REACT OR DIE: IT'S DANGEROUS TO BE BLACK IN BRAZIL

THIS SEEMS TRUE 

DESPITE BRAZIL HAVING 

THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF AFRICA-DESCENDED FOLK 

OUTSIDE OF AFRICA ITSELF. 

THE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT'S DECISION TO "INVISIBLIZE" RACE, 

NOMINALLY ERASE RACE, 

AT LEAST ONE HUNDRED YEARS

 BEFORE THE U.S.

TRIED TO DO THE SAME 

HAS HAD IT'S EFFECT IN BRAZIL

 * * * * *

"As Salvador kicked off Carnival, residents of Cabula...gathered to commemorate the murder of twelve black people on Feb. 6, 2015

Brazilian newspapers called "The Cabula 12" would be bank robbers and glorified the police officers as heroes. Yet, once more the victims of these police shootings were mostly black and poor black as Amnesty International says they are at least 80% of the time.

Autopsy reports showed, according to one article, that these "bank robbers" died on their knees with their hands on their heads. A secret video tape of what looks like a hospital corridor shows that three of the "robbers" have bullet holes in their backs.

Brazil's population is 50% of that of the United States. "Yet Brazil's police have managed to kill "more people in a five year span than U.S. police have killed in the last 30 years."

“The numbers are equivalent to a country at war,” said Hamilton Borges, a black liberation leader and founder of the anti-police violence movement Reaja ou Sera Morta, meaning “React or Die.” 

...Days after the massacre, protests erupted in slums throughout Salvador. Family members broke their silence and spoke to the media. During the carnival, a popular Afro-bloco group staged a die-in honoring Cabula and the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. Countless murals dot the city with the words: “We will never forget those killed in Cabula.”

America.Aljazeera.com 

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2016/2/25/the-cabula-12-brazil-police-war-blacks.html

 * * * * *

Cops in Brazil
Image Source: Twitter

The protests make it sound like a new day is dawning in the black areas of Brazil. 

And black people in this country need to take notice of the fact that maybe we are a part of that new dawn.  Black people in other countries are looking at us and they have been since long before Black Lives Matter.

We, as Black Americans, have power that those in Brazil don't, power that those in France don't.

We, with our whole 13% and American ideals,  have the ability to make ourselves heard in this country and also on the world stage. And we've probably had this power, without most of us being very aware of it, since Civil Rights Leaders used television so effectively to show how the United States was beating and lynching black people in the 1950s and 1960s for doing things as simple as trying to live free and vote.

 

I consider the willingness of the protests in Brazil to stand up another victory for Aliza Garza, Opal Tometi, Patrisse Cullors and their entire Black Lives Matter movement. And if the Black Lives Matter first function is to act like a spotlight, then let us all turn our eyes to the south, toward Brazil, and lift up their struggle.

If the U.S. can be embarrassed into treating us better than the did prior to the 1960s, Brazil can be embarrassed into stopping it's police force from murdering black people at will.

We, as black people, should always see ourselves as being part of a world struggle.
    

Read More On the deaths of The Cabula 12 
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/02/fighting_a_black_genocide_in_brazil.html


Read More On How Very Differently Race Is Constructed In Brazilhttp://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-social-construction-of-race-in.html