This shyt makes me sick everytime I hear about it
I heard this muthaphucka even had a preference for dark-skinned girls which is disgusting considering how his regime shytted on Black people.
Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events
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This shyt makes me sick everytime I hear about it
I heard this muthaphucka even had a preference for dark-skinned girls which is disgusting considering how his regime shytted on Black people.
Isn't this always the case?
What you mean?
Kambon calls for reparations
By COREY CONNELLY Sunday, July 31 2016
Emancipation observances reaches its crescendo, tomorrow, with the traditional Kambule procession through the streets of Port of Spain and, later, the grand cultural show at the Lidj Yasu Omowale Village, Queen’s Park Savannah.
And while many African descendants would have participated fully in the various events leading up to tomorrow’s events, the issue of reparations still remains a front-burner topic for diasporic peoples, who have long complained about the absence of any formal acknowledgement of the evils committed during the era of chattel slavery.
For chairman of the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) Khafra Kambon, reparations are fundamental to cultivating greater self-respect among peoples of African origin.
And he is calling on the People’s National Movement (PNM), which formed the Government after the September 2015 general election, to re-install a Reparations Committee, in keeping with Caricom’s decision in 2013 for Caribbean territories to establish such groups to drive the process.
“This is one of the most historic decisions that Caricom has taken because it is a matter of not just money but self-respect,” he said of the decision.
“It is not only about financing measures that will help to correct the damage that has been done but acknowledging that slavery had affected the growth and development of the people in the region.
Kambon encouraged the Government to re-form a committee in line with the rest of Caricom,” noting that all of the islands had established committees, despite political transitions.
Following Caricom’s decision, two years ago, the then People’s Partnership Government established a Reparations Committee in Trinidad and Tobago, headed by Aiyegoro Ome, a founding member of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC).
Former prime minister Kamla Persad- Bissessar, speaking at an Emancipation Dinner at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, in 2014, noted, then, the mounting calls for reparations.
“Across the Caribbean, the lobby for reparations for slavery and native genocide is growing.
Trinidad and Tobago, along with several other Caricom nations, have established national reparations committees to pursue amends from former colonial nations,” she had told guests.
On that occasion, Persad-Bissessar also alluded to statements made by St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonzalves, who had stressed the need to raise awareness for reparations.
“While I know Ome and his team will create greater awareness of this issue throughout the country in the coming months; I must also state we, as Caricom leaders, are saying to the former colonial nations that the case for reparatory justice is unquestionably strong,” the former prime minister had said.
“This is, therefore, a good moment for me to reaffirm my full support and the support of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago as you document the long-term effects of the enslavement of our African ancestors and their descendants and by extension our present society.” Persad-Bissessar had told guests that reparatory justice was being sought in several areas, including an indigenous people’s development programme; technology transfer; debt cancellation; illiteracy eradication; psychological rehabilitation; public health; the development of cultural institutions; repatriation, and a formal apology.
Kambon was a part of the Partnership-commissioned committee, which also included former Caricom secretary general Edwin Carrington; university lecturer Dr Claudius Fergus; veteran calypsonian Dr Hollis Liverpool and representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister and Ministries of Education, Culture and the Rastafarian Community.
He recalled that by the time the September 2015 general election came around, members of the committee simply did the honourable thing and resigned.
Kambon told Sunday Newsday that the committee was a serious one which, unfortunately, did not have time to begin its work in earnest.
He said the Government must re-activate moves in this regard.
“The issue is one that has been around for African enslavement as well as genocide against indigenous people’s in the region,” he said. “It is a reflection of how Africans are seen globally because other groups have suffered but gotten no reprieve.” Kambon gave an example of the German authorities treatment of Namibians in the early 1900s to highlight the brutality of the slave era - facts which the Sunday Newsday corroborated from historical documents about the ordeal.
According to documents, during the period 1904 to 1908, German soldiers brutally massacred thousands of Namibians after then General Lothar Von Trotha was sent to the country to quell an uprising by the Herero’s, one of the indigenous groups, against their German rulers.
In what historians regard as the 20th century’s first genocide, Von Trotha instructed his troops to eliminate the entire tribe.
