Djamila Ribeiro - The fight Against Structural Racism

Updated: Nov 21

Djamila Ribeiro, philosopher, social activist, teacher, and woman writer, was the winner of the 2020 Jabuti Prize in the Human Sciences category with the book Pequeno Manual Antirracista (Small Anti-Racist Manual). In eleven brief lessons she shows how to understand the origins of racism and how to combat it.

It does not matter if you are white, black, indigenous, Asian, Arab or whatever because racism can only be fought with the involvement of the whole society. Therefore, we are all involved with structural racism.

Recognizing the roots and impact of racism can be paralyzing. After all, how to face a monster that size? Djamila Ribeiro argues that anti-racist practice is urgent and takes place in the everyday attitudes. Even more: it's a fight for everyone.

Structural Racism, Origins and Perpetuation

The perception that racism is rooted in our society has been solidified for many years, creating inequalities and social chasms. It is a system of oppression that denies rights and not a simple act of will by a subject.

Brazil was the last country on the American continent to abolish slavery. This means that for 130 years, black men and women were trafficked and kept in subhuman conditions of unpaid work.

However, when the ruling class realizes that slavery is no longer sustainable as an economic model, it begins to take a series of measures, including legislative measures, to enable the marginalization of black men and women.

Slavery was abolished in 1888, but only on paper, because no rights were guaranteed to free slaves. These men and women had no access to land, let alone any kind of compensation or repair for so long of forced labor.

Many of them continued on the farms where they had worked forcibly before their manumission. Others sought hard, informal work, with little difference from how they were treated before abolition. These men and women then came to be seen as lazy and vagrants.

Small Anti-racist Manual

Anti-racism is the ideology against racism, which opposes any racist practice, discrimination and racial segregation. It is a form of action against hatred, racial prejudice, systemic racism and the structural oppression of racially and ethnically marginalized groups.

In eleven short and compelling chapters, the author presents avenues of reflection for those who want to deepen their understanding of structural racist discrimination and take responsibility for transforming the state of affairs. Are they:

Inform yourself about racism – recognizing racism is the best way to fight it. Do not be afraid of the words "white", "black", "racism" and "racist". Saying that a certain attitude was racist is just a way of characterizing it and defining its meaning and implications. The word cannot be a taboo, because racism is in us and in the people we love — what is more serious is not recognizing and not fighting oppression.

See blackness – “I didn’t find myself black, I was accused of being one.” Joyce Bert. The beginning of school life was a watershed for me. The world presented at school was that of whites, in which European cultures were seen as superior, the ideal to be followed. I noticed that my white colleagues did not need to think about the social place of whiteness, because they were seen as normal: the wrong one was I. Black children cannot ignore everyday violence, while white children, by seeing the world from their social places — which is a place of privilege — end up believing that this is the only possible world.

Recognize the privileges of whiteness – White people do not often think about what it means to belong to this group, as the racial debate is always focused on blackness. The absence or low incidence of black people in spaces of power does not usually cause discomfort or surprise to white people. To denaturalize this, everyone must question the absence of black people in management positions, black authors in anthologies, black thinkers in the bibliography of university courses, black protagonists in the audiovisual. In addition, it is necessary to think of actions that change this reality.

Realize the racism internalized in you – most people admit there is racism in Brazil, but almost no one assumes himself or herself as racist. On the contrary, the first impulse of many people is to emphatically refuse the hypothesis of having a racist behavior: “Of course not, after all I have black friends”, “How would I be racist if I employed a black person?”, “Racist, I, that I never cursed a black person?” From the moment, racism is understood as a system that structures society, these answers are shown to be empty. It is impossible not to be racist having been raised in a racist society. It is something that is in us and against which we must always fight.

Support affirmative educational policies – because of structural racism, the black population has less access to quality education. Generally, those who pass the very competitive entrance exams for the main courses at the best public universities are people, who studied in elite private schools, speak other languages and have exchange in other countries. In addition, precisely structural racism facilitates this group's access. This debate is not about ability, but about opportunity—and that is the distinction meritocracy advocates do not seem to make.

