Note from BW of Brazil: Of course, it’s not fun sharing these types of facts, but the more you crunch the numbers, the worse it gets. And still worse, while conflicts such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and involving the Palestinians are consistently featured in international news, Brazil seems to get by with very little scrutiny. Well, maybe these numbers will shine some light on how dire the situation really is. In past posts, we’ve made comparisons the number of homicides in Brazil with that of countries at war. Take a look at the graph below.
It’s showing that, between 2004 and 2007, more people were killed in Brazil (192,000) than people in other countries involved in conflicts combined! Those countries include Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Colombia, Congo, Sri Lanka, India, Somalia, Nepal, Pakistan, Kashmir and the Israel/Palestinian territories, where the totals were 170,000! Just wrap your head around that for a minute! Also we see a clear region where black Brazilians are being taken out at an alarming rate. Check the report below.
In Brazil’s northeast, young blacks are 5 times more likely to die
From 2007 to 2012, while total white youth homicides fell 5.5% that of black youth rose 21.3%
In Brazil, a black youth runs 2.5 times the risk of death as a white youth. In the northeast, the danger for them is 5 times higher. In some states of the region, such as Paraíba, it reaches 13.4 times. The figures are part of the Vulnerabilidade Juvenil à Violência e Desigualdade (Vulnerability of Youth to Violence and Inequality or IVJ 2014), research conducted by the Brazilian Public Security Forum at the request of the federal government which was released on Monday by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.
The study used data from the 2012 Datasus (database of the Sistema Único de Saúde or Unified Health System) to calculate the black youth homicide rates (pretos and pardos or black and brown) and brancos (white) ages 12-29. The result is not new: racial inequality is still significant in our daily lives, especially in relation to violence.
Police stops: blacks say they suffer more violence
Top left: “Yes””Because of color/race”
Top right: “Yes” “Because of prejudice”
Bottom left: “I’ve never been stopped”
Bottom right: “I’ve never been stopped; I don’t there is a difference between people”
In all Brazilian states, with the exception of Paraná, young black men are more likely to be murdered than young whites. The worst figures are observed in Paraíba (risk of 13.4 times), Pernambuco (11.5), Alagoas (8.7), Federal District (6.5) and Espírito Santo (5.9).
The smaller numbers, in turn, were found in Tocantins (1.8), Rio Grande do Sul (1.7), São Paulo (1.5), Santa Catarina (1.4) and Paraná (0.7) (1). In the latter, white youth have more risk of being the target of homicide than young blacks.
The same survey also shows that, of the nearly 30,000 young people killed in 2012, 76.5% were black. In addition, from 2007 to 2012, while the total homicides of white youth fell 5.5%, while for black youth it rose 21.3%.
Source: Terra, Diário Liberdade
Note
1. What is not pointed out here is that racial representation in Brazil changes depending on the region of the country. For example, in the states where ratios of Afro-Brazilians being killed are enormously higher than whites, Paraíba (risk of 13.4 times), Pernambuco (11.5), Alagoas (8.7), Afro-Brazilians are the majority, although their majority status is nowhere near the rates in which they are being killed. The states with the largest Afro-Brazilian majorities, Pará, Maranhão and Bahia, all at 76%, are not even on the list and their 3 to 1 majority status represents the highest concentrations of blacks in comparison to whites.
In states where whites are the majority being killed (Tocantins (1.8), Rio Grande do Sul (1.7), São Paulo (1.5), Santa Catarina (1.4) and Paraná (0.7), Afro-Brazilian representation is much smaller and whites are the great majority or vast majority. The southern states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná, for example, are considered the whitest states of Brazil, with 80% of the population of these these states identifying itself as white.
This is sad! It is crazy that anti-blackness is a global phenomenon. Everywhere Blacks are subjected to discrimination. Brazil seems to be no different. Will things get better?
It’s blacks killing blacks. You need to sort this out among yourselves.
When you have a concentrated area that’s over-populated that will be a lack of jobs open to young black youth. According to the reading a combination of 12 countries with 170,000 homicides still did not outnumber the homicide rate for Afro-Brazilians which exceeded over 192,000 killed. Black youth rose exponentially at 21.3% in a five year period between 2007-2012. In just 2012 alone, out of 30,000 young individuals, 76.5 were non-white. According to the reading another reason blacks are 5 times more likely to be killed is according to demographics, 33.6% of blacks will be killed in a area with a high concentration of blacks compared to 7.1% of whites being killed in a white concentrated grid located in the southern part of country. I believe racial inequality is being a significant factor for the high homicide rate. CJJ
To know the overall population of Brazil and the percentages of whites and blacks in the country would have been proved to show more context for this article. It is interesting to see how a country such as Brazil, that has African roots would have the death rates of blacks be higher than those of whites. One would think that because of that, race would not be a factor regarding the amount of deaths and race. In the U.S, the threat of police brutality has skyrocketed, so for this to be the occurrence in other parts of the world such as Brazil is very interesting. The socioeconomic environment in Brazil is much more different than it is in the States. This definitely must play a role as to why this is the case in such a vast country that is Brazil.