On October, 1904, Trotha had declared: “Within the German boundaries, every Herero, whether found armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall not accept more women and children. … I shall order shots to be fired at them.” Confined to prison set-ups, the Hereros and members of another tribe, the Namas, died mainly of malnutrition while others were beheaded and their skulls sent to German researchers in Berlin for experimental purposes.
“In many instances, the women had to clean the skulls of the men, some not knowing that it belonged to their husbands,” Kambon said.
“That was the viciousness of it. It could have been your own husband’s head and they would have to boil it down and scrape it down to the skull.” The ESC Chairman claimed that the German had wiped out 80 percent of the Herero people and 50 percent of the Nama.
“It was really a war of extinction,” he added.
Lo and behold, news emerged last month that Germany was set to officially recognise the killing of thousands of Namibians, more than one century ago.
In a July 14 article in the London- based newspaper, Telegraph, headlined “Germany to recognise Herero genocide and apologise to Namibia,” Justin Huggler wrote that the country will recognise as genocide, the massacre of an estimated 110,000 of the Herero and Nama people of Namibia by German troops between 1904 and 1908 “in a landmark admission of historical guilt.” A spokesman for Angela Merkel’s government said Germany would formally apologise to Namibia, wrote Huggler.
No time frame was laid out for the formal apology in the article.
Huggler wrote that the “systematic extermination” of the Herero and Nama people is widely regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century.
In the meantime, Kambon believes that many African descendants, still allowed unequal treatment to be a part of their daily reality “without making it a major issue.” ‘There has to be some notion of what the level of decimation was with some measurement of the setback it created,” he said.
Kambon said many people were of the view that persons of African origin should be thanking the Europeans for their influence in many areas.
“They believe that we gained so much from them although Africans were killed for fun and sport,” he said.
Kambon said for many people, the issue of reparations was still a work in progress.
“We don’t feel deeply enough and aggrieved and so the struggle for reparations will be a permanent fight until it is achieved,” he said.
Kambon argued that Africans had made a significant input at all levels of the society.
Kambon calls for reparations
By COREY CONNELLY Sunday, July 31 2016
Emancipation observances reaches its crescendo, tomorrow, with the traditional Kambule procession through the streets of Port of Spain and, later, the grand cultural show at the Lidj Yasu Omowale Village, Queen’s Park Savannah.
And while many African descendants would have participated fully in the various events leading up to tomorrow’s events, the issue of reparations still remains a front-burner topic for diasporic peoples, who have long complained about the absence of any formal acknowledgement of the evils committed during the era of chattel slavery.
For chairman of the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) Khafra Kambon, reparations are fundamental to cultivating greater self-respect among peoples of African origin.
And he is calling on the People’s National Movement (PNM), which formed the Government after the September 2015 general election, to re-install a Reparations Committee, in keeping with Caricom’s decision in 2013 for Caribbean territories to establish such groups to drive the process.
“This is one of the most historic decisions that Caricom has taken because it is a matter of not just money but self-respect,” he said of the decision.
“It is not only about financing measures that will help to correct the damage that has been done but acknowledging that slavery had affected the growth and development of the people in the region.
Kambon encouraged the Government to re-form a committee in line with the rest of Caricom,” noting that all of the islands had established committees, despite political transitions.
Following Caricom’s decision, two years ago, the then People’s Partnership Government established a Reparations Committee in Trinidad and Tobago, headed by Aiyegoro Ome, a founding member of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC).
Former prime minister Kamla Persad- Bissessar, speaking at an Emancipation Dinner at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, in 2014, noted, then, the mounting calls for reparations.
“Across the Caribbean, the lobby for reparations for slavery and native genocide is growing.
Trinidad and Tobago, along with several other Caricom nations, have established national reparations committees to pursue amends from former colonial nations,” she had told guests.
On that occasion, Persad-Bissessar also alluded to statements made by St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonzalves, who had stressed the need to raise awareness for reparations.
“While I know Ome and his team will create greater awareness of this issue throughout the country in the coming months; I must also state we, as Caricom leaders, are saying to the former colonial nations that the case for reparatory justice is unquestionably strong,” the former prime minister had said.
