In episode #30 of the Economisto podcast, IDP professor and presenter Pedro Fernando Nery welcomes journalist Cecília Olliveira, founder and director of Fogo Cruzado, former contributing editor of Intercept Brasil and professor at the Postgraduate Course in Investigative Journalism at IDP for talk about public safety, violence and its racial dimension.
The inequality of death
The São Paulo inequality map shows that the average age at which Brazilians die is much lower in poorer neighborhoods. An important part of the explanation involves the higher mortality of young black men, due to violent causes.
“Brazilians don’t die the same way and the reason for this is that Brazilians don’t usually solve problems and throw everything under the carpet”, explains Cecilia. Inequality is historic in the country, with roots in the “invasion of Brazil”, since since the “liberation” of enslaved people the country has lived from fallacy to fallacy. Brazilians invented the concept of “racial democracy” at the same time that white people had priority access to schools.
The 1984 constitution guaranteed free primary education, but determined to “stimulate eugenic education”. The government, from before, was betting on the “improvement of the breed”. The history of Brazil shows that, including in speeches by deputies, the plan was to make the country clearer in a few years. The idea was not to have such a dark population and, therefore, several mechanisms were used to ensure that there was as little mixed population as possible.
Several laws and decrees were established to control and regulate the lives of black people in cities. Barriers were placed for insurrection, protests, revolts. People who were freed and who led uprisings were punished.
The following laws revalidated mechanisms to continue with black people under control. Decree nº 145, of June 11, 1893, determined the arrest of “beggars”, “rioters”, “vagabonds”, “vagrants” and “capoeiros”, the name given to the category of people. The 2000 drug law reiterates the racist idea of keeping people under control.
Public Security Policies
Public Security Policies
Public security policies are based on racist policies and there is no way to separate the reality of a system that is based on racism, according to Cecília.
The journalist explains that racism is structural, an involuntary social construction. These are absorbed concepts and not an individual decision.
Cecília reports that in 2020, 22 children were shot in Grande Rio and 8 of them died. This happens in isolated areas and with people of color who are not close to people and who are not part of many people's daily lives. The need for these numbers to be reported is extremely important, because behind these numbers there are stories and families destroyed and policies are needed to prevent this from happening.
For Cecília, security falls into the lap of those who fall into security like “a good criminal is a dead criminal” and believes that some laws need to be revised, especially because many of them are the basis for structural racism, but, more than that, Cecília emphasizes the need for anti-racist education. “It is necessary to see people as equals. Leave aside the lies that are convenient for us, the fairy tales”, says Cecília.
Liberalism in Brazil
“The contact between liberalism and real life seems very distant to me, very academic and far from where life happens”, comments Cecília. The core of individual freedoms, in Brazilian liberalism, is not 100%, as there are still people who position themselves as “liberal in the economy and conservative in customs”. Brazil is a very complex country and, therefore, local studies and solutions to local problems are necessary.
The basis of the economy is made up of black people, since when they were seen as commodities and today, in Brazil, there are still legal rules or not that prevent black people from ascending socially and economically and that, at the same time, make it easier for them to be incarcerated.
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