Black community — World News, Travel and Social Action

Brazil, the last South American country to abolish slavery in the late 1800s, struggles to uplift their nation’s Black lives. Through pay gaps, urban designs, government representation and policing, Brazil’s society threatens the Black community.

A protester on the streets in Brazil. Michelle Guimarães.

Over the course of 300 years, approximately four million Africans were taken to Brazil as slaves. Today, Brazil’s racial demographics are 47.7 percent white, 43.1 percent multiracial and 7.6 percent Black. The average income for white Brazilians is almost double that of the average income for Black or multiracial Brazilians, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Also, 78.5 percent of people in Brazil who are receiving the lowest rate of income (equivalent to $5.50 U.S. dollars per day) are Black or multiracial people.

This May, Black Lives Matter protests filled the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Brasília after 28 people died during a police raid. Human rights activists said that the officers killed people who wanted to surrender and posed no threat. The raid took place in Rio de Janeiro, where heavily armed officers with helicopters and vehicles went into Jacarezinho, a poor neighborhood. Thousands of residents were subject to nine hours of terror.

Organizers said that 7,000 people took to the streets in Sao Paulo. Protesters painted the Brazilian flag with red paint and held up a school uniform stained with blood. In Rio de Janeiro, protestors chanted, “Don’t kill me, kill racism.”

As Brazilian author and activist Djamila Ribeiro said, “The Brazilian state didn't create any kind of public policy to integrate Black people in society," and that "although we didn't have a legal apartheid like the U.S. or South Africa, society is very segregated—institutionally and structurally."

In 2019, the police killed 6,357 people in Brazil, which is one of the highest rates of police killings in the world—and almost 80 percent of the victims were Black.

During COVID-19, Black Brazilians were more likely than other racial groups to report COVID-19 symptoms, and more likely to die in the hospital. Experts attributed this disparity to high rates of informal employment among Black people, preventing them from the ability to work from home, and a higher prevalence of pre-existing conditions. Specifically, in 2019, Black Brazilians already accounted for the majority of unemployed workers (64.2%); therefore, they already lacked economic support even before the pandemic.

An artist’s photoshoot with Brazil flag covering their bodies. Eriscolors.

Only a quarter of federal deputies in the lower chamber of Brazil’s Congress and a third of managerial roles in companies were Black people, according to the IBGE statistics from 2019.

Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, said during his campaign in 2018 that descendants of people who were enslaved were “good for nothing, not even to procreate,” while using the slogan “my color is Brazil.”

Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, a professor at the University of Texas, conducted an ethnographic study looking at how Black women in Gamboa de Baixo—a city culturally and historically tied to Black Brazilians—are leading the community towards social activism against racist politics. Specifically, these racist policies include political urban revitalization programs that push out Black and poor people. Perry said that these policies are a political tactic continually utilized in Brazilian cities.

However, recently in May, Milton Barbosa, one of the founders of the most notable Black civil rights organization in Brazil, Unified Black Movement, said, “There’s been an increase in awareness nationally… We still have to fight, but there have been important changes.”

Black Americans are 79% more likely than White Americans to live in areas where industrial pollution poses a health threat. The environmental injustice that members of the community face is rooted in centuries of systemic racism and segregation.

People in Flint, Michigan, protesting amid the Flint water crisis. Shannon Nobles. CC BY-SA 4.0

In 2016, Flint, Michigan, was declared to be in a state of emergency by its mayor, Michigan’s governor, and then-President Barack Obama. These state of emergency declarations brought national attention to a crisis that citizens of Flint, a majority-Black community, had been dealing with for two years at that point: undrinkable water. In 2014, the city switched its drinking water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in an attempt to cut costs. The Flint River runs through the center of town and has historically been used as an unofficial disposal site for refuse from local factories and mills. The river’s pollution, combined with inadequate water treatment and testing, led to discolored, bad-smelling water being pumped into Flint homes. Water from the Flint River caused rashes and hair loss, and it also potentially contributed to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that killed 10 people. Later studies showed that the contaminated water had also led to increased cases of elevated blood lead levels in Flint’s children, a condition which can create a range of developmental problems. Flint is still dealing with lead in its water supply because of corroded pipes. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission concluded that the government’s poor response to the Flint water crisis was a result of implicit bias and systemic racism.

Flint is not the only city to fall victim to environmental injustice, the phenomenon of certain communities, such as communities of color and poor communities, being disproportionately subjected to environmental risk. Environmental injustice is believed to be rooted in systemic racism, and is sometimes referred to as environmental racism. While White people generally breathe 17% less air pollution than they are responsible for generating, Black people breathe 56% more than they cause. In 19 states, Black Americans are at least 79% more likely than White Americans to live in areas where industrial pollution is a health threat.

St. James Parish, Louisiana, is riddled with factories, chemical plants and refineries. Residents in the area have some of the highest cancer rates in the country, and the region has been nicknamed “Cancer Alley.” Environmentalists say that the area’s fossil fuel industry is the reason for the community’s dismal health. Residents of Grays Ferry, a neighborhood in South Philadelphia, also face disproportionate rates of cancer, which experts attribute to the community’s proximity to a massive refinery. Like Flint, St. James Parish and Grays Ferry are majority-Black communities.

Factories, refineries and other forms of polluting infrastructure have historically been built in low-income communities of color. Many of these communities were created through segregation and redlining, the refusal of the Federal Housing Administration to issue mortgages in Black neighborhoods. Housing policies under the New Deal were geared toward providing housing to middle-class White families, pushing people of color into urban housing projects. The Federal Housing Administration subsidized the production of subdivisions for White families, requiring that none of the homes be sold to people of color. White neighborhoods received more community investment and better infrastructure, while communities of color suffered from poverty and poor amenities. Companies began exploiting this segregation by buying out Black residents in order to use the land for industrial purposes. After all, people in low-income communities often lacked the means necessary to hire legal representation that could fight back against major corporations.

The systemic racism that led to segregation and the creation of many low-income communities of color in some ways still perseveres, as these communities are taken advantage of by companies at the expense of residents’ health. Black people have historically been left out of the environmentalist movement, with White people making up 80% of the staff of environmental nonprofits. More recently, Black communities have begun advocating for environmental justice. Activists hope to combine the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impact of proposed projects and infrastructure, with Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits federally funded entities from discriminating on the basis of race, to create a policy that would dismantle environmental injustice. Environmental policy changes are considered by many to be badly needed, and until they occur, companies will continue to prosper at the expense of Black communities.