“Saudade” — Black Brazil.
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver Velez
I’ve been thinking over the Brazil Olympics and feeling “saudade” (can be pronounced sow—dahd-Jee) which is often dubbed a Portuguese word that is untranslatable.
...a Portuguese and Galician term that is a common fixture in the literature and music of Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde and beyond. The concept has many definitions, including a melancholy nostalgia for something that perhaps has not even happened. It often carries an assurance that this thing you feel nostalgic for will never happen again. My favorite definition of saudade is by Portuguese writer Manuel de Melo: "a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy."
I will more than likely never return to Brazil. My dearest friend there has died, and I just don’t want to attempt to revisit what I shared there with her. However, what she did teach me about Brazil, I will never forget. I waited impatiently to watch the Olympics from Rio, hoping to recapture just a bit of the Brazil Maria introduced me to.
Brazil is the country with the largest African-descended population in the world. The country with the largest number of black people is Nigeria. I had expectations of seeing that reflected in the Olympics coverage, and it didn’t happen. Yes, there were segments featuring some of the black Brazilian athletes — most notably Rafaela Silva, who claimed Brazil’s first gold in the games, winning in judo.
Some background on her entrance into the sport is covered in this video:
Career
Silva grew up in Cidade de Deus (City of God), Rio de Janeiro, primarily playing football on the streets of her neighbourhood. She was first introduced to judo at the age of 7
Silva won her first major medal by claiming silver at the 2011 World Judo Championships in Paris. During the 2013 World Judo Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Silva became the first Brazilian woman to ever win a gold medal for her country in a World Judo Championship after defeating American Marti Malloy in the final
What is not discussed in the video is the racism she had to battle, from Brazilians, after losing in 2012. She spoke about it after winning the gold in 2016.
In the final, Silva beat Sumiya Dorjsuren of Mongolia after two days of disappointment on the mat for Brazil.
But the victory provided some vindication for the racial abuse Silva, who is black, endured from Brazilians after missing out on a medal at the 2012 London Games. Four years ago, she received text messages telling her "the place for a monkey is in a cage."
"The monkey that they said had to be locked up in a cage in London is today an Olympic champion at home," Silva said. "Today, I'm not an embarrassment for my family."
In “Brazil’s Rafaela Silva puts racism in its place at Rio after online trolling at London Olympics” she said
“I can serve as an example for the children of the community, because just being black means that people look at you in a different way. You walk down the street and people hold on to their bags”
What NBC didn’t discuss either (that I saw) was her gender identity. Silva is lesbian and lives with her partner who she met via judo. She came out publicly to the press for the first time in an interview with Globo Sports.
Both the opening and closing ceremonies offered a glimpse of black Brazil — though my take away is that much of it got lost in the sauce.
Twelve year old MC Soffia performed in the opening ceremony.
While many will be tuning into the Olympics opening ceremony in Rio De Janeiro to catch a glimpse of globally renowned figures such as Gisele Bunchen or Gilberto Gil, the star of the show may well turn out to be a diminutive 12-year-old from São Paulo. Despite her youth, MC Soffia is already six years into her career as a rapper, and has gained fame for her lyrics which aim to empower young African-Brazilian women. She tackles the country’s long history of slavery and racial division, and challenges the way black people are represented in her rhymes.
In an interview last year, she explained how she became aware of Brazil’s casual racism when she was teased in kindergarten: another child told her her skin was black because she fell into a tin of paint. “I used to be teased by everybody,” she said. “So one day I told my mom I wanted to be white.” Outraged, her mother began taking her to hip-hop concerts to learn more about her roots, and foster a strong sense of confidence in her heritage – a pride which is now reflected in Soffia’s lyrics. Her song Africa pays homage to famous black Brazilian women such as the historical figure Chica de Silva – who was born a slave but whose children become nobles – and the author Carolina Maria De Jesus.
Another song, Menina Pretinha, or Little Black Girl, touches on her core messages with lyrics such as, “I will enjoy myself while I am small / Barbie is cool, but I prefer the African Makena,” in reference to the black dolls. “I’m black and I’m proud of my color … My hair is dope, it doesn’t need a flat iron,” she adds. In an interview this week, Soffia said she hoped her Olympic performance would also shine light on a campaign to enforce a 2003 law that requires schools to include African culture in their curriculum. “When people do talk about Africans in Brazil, it’s about them being slaves, not about how much we have contributed to making Brazil what it is today,” she told the Daily Mail. “That just encourages white kids to treat us bad.
My go-to site for coverage of black Brazil issues, Black Women of Brazil, had a story I didn’t see reported in our press, involving the Brazilian women’s soccer team.
