November 20 National Black Consciousness Day and the new democratic winds

Racism causes the dehumanization of the person due to their racial belonging, and as a consequence, the dehumanization of life.

Luiza Bairros

This is a different "National Black Consciousness Day" for our country. After the 2016 coup d'état and with the rise of the extreme right to power, represented by Bolsonaro's misrule, Brazil and the black population are breathing the air of a return to democracy. In these years of misrule, the marginalized Brazilians who most need a strong State, that is, the poor, black, LGBTQIA+ population, women, indigenous peoples, quilombolas and other traditional peoples, people with disabilities, children and Young people suffered even more from deaths that could have been avoided during the Covid-19 pandemic, unemployment, violence and Brazil's return to the hunger map.

Throughout its historical and political trajectory, the organized black population has never stopped fighting for democracy and, in that fight, it has never stopped including the agenda of women, LGBTQIA+, poverty , environmental racism, mass incarceration of the black population, etc. much others. The Black Movement, the main political subject and protagonist of this struggle, has reeducated Brazil, especially the progressive camp, in the understanding that the anti-racist struggle improves democracy. After all, democracy is not perfect and therefore requires and deserves improvements. She admits to being imperfect. In authoritarian regimes, however, there is no confession of imperfection. There is arrogance and lack of respect.

It is not enough, however, to simply recover our democracy, so attacked by the reactionary forces that subverted order and tried to transform the country into a space of hatred and intolerance. We need to recover our democracy in a more qualified way, therefore, it needs to be based on social, racial and gender equality, with social justice and return to the dignity of the Brazilian population. Furthermore, democracy must be anti-racist! We are in a unique moment in the construction of the new government: the work of the transition cabinet. We have learned a lot in recent years about the urgency of combating racism and that one of the ways to do so is through public policies. The recreation of the Ministry of Racial Equality, President Lula's campaign commitment, is materialized in the construction of the technical group with that objective. It is an emancipatory political action

The winds of social and racial emancipation at this political moment of construction of a country diagnosis and indication of points to be considered by future ministers are a relevant task of the transition. We know that today, when it comes to anti-racism, we learned and continue to learn much more from the Black Movement about the importance of racial equality as an intersectional policy.

Among the learnings built by the Frente Brasil da Esperança, we, from the Racial Equality GT - on this historic November 20, 2022, which is part of the moment of the resumption of democracy with social participation and commitment to reconstruction and democratic transformation of the State - I would like to leave some important questions and challenges for each Thematic Group and for the coordination of the transition. They are: If there is agreement that racism is a structural phenomenon and that in recent years it has worsened in our country, how can we build anti-racist public policies beyond those already planned and that will be implemented in the recreation of the Ministry of Racial Equality?

Moving towards an anti-racist democracy means that each area of government transition, namely education, justice, health, women's policy, science, technology and innovation, culture, industry and commerce and services, justice and public safety, youth , fishing, economy, social security, transparency, integrity and control, agrarian development, regional social development and fight against hunger, sports and leisure, planning, budget and management, work, tourism, foreign relations, communications and human rights, and all and each of the government sectors investigate and look at themselves and the situation of racial and social inequality that exists in Brazil and include the fight against racism in the policies that will be formulated by the ministries they represent. If black men and women constitute 75% of the poorest, as the IBGE points out, any policy to combat poverty and hunger must necessarily be anti-racist.

Data on racial inequalities already exists. Our challenge is to move from data to a policy that combats the perverse phenomenon of racism that causes it. It is to implement and materialize the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance, ILO Convention 111, the Federal Constitution and the Statute of Racial Equality.
We believe it is possible because black people are synonymous with resistance and hope. The black Brazilian population relies on hope in the sense of Paulo Freire, that is, on waiting, on acting in the present to make it worthy and pave the way for a better future. A hope that is still based on the determination and strategic intelligence of Dandara and Zumbi in the fight in and for Palmares.

Every November 20 is the time to reaffirm that the anti-racist fight will always be democratic, since overcoming racism frees us from the chains of hatred and ignorance. Free us all, black and non-black. And it points out the possibility of equality with equity. And it is precisely this type of society that we need in democratic reconstruction and transformation. We must follow in our work the teachings of Nelson Mandela, who knew how to unite blacks and whites in the fight against apartheid in South Africa: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of their skin, their origin or even their religion. . People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love."

Douglas Belchior          Givânia Maria da Silva          Iêda Leal de Souza          Janice Ferreira da Silva (Preta Ferreira)         Martvs das Chagas          Nilma Lino Gomes          Thiago Thobias          Yuri Santos Jesus da Silva.

Technical Group on Racial Equality in the Transition.