One more black person that the State abandoned, that capitalism exploited, that racism killed. Yet another black family that racism broke up, did not let live, prevented it from being built.
One month ago today, in Rio de Janeiro, another murder was committed by the Rio de Janeiro police forces. On June 8, 2021, Kathlen Romeu, a 24-year-old black woman, pregnant, was hit by a bullet from the military police. The bullet, as we know, was not lost. The bullet is not lost if it always finds the same bodies. As Emicida used to say “there is white skin and white hair” .
One more life was taken by the Brazilian State, Kathlen had a future ahead of her, building a family, reaching her achievements, rejoicing with the discovery of her pregnancy even in the first months. Kathlen was the hope of a generation that would not suffer as previous generations did. The State did not allow Kathlen to live, it took a mother, a daughter, a granddaughter and a partner.
For now, the officers involved in Kathlen's murder have yet to be held accountable . The police still have an investigation open and are in the process of reconstituting the crime scene in order to find those responsible ( Source: G1 ). However, we ask ourselves: what happens when the police investigate the police?
This is not an isolated case, the brutality draws attention to a constant reality in the lives of the black population in Brazil: they agreed to kill us. The last Atlas of Violence published in 2020 identified that, in 2018, black people represented 75.7% of homicide victims . Considering the decade between 2008 and 2018, there is an increase of 11.5% in the homicide rate of black people and a decrease of 12.9% of non-black people . ( Source: IPEA - atlas of violence )
In the country, every 23 minutes a young black man is killed , a life is taken, a family is disrupted, a mother loses a daughter or son, a son or daughter loses a father, a mother. In 2020, 12 black children were killed in Rio de Janeiro. Among women, black women account for 68% of deaths . ( Source: Labjaca )
Family consolidation has been denied to black people since their arrival in Brazilian lands. Before, even during the colonial period, children were separated from their mothers in the name of profit for the sugar mills and plantations. Women were treated as objects to satisfy masters or care for their children. While their own children and husbands were sold and enslaved, tearing entire families apart. Today, the do-and-let-die dynamic continues to deny these black families their consolidation.
In this emblematic case of violence, the result of a society based on structural racism, not only does the State have its share of blame, but capitalism also plays a key role in maintaining privilege for some and the lack of rights for others, including right to life, guaranteed by Article 5 of the Federal Constitution. The State and capitalism are two sides of the same coin: profitable extermination. The company in which Kathlen worked, Farm, activated a mechanism to make her work and profit for the business group even after her death. The lucrative and genocidal face of racism that drove the enslavement of black people and remains even after a formal abolition that did not free black men and women from domination.
One more black person that the State abandoned, that capitalism exploited, that racism killed. Yet another black family that racism broke up, did not let live, prevented it from being built.
Doing and letting die represents the necropolitical face of the Brazilian State, which strives incessantly to strengthen the myth of racial democracy. A brutal face that seeks a white country through the genocide of blacks and indigenous people who are at odds with the pretense of Brazilian whiteness. Genocide is promoted through physical and cultural death. The denial of culture and ancestral memory represents epistemicide against black and indigenous knowledge. The concealment of the contribution of these peoples in the construction of the Brazilian State distorts a country modeled after Europe. The cruel forms of domination, exclusion and extermination have one main objective: population hygiene.
However, this culture resists, our people barely resist. “We agreed not to die” — said Dorvi before dying. Black man, fictional character invented by Conceição Evaristo, represents the reality of many. After all, they agreed to kill us.
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Ananda Vilela , a black woman from the outskirts of Suzano, in Greater São Paulo. PhD student in International Relations at PUC-Rio and Master at the same institution. I research race and racism in International Relations and also the intersections between race, gender and class in social relations.
Photo: Tatiana Campbell / Super Rádio Tupi . Mural is located in Complexo do Lins, in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro.
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