Senior Citizen is a Victim of Racism in Diadema | Black Brazil

Senior Citizen is a Victim of Racism in Diadema | Black Brazil

Note from BW of Brazil: This blog is dedicated to presenting news coming out of Brazil in which the issue of race plays a prominent role. And make no mistake, from what I have seen in studying news reports from various countries throughout the Americas in which Africans and their descendants were enslaved, the issue and image of black people as former slaves continues to influence social norms, standards, racial hierarchies and the given ”places” of certain groups in any of these nations. 

Brazil, like many of these countries, has long proclaimed that all of its citizens are treated equally regardless of their racial background. Well, as far as I can see, in the collective minds of many Brazilian citizens, black people will never lose their association with 350 years of enslavement, even with slavery having ended in Brazil over 131 years ago. We see reminders of this everyday, so the story below shouldn’t come as any sort of surprise (see here, here and here for just a few examples).

Reflecting on this history, with a near four century practice of human bondage, and a society divided between the haves, who are almost exclusively white, and the have nots, whose vast majority is non-white, one doesn’t need to be a sociologist to understand that slavery still has a huge influence on racial relations in the country. Statements such as the one hurled in the direction of a 61-year old black woman is just another piece of the overwhelming evidence that this remains true. 

Senior citizen is a victim of racism in Diadema: “this nega needs to get 50 lashes”

On the morning Monday, August 12, a 61-year-old woman who works in a hospital in Diadema, São Paulo, was a victim of racism. A doctor got mad at her and shouted racist offenses. According to Janaína Teodoro, the woman’s daughter, who registered the police report, her mother called her with a shaky voice. “She asked me to write a letter to a friend to deliver to the directors of Hospital Municipal de Diadema about a case of racism. Minutes later she confessed that the victim was her,” she said.

Also according to Janaína, the doctor got upset about an alleged mistake made by the woman and uttered the insults. “A doctor from the hospital maternity ward, after hearing that my mother had made a mistake in filling out a document and was asking him for it back for correction, SCREAMED in front of all his colleagues at the medical post: ‘This nega (black woman) needs to get 50 lashes for this'”, she stated.

Janaína remembered the past, the family’s ancestry and revealed that the night was tense for both of them. “I lost sleep at night thinking about what she heard for seconds yesterday. Seconds brings our family history to light, my mother’s grandfather was born in captivity even after the Lei Áurea (Golden Law), he was enslaved. In the morning she told me that that hurt. She couldn’t explain why hearing it hurt as if the lashes were anything but words,” vented Janaína in an Instagram post, in a photo with her mother.

Determination

In a statement, Hospital Municipal de Diadema reported that “the case was referred to the medical ethics committee investigation and a disciplinary administrative proceeding was opened. The professional was removed from his care activities, already assumed by another professional.”

The case was registered as a racial offense at the 2nd Diadema Police Department, which launched a police inquiry to ascertain the facts.

Note from BW of Brazil: In a post made on Instagram, the woman’s daughter further detailed why she took such offense to what happened to her mother at the hospital. In her words and description of another situation that her mother experienced, it can be noted how still in 2019, Brazil still has a certain nostalgia for the era in which black people were forced to serve at the feet of their masters. The institution may have legally ended, but it clearly hasn’t ended in the minds of many people. 

Translation of above text

”My mother, Lurdes, went back to school at the age of 37, started working outside at the age of 38, was a maid in the house of a young couple, in this job she raised money and took a Nursing Assistant course, took a public test and passed. When she asked for her balance to start working at the hospital, my mother’s ex-boss made a scandal by saying that she was a traitor because she was abandoning the opportunity he had given her, indignant at her he didn’t know how they would get another reliable employee, he didn’t congratulate her.

White men act like “senhores de escravos” (slave masters), we don’t need to go into too much detail, he is dry and cruel, they are racist and believe they have possessions over us in whatever social space we occupy. There have been a little more than 20 years of the profession, she has already gone through every situation that I think I would have quit.

I lost sleep at night thinking about what she heard for seconds yesterday, seconds that bring up the story of our family, my mother’s grandfather was born in captivity, even after the Golden Law, he was enslaved. He bought his release by cleaning the feces of his aggressor’s family and collecting the gold they had. Then I heard whites speaking of Princess Elizabeth (Isabela) and I’m angry!

When I think of my mother’s first “boss” and today I think of that doctor I would just like “gentleness, sir”. I entered a war and I won’t get out of it if I am not victorious. My great-grandmother was a man of Ogùn, I have Ogùn… I have blood in my eyes!”

Source: Notícia Preta