I have yet to see a single black man of prominence from Brazil responding in such strong words. What is wrong with them?

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