The Black Awareness Day is a commemorative date that is celebrated in our country on November 20 . This date recalls the trajectory of Zumbi dos Palmares, a quilombola who led the Quilombo dos Palmares resistance against the Portuguese in the 17th century. It is also a date to remember and fight the problem of racism in our country.
Access also :Slavery in Brazil during the colonial period
Why November 20th?
On November 20th, Brazil celebrates the National Black Awareness Day. This date was officially established by L hey n.º 12.5 1 9 , of November 10, 2011, and refers to the day that the leader of Quilombo dos Palmares, Zumbi, was killed in 1695. Quilombo de Palmares was located in Serra da Barriga, in the former Captaincy of Pernambuco – today it is part of the municipality of União dos Palmares, in the state of Alagoas —, and was formed around the year 1597.
The Quilombo dos Palmares it was formed by slaves who had run away from the existing sugarcane plantations in Pernambuco. Escapes and the formation of quilombos were two of the resistance practices most used by enslaved Africans in Brazil. The destruction of this quilombo was carried out by a group of pioneers led by Domingos Jorge Velho.
Leadership of Zombie in Quilombo dos Palmares and his resistance against enslavement made him a great symbol of the struggle of blacks against slavery in Brazil. He became this icon of resistance from the 1970s onwards, when details of his death were discovered and when social movements regained their strength in Brazil.
This context motivated the Unified Black Movement against Racial Discrimination to elect, at a congress held in São Paulo, in 1978, the figure of Zumbi as a symbol of resistance, and the date of his death became a moment of celebration of the struggle of blacks against slavery and against racism in Brazil.
This strengthening of the black movement in Brazil allowed the debate on racism and racial inequality present in Brazilian society to gain space. This made it possible for laws to combat racism and inequalities were created in Brazil, such as:
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Law No. 7,716, of January 5, 1989:law that defines crimes of race and color in Brazil;
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Law No. 10,639, of January 9, 2003:law that makes the teaching of Afro-Brazilian History and Culture mandatory;
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Law No. 12,711, of August 29, 2012:law that guarantees quotas for the admission of blacks, pardos and indigenous people to universities.
Black Consciousness Day was created, as we have seen, through Law No. that puts the spotlight on the fight against racism in Brazil. Currently Black Awareness Day is not a national holiday , but since the creation of the commemorative date, more than 1000 municipalities have decided to turn this day into a municipal holiday.
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Importance of Black Awareness Day
The Awareness Day is not just a commemorative date that remembers the fight of Zumbi, but it is a day dedicated to the fight against racism and all the harm he does to our country. It is a date for us to fight racist practices today, but it is also a time to remember all those in the past who dedicated their lives to fighting slavery.
Of course, a stance against racism should not just on the 20th of November, but it should guide our lives every day of the year. This is because we must always remember that the current condition of Brazil is the result of more than 300 years of slavery, what shaped Brazilian customs and practices and made racism and hierarchy inherent to our society.
Significant changes have taken place in recent decades, but Brazil still has a long way to go on the racial issue . You need, for example:
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fighting the lack of opportunities that blacks have in the job market;
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combat police violence, which kills thousands of black people every year;
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end the erasure of African culture;
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extinguish prejudice with African-based religions, etc.
The racism , as the lawyer and philosopher Silvio Almeida puts it, is structural and is present in all areas of our society. It is a mechanism that reproduces inequality in our country|1| . Combating racism necessarily implies creating conditions that allow black people to have equal conditions in our society.
Black Awareness Day serves to remind us that young black people have the right to have access to quality education and equal opportunities, so that they have access to good positions in the labor market. work, for example. This is because blacks and browns represent about 56% of the population, but this proportion is not reproduced in places such as politics and the legislature.
Currently P Brazilian parliament is made up of only 1/10 of blacks| 2 | and, in the Brazilian Judiciary, only 18% of judges are black| 3 | . This highlights the inequality caused by racism and how it manifests itself:it marginalizes and violates black people. Regarding violence, it is also important to remember that the racism kills :in the first seven months of 2019, 1075 people were killed by the police in Rio de Janeiro and 80% of them were black| 4 | .
Black Awareness Day is about this:highlighting the problem of racism and remembering the resistance of black people in the past against violence against them. The fight against racism goes through all of us, so small practices can be adopted by everyone who is against racism.
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Positioning whenever we see friends or family making racist comments.
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Abandon vocabulary words that have racist origins, such as “denigrate” and “mulata”.
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Hear what people of color have to say about racism and situations of racism they have lived through.
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Respect the history, cultures and religions of African origin.
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Always remember that racist jokes are not funny.
Notes
|1| ALMEIDA, Silvio Luiz de. Structural Racism. São Paulo:Sueli Carneiro; Jandaíra Publisher, 2020.
|2| Why do we need more black men and women in politics? To access, click here.
|3| Only 18% of Brazilian judges are black, according to CNJ. To access, click here.
|4| Police violence against blacks as a state policy in Brazil. To access, click here.
Image credits
[1] Cassiohabib and Shutterstock
[2] Tverdokhlib and Shutterstock
[3] Joa Souza and Shutterstock