“I hate blacks but Brazil’s goalie has a chance!”- After racist post, federal official justifies himself: “I have a black wife and several black friends”
“Eu odeio preto, mas essa goleira do Brasil tinha chance”, meaning “I hate blacks, but this goalkeeper of Brazil has a chance.”With this phrase, Marcos Clay, administrator from Rio Branco (capital city of the state of Acre), referred to the goalkeeper of the Brazilian women’s futebol team at the Olympics, Bárbara Micheline do Monte Barbosa, in a post on Facebook last Friday (12).
Clay, a member of the Federal Council of Administration (CFA), deleted the message, but the G1 website obtained a copy. Speaking on the same site on Saturday (13), the acriano (native of Acre state) said it was “no more than a joke.” He made other posts on Facebook clarifying the matter. Clay “argued” that “racism is in people’s heads” and proof that he’s not racist is the fact that he is “married, and very happily married” with a black woman.
The Editor of BW of Brazil stated
Note from BW of Brazil: Here we go again! You just gotta love the widespread denial on the topic of racism in Brazil. And the justifications for why one cannot possibly be racist are ALWAYS the same! “I can’t be racist because….because my grandmother’s black…because I have black friends…because my wife is black…because I’ve been with a black man…because our black maid is like one of the family“. As these tired excuses are so common and we’ve already dealt with this issue in numerous posts, I won’t even waste time debating this. I mean, his comment says it all: a type of ‘I don’t like blacks, but for that one (successful black, athlete, singer, etc.), I’ll make an exception.’
But I will say, one of the contributing reasons why racist attitudes continue to exist is because when people make such “jokes”, no one steps forward and repudiates the comment thus, in a way, they condone it. I DO wonder how this guy’s ‘black friends’ felt about his post. As this blog has stated in previous posts, the difference in Brazil today is not that racism is new, but rather the reactions and repudiations of so many Afro-Brazilians who stand firm in the face of such sentiments.
The Editor also noted that the Olympics served to deflect attention from Brazil’s social conditions:
Brazil deserves the tin can medal
First place in homicides
A police force that kills the most in the world
Fifth place in violence against women
Third place in homicides against children
Fourth largest prison population
Among the top ten of unemployment
75th place in the Human Development Index
Number 125th ranking by World Health Organization
Teacher salaries are third worst in the world
One of the most racist countries in the world Patriotism never!!
As I sat and watched the closing ceremony, looking at a spectacle featuring pyrotechnics and music which we couldn’t hear as NBC host commentators talked over the entire show, I kept straining to see black Brazilians. Finally there was a segment featuring the lace making of enslaved women.
The announcer chattered about “when the slaves came over” and I was like “Wtf, does he think folks booked tickets on slave ships” and then he went on to praise the slave masters who allowed the women to make lace to earn money.
No talk of Brazilian candomble, black female priestesses garbed in white...just a side bar on the lovely craft of lace-making.
Blogger Mariella Mosthof noted:
Just as the opening ceremony included a somber (if glossed over by commentators) acknowledgement of Brazil's history of slavery and Portuguese colonization, the closing ceremony paid tribute to the contributions of black female slaves with a somewhat more reverent and uplifting tone than the dirge of the opening ceremony.
The segment featured black women in dressed in white, dancing and singing joyfully, while huge projections of intricate lacework were thrown across the Maracanã Stadium floor. They represented the iconic Brazilian tradition of bilro lace weaving, which came to the country through Portugal, but the segment itself lent vital visibility to Afro-Brazilian women who often fall victim to the country's deeply ingrained racism. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), commentators chose to focus on the "pretty crafts" part.
Not sure if I agree with her take on the joyful part, since the lot of enslaved women was not filled with joy — except when plotting escape, or when doing ritual — but at least she covered it.
As a sports fan, I admit I enjoy watching international competition, and the Olympics provides it in spades. As an anthropologist steeped in the study of race and racism, I can’t say that I enjoy the false face or cover this mega event provided to whitewash the reality of life in Brazil for black and Afro-descended Brazilians.
What was your take?
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The film tells the stories of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three Black female mathematicians who began working for NASA in the 1950s and charted the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit during the Space Race from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia during segregation. Before the title of computers came to refer to the laptops,desktops and calculators that we use today, these women, who did the math by hand were known as “computers.”
Katherine Johnson, the main character in the movie who is played by Taraji P. Henson, was born on August 26th, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, West Virginia and is currently an active member of the Lambda Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha.
Because the county Johnson lived in did not offer schooling for blacks past the 8th grade, her parents sent her to school in Kanahwha County, West Virginia where she graduated from high school at the age of 14. She enrolled at West Virginia State College where she took every math course that the school offered. At one point she studied under W.W. Schiefflin Claytor, the third African American to receive a PhD in math and they added extra math courses to the department just so that Johnson could take more. In 1937, at 18 years old, she graduated summa cum laude from undergrad and moved to Virginia to teach French and math at a grade school.