“This is, therefore, a good moment for me to reaffirm my full support and the support of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago as you document the long-term effects of the enslavement of our African ancestors and their descendants and by extension our present society.” Persad-Bissessar had told guests that reparatory justice was being sought in several areas, including an indigenous people’s development programme; technology transfer; debt cancellation; illiteracy eradication; psychological rehabilitation; public health; the development of cultural institutions; repatriation, and a formal apology.
Kambon was a part of the Partnership-commissioned committee, which also included former Caricom secretary general Edwin Carrington; university lecturer Dr Claudius Fergus; veteran calypsonian Dr Hollis Liverpool and representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister and Ministries of Education, Culture and the Rastafarian Community.
He recalled that by the time the September 2015 general election came around, members of the committee simply did the honourable thing and resigned.
Kambon told Sunday Newsday that the committee was a serious one which, unfortunately, did not have time to begin its work in earnest.
He said the Government must re-activate moves in this regard.
“The issue is one that has been around for African enslavement as well as genocide against indigenous people’s in the region,” he said. “It is a reflection of how Africans are seen globally because other groups have suffered but gotten no reprieve.” Kambon gave an example of the German authorities treatment of Namibians in the early 1900s to highlight the brutality of the slave era - facts which the Sunday Newsday corroborated from historical documents about the ordeal.
According to documents, during the period 1904 to 1908, German soldiers brutally massacred thousands of Namibians after then General Lothar Von Trotha was sent to the country to quell an uprising by the Herero’s, one of the indigenous groups, against their German rulers.
In what historians regard as the 20th century’s first genocide, Von Trotha instructed his troops to eliminate the entire tribe.
On October, 1904, Trotha had declared: “Within the German boundaries, every Herero, whether found armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall not accept more women and children. … I shall order shots to be fired at them.” Confined to prison set-ups, the Hereros and members of another tribe, the Namas, died mainly of malnutrition while others were beheaded and their skulls sent to German researchers in Berlin for experimental purposes.
“In many instances, the women had to clean the skulls of the men, some not knowing that it belonged to their husbands,” Kambon said.
“That was the viciousness of it. It could have been your own husband’s head and they would have to boil it down and scrape it down to the skull.” The ESC Chairman claimed that the German had wiped out 80 percent of the Herero people and 50 percent of the Nama.
“It was really a war of extinction,” he added.
Lo and behold, news emerged last month that Germany was set to officially recognise the killing of thousands of Namibians, more than one century ago.
In a July 14 article in the London- based newspaper, Telegraph, headlined “Germany to recognise Herero genocide and apologise to Namibia,” Justin Huggler wrote that the country will recognise as genocide, the massacre of an estimated 110,000 of the Herero and Nama people of Namibia by German troops between 1904 and 1908 “in a landmark admission of historical guilt.” A spokesman for Angela Merkel’s government said Germany would formally apologise to Namibia, wrote Huggler.
No time frame was laid out for the formal apology in the article.
Huggler wrote that the “systematic extermination” of the Herero and Nama people is widely regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century.
In the meantime, Kambon believes that many African descendants, still allowed unequal treatment to be a part of their daily reality “without making it a major issue.” ‘There has to be some notion of what the level of decimation was with some measurement of the setback it created,” he said.
Kambon said many people were of the view that persons of African origin should be thanking the Europeans for their influence in many areas.
“They believe that we gained so much from them although Africans were killed for fun and sport,” he said.
Kambon said for many people, the issue of reparations was still a work in progress.
“We don’t feel deeply enough and aggrieved and so the struggle for reparations will be a permanent fight until it is achieved,” he said.
Kambon argued that Africans had made a significant input at all levels of the society.
Kambon calls for reparations
7/26/16 12:49 PM
This man is leading the fight to blackify the undocumented immigrant rights movement
Undocumented immigrants are having a moment at the DNC, which opened Monday night in Philly with two Mexican womenbringing the crowd to tears with their powerful testimonies.
But outside the convention hall, 24-year-old Jonathan Jayes-Green is trying to bring more inclusiveness to the immigrant community itself. The Panamanian, who moved to the United States at age 13, says he wants to “blackify” the narrative about undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Fwd.us/Twitter
Jonathan Jayes Green, co-creator of the Undocublack Network, participated in a panel with immigrants rights leaders on Monday in Philadelphia.
