Black leaders have a duty to raise critical awareness, author says
Black men dressed in white entered the room first. Some were older, others younger, but they all had their heads covered with some kind of cap—ogãs, as they are known among practitioners of African-Brazilian faiths. The newcomers positioned themselves center stage in front of atabaque drums and began to play them as greetings to Exu. The orisha is known to them as the messenger, and is in charge of the communication between the Orum—where the deities dwell—and the Ayê—where human beings live. These people were of the Brazilian Atabaque Orchestra Alabê Fun Fun.
The ceremony preceded a talk by guest Nei Lopes—writer, composer, and singer—about the African diaspora in Latin America. Having turned 83 on May 9, the intellectual—who holds four honorary doctorates from different Brazilian universities, is the recipient of two Jabuti awards, and has written 40 books and more than 350 songs—is hailed as an oracle in his collaboration with black Brazilian thought, pointing out paths and readings on African and African-Brazilian history.
The Alabê Fun Fun Atabaque Orchestra performs at the opening of the 3rd International Congress of Afrodiasporic Studies in Rio de Janeiro. – Tomaz Silva / Agência Brasil
He spoke Wednesday (May 28) to an audience of mostly black public school students at a Sesc event in Rio de Janeiro. Lopes discussed historical moments and thoughts that attempted to erase the contribution made by black people to the formation of Brazil—ideas found at the root of structural racism and inequality. He also mentioned intellectuals and movements that have warned against this, like Frantz Fanon, from Martinique, and Carlos Moore, from Cuba.
“The great task of black leaders is to make black people raise their consciousness, in other words, to develop critical awareness so they are properly aware of their reality, both past and present. Only then will it be possible to affirm their identity and self-esteem in order to finally be productive and happy,” he argued.
In the course of an hour, Lopes started his talk by looking back at 1822, when Brazil became independent from Portugal, and went over 200 years of history, citing economic, political, and social reasons for structural racism, which serves the interests of Brazil’s economic elites. At various times, he noted, they found a way to leave the descendants of enslaved Africans out of development, unable to study, unable to acquire land, deprived of fair representation in public and private institutions, marginalized, and subjected to a series of physical as well as symbolic violence—such as eugenicist theories, the police seizure of religious articles, and even the imprisonment of priests of religions of African origin.
Only in 1998, a hundred years after abolition, he said, did the state recognize all people as equal, as well as the material and immaterial goods of marginalized groups in the new Constitution.
“The black element played a vital part in the construction of our Brazilian nationality, imprinting deep marks on the Brazilian way of being as well as on the construction of the wealth of the country’s elites based on knowledge brought over from Africa,” he argued. “However, the structuring of society was based on European supremacism over other social groups, such as indigenous people, and especially Africans,” he added.
Lopes also outlined the thinking of black intellectuals, like scientist Joana dos Santos. He pointed out that the path of affirming black identity can be liberating as it helps understand the modus operandi and origins of structural racism and requires an investigation into one’s own history in order to “distinguish and fully embrace its originality and its ethnic and cultural richness.”
Also aware of his role in the field of education, Lopes talked about Frantz Fanon. The philosopher from Martinique is known for explaining how the colonizer, in the trajectory of countries with a history of slavery as a form of domination, convinced black people that they had no value.
“Racism is an aspect of colonialism in which the colonizer seeks to value himself by devaluing the colonized, leading them to a kind of mute reflection, imagined in this way: ‘I’m not white, I’m not rich, I’m not intelligent, I’m nothing, therefore all that’s left for me to do is follow the model dictated by the colonizer,’” said Lopes. This explains, according to Fanon, the fact that “many blacks, throughout the formation of Brazil, have introjected concepts according to which beauty and intelligence are essentially white,” he said.
In conclusion, Nei Lopes left young people with the message that only by knowing oneself and one’s historical origins is it possible to stop seeing racism as something natural.
“Affirming black identity gives people of African descent a place to speak. In other words, the prerogative of being the subject of their own history based on their cultural and psychological peculiarities, as well as being the narrator of the history of their African ancestors. It also gives them the opportunity to reject and denounce the white supremacist foundation that characterizes structural racism in the formation of Brazil,” he said.
The talk was part of the 3rd International Congress of Afrodiasporic Studies, an event organized by Sesc in Rio de Janeiro, which was broadcast live in Brazilian Sign Language and in English. The video is available on the institution’s YouTube channel.