In 1938 she enrolled at West Virginia University where she became the one of three black students, and the only female, to integrate the graduate school after the US Supreme Court ruled that each state which provided a school for white students had to provide in-state education to blacks as well. In this ruling, states could satisfy this requirement by allowing blacks and whites to attend the same school or creating a second school for blacks.
In 1953, the Guidance and Navigation Department at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (what would later become NASA) offered Johnson a job.
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The cast of Spider-Man: Homecoming, the third live-action Spidey reboot in the past 20 years, is the franchise’s most diverse yet. Tony Revolori, Laura Harrier, and Donald Glover will be buddying up with Tom Holland for the film as director Jon Watts moves forward with his colorblind casting. This week, actress and singer Zendaya was cast in an unknown role, but people quickly hypothesized that she’d be playing the iconic Mary Jane Watson. And those hypotheses quickly sparked backlash among some.
On Friday, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn published a lengthy Facebook post in which he called out the “fans” who were making such a ruckus and who couldn’t understand how a black actress could play a character who, in the comics, is white. “I do not believe a character is the color of his or her skin,” he said. “Yesterday, a rumor broke out that the character of Mary Jane was being played by a young black woman, Zendaya, and all hell broke out on the Internet (again). I tweeted that if people find themselves complaining about Mary Jane’s ethnicity they have lives that are too good.”
He didn’t confirm Zendaya’s casting, explaining that he still had no idea who she’d be playing, and that he was speaking hypothetically about how ridiculous it is that people get hung up on a character’s race. He did say that he thought Zendaya would be good for the role: “For me, what makes MJ MJ is her alpha female playfulness, and if the actress captures that, then she’ll work. And, for the record, I think Zendaya even matches what I think of as MJ’s primary physical characteristics – she’s a tall, thin model–much more so than actresses have in the past.”
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While much of the world’s media has focused on US swimmer Ryan Lochte’s fabricated account of an armed robbery, the real victims of Olympic crime in Rio de Janeiro are the city’s poorest residents, caught on the frontline of conflict between the authorities and drug traffickers.
Since the start of the Olympics, local media have reported at least 14 deaths in shootouts between gang members and police or soldiers from the 85,000-member security force deployed for the Games.
While such high levels of violence have long been a fact of life in favela communities, many residents feel the situation has been made worse by the high-profile mega-event that has focused police on protecting rich foreign visitors and targeting poor local residents.
Certainly, the heightened tension of the Games has led to at least one fatal mistake with devastating repercussions.
Helio Andrade, a state trooper from the distant state of Roraima, was shot dead on 12 August after he mistakenly drove into Vila de João, a gang-controlled neighbourhood in the Complexo do Maré favela. As a soldier on Olympic duty, his death was cause for interim president Michel Temer to declare national mourning and for flags outside the Games venues to fly at half-mast.
As is often the case in Rio, it also prompted the police to launch an extensive and punitive hunt for the killers. At least five residents of Maré were killed in the operations, though the suspects have yet to be apprehended. Images of the area in the local media show that it came under a state of semi-siege, with police helicopters flying overhead and homes raided by heavily armed military police.
The day before the Guardian visited the community, two people had been shot in the latest police action, according to local residents, who said they were woken up on many days by the sound of helicopters buzzing close overhead. “It’s horribly loud,” said Bruno Rodrigues, who, like many local people, asked to be identified with a pseudonym for fear of repercussions. “Everyone in the community is afraid when they hear that as it means an operation is about to start.”
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The country’s unusual open policy gives refugees land, education and a chance to work – but instability in neighbouring nations is putting pressure on resources. ECONOMIsT: Uganda the best place to be a refugee?
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When they fled to Kampala from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in February 2008, Robert Hakiza’s family had food for two months. “The third month was a disaster,” he says. By May, though, his mother and two sisters were out making money. “My sister started selling necklaces,” he says. “At one point, she was keeping the entire family of eight.”
Eight years on, the organisation Hakiza founded, Young African Refugees for Integral Development, employs 16 staff, comprising both refugees and Ugandans. Though his sisters dream of resettlement elsewhere, he is content. “Uganda is one of the best places to stay for refugees,” he says.
By 2015, Uganda had become the third largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, after Ethiopia and Kenya, with more than half a million refugees. That number is rising rapidly. Alongside ongoing crises in Burundi and DRC, violence in South Sudan has driven more refugees to Uganda during three weeks in July than in the first six months of 2016. The Danish Refugee Council warned last month the situation in northern Uganda could become “catastrophic” if they don’t receive more support for assisting the influx of refugees from South Sudan.
