Too White too Fight? Reflections From a Brazilian Activist

Posted on Behalf of Camila: our esteemed colleague and treasured friend, without whom GAAPP could not have happened.

Since the very beginning of the idea of GAAPP project I was pretty sure I could help the students with the organization and realization of the Brazil trip. Nonetheless, my participation in the project has been in the backstage, with administrative and networking issues. People who I contacted in Brazil to schedule meetings for the GAAPP group, such as activists,public employees, and University officials, did not know my face; they did not know my skin color; “I was not yet racialized.” “Some people may guess my skin color” (I would think), because of my strong Southern accent,because of the place I was born (Rio Grande do Sul), and because of the fact I was talking from the University of California Los Angeles, which indicated that I am part of the privileged group who went to college in Brazil. But they did not know for sure and very few dared to ask: Are you white?

I was happy with my temporary racial anonymity. I have been feeling too suspicious of my own condition, de-legitimized not only by my skin, but by my own history. I have had two good Black friends since I came to UCLA. I have lived in the whitest and, perhaps, more racist region of Brazil, I have enjoyed many benefits that the white upper-middle class Brazilian family customarily enjoys … At the same type, Bob Marley is my favorite singer, I sing “War” sound and loud, I love Capoeira, I participated in the World Social Forum twice… Yet: am I only the representation of the Brazilian white society that has used African popular culture to disguise their taste for privilege and avoid the real racial fight? I am in conflict; this conflict is welcome.

I have learned how to be critical and to overcome my fears. I repudiate the discourse that Brazilians are happy as they always have been, and that Black subordination is natural and better than a clear racially divided society.However, I had to understand the pillars of Brazilian constitutional democracy first to, then, become racially conscious. I first believed indignity and equality as inalienable rights, then, I examined the beneficiaries. It was not the racial problem that took me to the debate about legal remedies. It seems that the pathway for the Brazilian racial debate is inverted (and the myth of racial democracy can explain this to a certain extent.) The Black movement is not yet mature, despite of incredible progress. Meanwhile, progressive and racially conscious bills inundate state legislatures and the Brazilian Congress. For me, this inverse pathway (from remedies to movement) was really effective. But the question is whether it can be effective and resilient at the national level and, especially: can it be functional?

Whiteness in my skin and soul is ashamed of many situations that my friends experienced in Brazil because of historical and socially constructed racism.One could even argue that institutionally, racism was upheld up to recently in authoritarian and democratic periods. At the same time, my whiteness admires the many Africans (Brazilian, Americans…) who are not afraid of fighting and overcome so many barriers, and the few Whites who have rejected the idea of general happiness and harmony among races and believe that the fight is certainly worth the while.

The main argument against the fight for racial equality is that a racialized society is, generally, a society permeated with anger and resentment. Yep!This discourse has color. This discourse is constant in the mouth of my peers. This discourse represents that still the White folk sees the Blackfolk as less able to civilized- an idea that was clearly expressed by Gilberto Freyre in the celebrated book “Masters and Slaves”- and that all racial groups are happy and fine with it. Whites in Brazil do not think that the fight for racial equality is important enough to risk a divide and a revolutionary level of animosity in our so-called racially harmonic society.That is rationally obvious, and morally absurd. White man and women have, as I have, lived comfortably in their gated houses and waited for a Black hand to cook their meals and clean their bathrooms. While the moral absurdity of this historical relation is not consolidated in most of the white minds in Brazil, why should we, the racially conscious, care for resentment and racial divisions? If it happens, I hope I can overcome my skin color and all the rooted lessons and privileges that have come with it and, finally, leave the backstage.

I had to come to the U.S. to better understand the racial challenges in Brazil; I believe Brazil helped my friends to better understand the American racial questions as well.