“Anti-blackness has played a role in the mainstream immigrant rights movement,” Jayes-Green, 24, told Fusion in a telephone interview Monday. “Black immigrants are detained and deported at five times the rate of their presence in the undocumented immigrant community,” he said, citing research from Black Alliance for Just Immigration.
“Due to our identities, our communities are more likely to be targeted for enforcement, criminalization and deportation in this country—and that has to stop,” Jayes-Green told Fusion.
Jayes-Green got involved in the immigrants’ rights movement in college, when he started working to pass legislation to help young immigrants in Maryland.
But at a DNC panel on undocumented immigrants on Monday, he told the audience he was “hurt and distraught” when the immigrant community he was working with in Maryland didn’t stand alongside the black community after Baltimore police killed Freddie Gray.
“They were making comments about black people that I expected from white people,” Jayes-Green said.
That was when he co-founded the UndocuBlack Network, a group whose mission is to “blackify” the undocumented immigrant narrative in the U.S. and help identify resources available for the black undocumented community.
“The UndocuBlack Network is so much larger than myself, it’s a movement of diverse voices, identities, backgrounds coming together to shift the narrative and influence the outcomes of our communities,” Jayes-Green said.
Jayes-Green participated on Monday’s panel, hosted by Define American and Fwd.us., along with renowned filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas, Bernie Sanders’ former Hispanic Press Secretary Erika Andiola, and FWD.us political organizer Pamela Chomba.
Jayes-Green says that the small number of black immigrants who have applied for DACA, President Obama’s effort to shield qualifying immigrants from deportation, is evidence that immigrant advocates are not doing enough to reach people from Caribbean and African nations who would be eligible for the program. DACA, after all, is not just for Mexicans and Central Americans, although they are the ones who are benefiting most from the initiative.
For example, only 3,100 Jamaican immigrants applied for DACA, compared to 443,500 Mexicans, according to government data. Jamaica was the leading Caribbean country for DACA applications, but didn’t even rank in the Top 10 nations of origin for DACA applications.
“If we’re not providing support for our black immigrant communities of course they’re not going to be taking advantage of those program,” Jayes-Green said.
This Man Is Leading the Fight to Diversify the Undocumented Immigrant Rights Movement
This man is leading the fight to blackify the undocumented immigrant rights movement
Undocumented immigrants are having a moment at the DNC, which opened Monday night in Philly with two Mexican womenbringing the crowd to tears with their powerful testimonies.
But outside the convention hall, 24-year-old Jonathan Jayes-Green is trying to bring more inclusiveness to the immigrant community itself. The Panamanian, who moved to the United States at age 13, says he wants to “blackify” the narrative about undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Fwd.us/Twitter
Jonathan Jayes Green, co-creator of the Undocublack Network, participated in a panel with immigrants rights leaders on Monday in Philadelphia.
“Anti-blackness has played a role in the mainstream immigrant rights movement,” Jayes-Green, 24, told Fusion in a telephone interview Monday. “Black immigrants are detained and deported at five times the rate of their presence in the undocumented immigrant community,” he said, citing research from Black Alliance for Just Immigration.
“Due to our identities, our communities are more likely to be targeted for enforcement, criminalization and deportation in this country—and that has to stop,” Jayes-Green told Fusion.
Jayes-Green got involved in the immigrants’ rights movement in college, when he started working to pass legislation to help young immigrants in Maryland.
But at a DNC panel on undocumented immigrants on Monday, he told the audience he was “hurt and distraught” when the immigrant community he was working with in Maryland didn’t stand alongside the black community after Baltimore police killed Freddie Gray.
“They were making comments about black people that I expected from white people,” Jayes-Green said.
That was when he co-founded the UndocuBlack Network, a group whose mission is to “blackify” the undocumented immigrant narrative in the U.S. and help identify resources available for the black undocumented community.
“The UndocuBlack Network is so much larger than myself, it’s a movement of diverse voices, identities, backgrounds coming together to shift the narrative and influence the outcomes of our communities,” Jayes-Green said.