But these recent arrivals are among the lucky ones: Uganda is one of the most favourable environments in the world for refugees, according to the UNHCR. While many countries keep refugees in camps away from citizens, Uganda allows them to set up businesses, work for others, and move freely around the country.
Refugees in Uganda’s rural settlements are allocated plots of land and given materials to build a basic home – so that investment in infrastructure benefits locals too; they also receive food aid and access to primary schools and health services. In 2009, Patrick* arrived in Kampala from Rwanda; today he owns a shop and three motorcycle taxis, and employs workers on his land.The majority of refugees live in Uganda’s rural settlements, where they are allocated plots of land and given materials to build a basic home, as well as food aid and access to basic health and education services. But they are also free to build a life in Kampala – where 74,896 refugees and asylum seekers were registered as of May 2016 – as Patrick,* who arrived from Rwanda in 2009 did. Today, he owns a shop and three motorcycle taxis, and employs workers on his land.
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Off the western tip of mainland Africa lie some of the most important vestiges of the transatlantic slave trade: the wreckage of ships that sank, carrying thousands of African men, women and children to America. But despite historians’ immense interest in that period, no one has ever tried to excavate them. Until now.
For years, the wrecks were considered too hard to find. The work was too expensive. And there were few African researchers willing to take on the project in countries where the slave trade is often considered a source of shame — not a subject worthy of study.
For years, the wrecks were considered too hard to find. The work was too expensive. And there were few African researchers willing to take on the project in countries where the slave trade is often considered a source of shame — not a subject worthy of study.
Thiaw, a tall-50-year-old archaeologist from rural Senegal, is one of the pioneers trying to find the wrecks. There has been only one known excavation of a ship that went down off the African coast while carrying slaves — the São José, found thousands of miles away, off South Africa. Artifacts from the vessel will be displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, opening next month. Thiaw hopes his discoveries will eventually be featured by the museum, too.
“The stories that will help us understand the slave trade, this crucial moment in human history, are down there,” Thiaw said, gazing from the boat into the Atlantic Ocean as he began the search on a bright day in May. But as he would discover over the following months, it wouldn’t be easy.
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Voices and Soul
by
Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
Why after being pursued breathless across a brown Savannah? Why after being chained and shackled below decks? Why after being whipped into submission or killed for not submitting? Why after having children ripped from a mother’s arms or a mother sold down the road? Why after the lynchings, the firebombings, the assassinations? Why?
We is gator teeth hanging from the rear-
view mirror as sickle cells suckle at Big
Momma’s teats. We is dragonfly
choppers hovering above Walden Pond.
We is spinal cords shedding like the skin
of a cottonmouth. We is Psalm 23 and
the Pastor’s chattering chicklets. We is
a good problem to have. We is throats
constricting and the grape juice
of Jesus. We is Roach and Mingus in
Birdland. We is body electric, eyes
watering with moonshine, glossy lips
sticky with lard. We is half brothers in
headlock, arm-wrestling in the dirt.
We is Vaseline rubbed into knocked
knees and cracked elbows. We is ham
hocks making love to kidney beans. We
is Orpheus, lute in hand, asking do we
have a problem? We is the backstory
of myth. We is sitting horse and crazy
bull. We is brown paper bags and
gurgled belches. We is hooded ghosts
and holy shadows roaming Mississippi
goddamned. We is downbeats and
syncopation’s cousin. We is mouths
washed out with the blood of the lamb.
We is witch-hazel-coated backs sucking
on peppermint wrappers. We is the
spiked antennas of a triangle face
praying mantis. We is barefoot
tongue-tied hogs with slit throats and
twitching bellies. We is sun tea and
brewed bitches. We is the crying
pussies that stand down when told to
man up. We is Radio Raheem and Zoot
Suit Malcolm. We is spit-slick low cuts
and fades. We is scrappy black-masked
coons and turkey-necked bullfrogs. We
is the pits of arms at stake, the clouds
frothing at the mouth. We is swimmers
naked, private parts allegedly fondled
by Whitman beneath the water. We is
late lurkers and castrated tree limbs
on the Sunday before last. We is red-
veined pupils and piss-stained knickers,
slack-jawed and slumped in the
bathroom doorway. We is whiplash
and backhanded ways of settling grief.
We is clubbin’ woolly mammoths
upside the head, jammin’ fingers in
Darwin’s white beard. We is comin’
round yonder, pigeon-toed and
bowlegged, laughin’ our heads off.
We is lassoed cowboys swingin’ in
the sweet summer breeze.
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