Transform your work environment – if you have or work in a company, some questions you should ask are: What is the proportion of black and white people in your company? Moreover, how is this proportion in the case of the highest positions? How is the racial issue handled when hiring personnel? On the other hand, is it simply not treated, because this process must be “colorblind”? Does your company have a diversity committee or a project to improve these numbers? Is there room for a mood hostile to vulnerable groups? Questions of this kind can serve as a guide for a reassessment of racism in the workplace. As researcher Joice Berth says, the issue, in addition to representation, is one of proportionality.

Read black authors – the importance of studying black authors is not based on an essentialist view, that is, on the belief that they should be read just because they are black. The point is that it is unrealistic that in a society like ours, with a black majority, only one group dominates the formulation of knowledge. Is it possible to believe that black people do not make the world? Social privilege results in epistemic privilege, which must be confronted so that the story is not told only from the point of view of power. It is harmful that, in a society, people do not know the history of the people who built it.

Question the culture you consume – the debate on racism is urgent when we talk about media and access to resources for audiovisual productions. In the documentary A negação do Brasil (Brazil's denial), director Joel Zito Araújo analyzes the influence of soap operas on the national collective imagination, while denouncing television racism and the stereotyped role destined for black actors and actresses, as in the soap opera called A cabana do Pai Tomás (Tomas father's hut), 1969, in which the actor Sérgio Cardoso painted himself in black to play the role of the protagonist, the enslaved Tomás.

Know your desires and affections – black women have been ultra sexualized since the colonial period. In the Brazilian collective imagination, the image is propagated that they are “lewd”, “easy” and “naturally sensual”. This idea even serves to justify abuse: black women are the biggest victims of sexual violence in the country. This sexualization removes the humanity of women, because we are no longer seen with all the complexity of the human being. We are often harassed, touched, invaded without our permission. We often have our names ignored, being called "denies". These are attitudes that seem harmless, but that for black women are recurrent and violent.

Fight racial violence – the 2018 Atlas of Violence, carried out by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, and revealed that the black population is more exposed to violence in Brazil. Blacks represent 55.8% of the Brazilian population and are 71.5% of the people killed. Between 2006 and 2016, the homicide rate of non-black individuals (white, yellow and indigenous) decreased by 6.8%, while in the same period the homicide rate of the black population increased by 23.1%. According to data from Amnesty International, every 23 minutes a young black man is murdered in Brazil, which shows that the genocide of the black population, especially young people, is underway.

Let us all be anti-racist – realizing the privileges that certain social groups have and practicing small exercises in perception can transform situations of violence that would not be questioned before the awareness process. White people must be critically responsible for the system of oppression that historically privileges them, producing inequalities, and black people can become aware of historical processes so as not to reproduce them. This book is a small contribution to stimulate self-knowledge and the construction of anti-racist practices.

Who is Djamila Ribeiro?

Born in Santos, São Paulo, on August 1, 1980, Djamila Taís Ribeiro dos Santos is an important contemporary voice in defense of blacks and women. She courageously denounces violence and social inequality - especially against blacks and women - so characteristic of Brazilian society.

Graduated in philosophy, with a master's degree in the same area, from the Federal University of São Paulo, Djamila became assistant secretary of the Secretary of Human Rights and Citizenship of São Paulo in 2016.

She is currently a columnist for the newspaper Folha de São Paulo and the magazine Elle Brasil, in addition to serving as a guest professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo.

Djamila brings to light structural racism, which is a legacy from the times of slavery and which, until today, condemns the black population to a certain social place, with the worst rates of human development and outside the spaces of power.

The activist talks about a social system where the Judiciary, instead of remaining exempt, is deeply related to the police, often favoring the military and condemning young black people without the proper evidence. It challenges us to rethink, as a society, the training given to military police.

For the writer, miscegenation in Brazil was romanticized, which led many naively to believe that there was no racism in Brazil. Her challenge is precisely to show the racial prejudice that is ingrained in Brazilian society and help, in some way, to fight it, providing tools for the public to (re)think its social posture.

Awards

2016 - The book O que é lugar de fala? (What is a place of speech?). She was a finalist for the Jabuti Award in the Humanities category.

2019 - Prince Claus Award in the Philosophy category, offered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, in recognition of his activist struggle.

2020 - Jabuti Award in the Human Sciences category for the book Pequeno manual antirracista (Small anti-racist manual) ֎

Did you like this post? Do you have any suggestions or criticism? Write your comment below and, if you want, you can share it. All of this helps a lot in my work.