R.D
Wow, this post was shocking, depressing, and a real eye-opener. I love how they used so many statistics and made their points come across so strong. This is a serious issue that needs to be stopped and blogs like this is what gets the word out to uneducated people; like myself. There should be no reason that white homicide is going down, and black youth homicide has risen. I’m shocked to see all the hatred and discrimination of the black youth of Brazil.
-TS
It is my first time to read and see this statistic that Brazil have more killing rates than the other country who are involved in a war. But it’s never been in the news they’re always showed those country that involve in the war. It was very interesting to read this article. The government of Brazil should have to do something about this rates of killing especially a youth. They need a better law to provides the needs of Afro-Brazillian youth and also the inequalities issues. This issue of inequalities I think Brazil is not the only one who have experiencing it. Everyone or every countries experiencing it especially when you’re minorities people on that country. But to see this killing rates in the statistic, The government make a law or programs that provides equal opportunity both majority and minority people. Also, government need to priorities the youths because they are the next generation of the Brazil.
@Sarahmae: “government need to priorities the youths because they are the next generation of the Brazil.” –
But if the plan is to secure the devastation of the next generation, the best solution is to stop it before it’s born. Just a thought…
The amount of deaths in Brazil are appalling to me and also the fact this fact as almost esoteric. I think Americans from the U.S. should be more concerned and aware of this travesty in Brazil. I agree that it is a genocide. Another thing that is not common knowledge is that the U.S. has the highest prison population in the world. If people don’t know about domestic issues, knowledge on international will be even more scant. The fact that people are unaware that people of color are being murdered dis-proportionally implies something bad for our population; it implies that we are not having the necessary education and dialogue about racism in our society.
O.H.S
The amount of deaths in Brazil are appalling to me and also the fact this fact as almost esoteric. I think Americans from the U.S. should be more concerned and aware of this travesty in Brazil. I agree that it is a genocide. Another thing that is not common knowledge is that the U.S. has the highest prison population in the world. If people don’t know about domestic issues, knowledge on international will be even more scant. The fact that people are unaware that people of color are being murdered dis-proportionally implies something bad for our population; it implies that we are not having the necessary education and dialogue about racism in our society.
O.H.S
Darn, looks like we’ll have to expand the definition of “countries involved in conflict.” Although I take issue with the way the data is presented – namely, statistical significance should be clarified up front instead of in footnote – there’s no question that state violence in Brasil makes comparisons to war-torn nations unfortunately appropriate. What’s inappropriate is the assertion that somehow poor blacks are getting what they deserve. And we see variations of this racialized victim-blaming presented often times in subtle, even well-meaning forms – masked in hand-wringing discussions about narco-trafficking, the blight of drug dependency, the idle scourge of unemployment, etc. Basically, their decisions make them targets of state and non-state violence. The response? Increased security measures because of the obvious threats posed to public safety by impoverished and marginalized segments of the population who have been historically and aggressively racialized on both the macro and micro levels of social and political relations. And how’s that working?
I understand these process of racial formation and racial control are distinct projects in the United States, my place of birth, and Brazil, but the parallels are interesting, too. One of them is people of color’s necessary subjection to criminalization by the dominant group. That a group’s deprivation is reasonable cause for their unquestioning criminalization. It’s a lazy logic but effective and insidious. Luiza Bairros, minister of the Secretaria de Políticas de Promoção do Igualdade Racial (SEPPIR) unfortunately has to state the obvious: that “for lack of more precise explanations, drugs […] become a sort of scapegoat.” It minimizes the scope of the disease to a deceptively manageable size – if we simply cut the head off the nasty, violent dragon of drugs, from its neck will grow a beautiful, peaceful swan. Everyone knows, however, this is pure horseshit. And while the death toll climbs, the most worrying part is the delusion that poor black youths, alone, are the only victims to suffer this terrible social arrangement.
Bryan
(Desculpe @gatasnegrasbrasileiras, esta é para uma aula de Africology. Eu tenho que assinar o meu nome. Anonimato em threads de comentários não é legal de qualquer maneira jaja!)
This is an insightful article. Thanks for posting it!
Im from northeast of braazil, I live in salvador we here are all black