Note from BW of Brazil: As I have maintained for a long time, a key difference that I note between racist acts and racists in Brazil and in the US, is the manner in which people react once they have been exposed or in fact, expose themselves as racists. In the US, when white people are blatantly racist, they don’t try to hide the fact. They believe themselves to be superior to other racial groups and behave accordingly. If they stand for white supremacy, they will openly tell you so. Some of these people will march in rallies in support of the white race or white supremacy. Some masquerade in police uniforms and business suits. But you know where these people stand.
In Brazil, beliefs in white superiority are also very widespread. We see it so many ways, many of which I have already covered in numerous posts over the years. And even though most Brazilians also harbor beliefs of what group is the most beautiful, the most intelligent, etc., due to the nation’s rhetoric and false sense of a racial democracy that posits that all Br are equal, people may believe in superiority but don’t necessarily feel comfortable in defining themselves as racists.
In a number of posts, you will note how people can busted red-handed doing something that most black people would consider to be racist, but when confronted with the fact, they will deny being racist. They will quickly talk about having black friends, or dating black guys, not liking black people but liking black women, etc. These are the type of people who would probably belong to the stat that says 92% of Brazilians deny being racists but admit they know people that are racists. The danger is often not in what IS said but rather what isn’t. Which brings me to today’s piece.
After the violent murder of 19 or 25-year old (still not sure) Pedro Henrique Gonzaga last week in an Extra supercenter, many activists pointed out the fact that, just a few months previously, a number of white celebrities expressed sorrow over the treatment and killing of a dog in front of a supermarket in the city of Osasco back in December. The ironic thing is that these same people didn’t make any statements on the murder of Pedro Henrique last week. What’s the message here? One of the celebrities is long-time TV personalities Xuxa Meneghel, the same Xuxa to whom I referred to in 2015 when I wrote, “Dear white people: wearing an anti-racism t-shirt won’t change the system of white supremacy.” Needless to say, neither will sympathizing with a dog when tens of thousands of black youth are murdered in the streets of Brazil every year.
“Luisa Mell is threatened after rescuing 1,500 dogs; PETZ giant closes sale of animals”
Let’s all join hands? AD Junior exposes celebrities with selective commotion
By Silvia Nascimento
We agree that racial democracy never existed, right? Now we have to keep our eyes open and let the cynicism aside with some slogans that viralizam (go viral) on the social networks, trying to sell an image of unity and collective compassion, which do not correspond to reality, such as the post-election impact phrase of the President Bolsonaro: Ninguém solta mão de ninguém (we will all join hands).
The terror scene surrounding the murder of Pedro Gonzaga, on Thursday, February 14, in the Extra Supermarket in Rio de Janeiro, was one of the most talked about subjects in social networks, but the repercussion was much lower than the case of the dog killed at Carrefour in December of last year.
A fervent activist and one of the most respected black Internet influencers, AD Junior, spared no criticism of selective commotion, he used his social networks to compare Pedro’s case with that of the dog, both killed inside large supermarket chain stores.
I talked to him about it. He, in addition to TV host Xuxa and TV host/model Ana Hickmann, cited actress/TV host Luisa Mel, who defends animals fervently, but does not position herself in cases such as Pedro’s.
AD Junior
“Brazil feels sorry for only one group. You see, in the case of the Kiss nightclub that is remembered to this day because they were white, university students seen as the meritocratic future of our country. At no time was that fatality, of which I really feel for those families, forgotten and Fantástico (Globo TV news journal) remembered the incident a year later. Some time later, those black boys who took 119 shots in Costa Barros, had no homage or report of 10, 15 minutes,” he says.
He even highlights the genocídio negro (black genocide) that takes place in daylight, but Brazil pretends not to know about the severity. “When you say you don’t care about someone, it means they will not be missed. This is a plan of extermination that any foreigner who arrives in Brazil, automatically recognizes in what kind of society we are living.”
“We talk about order and progress and the only thing we are talking about is the following: order for blacks and poor and progress for meritocratic whites,” concludes the communicator.
Source: Mundo Negro
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