Translator: David DeRuwe Reviewer: Claudia Sander
"I didn't know
a trafficker's son would flaunt trafficking money on social networks."
"I didn't know monkeys could fly."
"I didn't know gorillas spoke English."
"Show me the photo of the old man who's paying for your trip."
When I went to put my first video on social media,
I only wanted to show five places in New York
that I liked most.
My dream was to be a "travel blogger."
I swear it to you.
You know those travel bloggers?
They show those photos like, "Hey guys, we're here ..."
(Laughter)
"All good?"
Isn't it? I wanted to be this blogger.
I had various stories and ideas
of places I wanted to travel, but ...
I recorded that video, put it on air, full of expectation,
and, when I woke up, the first things I received
were these messages that I shared with you.
That was it.
I closed my channel,
got startled,
and started to search for how I could combat
all this that I was seeing being built in front of me,
that I didn't know how to respond to.
Can you believe it?
It was my color that they saw
when I posted about a simple trip
to New York.
"Wait a moment!
He's undertaking one of 'my' dreams!"
People,
I'm not the color of that young man
that comes from Brazil
to go to an amusement park to see someone dressed like a rat waving to children ...
(Laughter)
What to say about a young man touring around New York.
The name for this is: structural racism.
Because, on account of the structure,
I can't see a way
for that young man to be there in New York,
taking pictures of Times Square.
I have a goal -
and my goal started there -
to go onto social networks and use my voice,
to write, and to speak
about what I saw being built on social media by influencers
who use that platform
to say that the black man is enslaved by the black man himself ...
hmm ... you already heard that?
To say that the black is more racist than the white.
You already heard that?
Well, this is the thing.
People who haven't studied our history,
who don't know anything about our experience,
who don't know anything about the reality of being black in this country,
have resolved to go on the social networks
to reinvent the history of blacks in our country,
a history that never was told,
but they've resolved to have the last word about our history and our pain.
So, I got on the social networks
to talk about structural racism.
Even not being an academic in this historical area,
I think I have more ownership to talk about my people's history
than they do.
I started to research and to read.
And so, I want to propose a trip to you.
I want to take a trip with you
to learn about structural racism.
Coming with me?
Coming?
Hmm, so let's go.
I'll use a timeline to explain
that structural racism, can't be called whining, "mimimi" or playing the victim.
Let's go to 1824,
when blacks are considered, like animals, to be goods that can move on their own,
and could be mortgaged with the house.
On ...
to 1839,
when a decree in Rio de Janeiro, that spreads all over Brazil,
prevents blacks from frequenting the public schools.
On then to 1850,
when the Land Law of 1850 prevents blacks,
enslaved or not, liberated or free,
from having access to land.
On to 1870,
with the importation of European immigrants after the 1872 census
and the ineffective "para inglês ver" slave laws,
put in place to appease the English, but not enforced.
In 1888, we have the Golden Law,
signed by the so-called heroine:
law 3,353, which abolishes slavery in Brazil.
Just imagine.
They didn't even care.
And, in 1890,
with decree 847, called "Vadios e Capoeiras,"
persons who practiced African religions or capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art
could be imprisoned.
The history of imprisoning black men and women in this country starts there.
Are you with me?
Audience: Yes.
AD Junior: It's the structure.
Well, in 1911,
after Brazil's participation in the First Universal Races Congress,
led by Dr. João Batista de Lacerda,
Brazil gets an idea, law 9,081,
that brings the first quotas for whites in this country,
and that institutes that these people will have the right to land, education,
and colonies.
Am I in the right state?
The colonies ...
For us, nothing!
In 1934, we have the first constitution that brings eugenics.
Article 38, paragraph B, says the following,
"Foster eugenic education."
Whiten the country.
Put an end to people like me.
And it's the first year that blacks have the right to vote, believe it?
In 1937, the Brazilian Black Front is prohibited and made illegal.
The group, that would speak for blacks and with blacks,
becomes illegal in this country.
In 1968, we have a law called
the ox law, "lei do Boi," law 5,465.
Do you know what the Lei do Boi said?
It said 50% of the places in agricultural universities,
and later this increased,
are reserved for persons who possess land.
It's only, in 1988,
488 years after all we went through,
that, constitutionally, Brazil recognizes
that racism is a crime.
In 2001, at the Durban Conference,
the delegates demand that Brazil
have a posture in relation to inequalities between whites and blacks.
And then Brazil institutes the quotas for black people,
primarily in 2002, after a big discussion,
but, only in 2012,
were the quotas approved by the Supreme Federal Court of this country unanimously.
But there are people who continue discussing quotas until today.
And we're in 2019.
You understand that racism is structural?
There is a structure that was created to prevent us from arriving
at the place that many whites occupy simply for being white.
Tell me that you haven't met an incompetent white person.
(Laughter)
Our agenda is important
because there are many extremely competent black boys and girls
about whom we hear, and about whom we'll hear more.
But our country doesn't want to hear us
because it was our grandparents, great- grandparents, and great-great-grandparents
who worked for free, almost -
the Brazilian labor laws didn't work for us -
in the houses of white Brazilians.
That is,
"order and progress" means two completely different things in Brazil.
If you see this structural line,
you'll see that "order and progress" means order, laws,
bureaucracy, and hindrance
for blacks, poor people, and those living in favelas.
And progress?
Little ... quotas,
little helping hands,
for the descendants of Europeans who adore telling their history.
Oh, how they like to say
that if everything goes wrong, they'll get a European passport and leave.
(Laughter)
Yes ... "order and progress" means completely different things.
And after I explain to you everything here about the structure of racism,
and we could go much deeper,
will you have the courage to let people say our history, our pain, our trajectory
can be summed up in two letters repeated three times?
Mi-mi-mi?
Can't do it.
Brazil needs to agree to start paying attention
to a people who tells its story every day.
And Brazil tells its history on top of our bodies,
denying the past of a structure
that made this country change into what it is today, but then ...
we're today as if we were in the '60s in the United States.
But what happened there?
Many whites recognized that it wasn't personal,
that the fight against racism is collective,
and that, collectively, the whites need to recognize their privileges
so that we can make the walk to advance in the direction we need to go
in this society.
Whites need to understand
that, collectively, they participated in the system that oppressed us,
but that, collectively, they have a moral responsibility
to help end this structure that you just saw in this Powerpoint.
(Cheers) (Applause)
Sixty years from now ...
Sixty years from now,
many of your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will ask,
"Dad, Mom, what side were you on?
Grandpa, Grandma, Great-Grandpa and Grandma, what side were you on
the moment that Brazilian black people
discussed the revolution of a country that needed to change?
Which side were you on?"
And then you'll be able to look back and say,
"I wasn't silent
when I saw the wrongness happening;
when I understood the structure of a lying and meritocratic country.
I was not silent."
It's up to us to start discussing this.
I'll wait for you on this side,
helping us to reflect, to change this country.
And I have an invitation to make,
"Hey!
Let's promote together the civilizing process
that this country needs so much?"
So, let's go.
(Cheers) (Applause)