Jayes-Green participated on Monday’s panel, hosted by Define American and Fwd.us., along with renowned filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas, Bernie Sanders’ former Hispanic Press Secretary Erika Andiola, and FWD.us political organizer Pamela Chomba.
Jayes-Green says that the small number of black immigrants who have applied for DACA, President Obama’s effort to shield qualifying immigrants from deportation, is evidence that immigrant advocates are not doing enough to reach people from Caribbean and African nations who would be eligible for the program. DACA, after all, is not just for Mexicans and Central Americans, although they are the ones who are benefiting most from the initiative.
For example, only 3,100 Jamaican immigrants applied for DACA, compared to 443,500 Mexicans, according to government data. Jamaica was the leading Caribbean country for DACA applications, but didn’t even rank in the Top 10 nations of origin for DACA applications.
“If we’re not providing support for our black immigrant communities of course they’re not going to be taking advantage of those program,” Jayes-Green said.
This Man Is Leading the Fight to Diversify the Undocumented Immigrant Rights Movement
Black Power in Brazil means natural hair
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Jun 30, 2014
By Dion Rabouin, The Root
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The pride in Blackness that migrated from African Americans in the U.S. brought big Afros and a natural style that has become a movement in Brazil. (Meninas Black Power/Facebook)
Black power is big in Brazil.
In the United States, Black power is most associated with raised fists, social revolution and political demands. When Americans think “Black power,” they generally think about the movement named and popularized in the 1960s by Southern Christian Leadership Conference founder and Black Panther Stokely Carmichael.
The concept of Black power spread through the music of James Brown and Curtis Mayfield, the trial of Angela Davis, the speeches of Malcolm X and the food drives hosted by the Panthers. The movement was able to transcend boundaries. The music, culture and pride that were emanating from African Americans also began to gain popularity with young black Brazilians.
But when Brazilians saw African Americans taking pride in their Blackness, owning it and wearing it with gusto, what they most identified with about the culture was the hair that many of the men and women wore: Afros.
Today in Brazil, when folks talk about Black power, their symbol is their hair—natural hair. For Afro-Brazilians in general but Black women especially, to wear an Afro or to wear their hair naturally is to wear Black power.
“Many women [who wear] Black power are adhering to the culture, others for political attitude, but there are also those who wear it simply because it is stylish and on point,” says Danielle Cipriane.
Crespos e Cachos (“frizz and curls”), Cipriane’s blog and Facebook page, is fast making her one of the most prominent voices in Brazil’s growing natural-hair movement. It features stories by Black Brazilian women about hair care, as well as horror stories about using chemicals and fake hair. Her Facebook page has so far received more than 200,000 likes, and Cipriane says she gets around 90 messages every day from women who want to share photos of themselves with “Black power” or are seeking advice on how to care for their hair naturally.
She is far from alone. A number of other groups have sprouted a challenge to Brazil’s preponderance of straight hair and are advocating for a quarantine on chemicals. One of the best-known is Meninas Black Power, or Afro Girls, a group founded by Elida Aquino to empower young girls to embrace their natural hair. Aquino started Meninas Black Power while she was a student studying nursing and midwifery in Rio de Janeiro. The name is “a mix of femininity and the strength that we extracted from our ancestry,” she says.
Dion Rabouin
“Meninas Black Power was created to bring together Afro-Brazilian women with different backgrounds who understand that naturally curly hair is also a weapon of political positioning,” says Aquino.
Hair as political positioning or protest is nothing new for Brazil’s Black population. American Black power and Black soul came to impact much of the country’s culture in the 1970s and 1980s, despite the existence of a military dictatorship until 1985. In Rio de Janeiro’s historically poor North Zone, young people started throwing parties with protest themes straight from Oakland or Los Angeles in California or Harlem in New York, which led to the importing of Black music, literature and style from the U.S.
The message of Black pride circulated at the parties, often with translations that emphasized “the commonalities of struggle among various African-descended populations, despite linguistic, cultural and regional differences,” writes Michael G. Hanchard, a professor of Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University, in a blog for Northwestern University’s Institute for Diasporic Studies.
In an interview with The Root, Hanchard further describes some of the impact of the Black power style during its early years.
“It was seen as something threatening, Afro-Brazilians donning styles and attitudes that didn’t fit Brazil, or the White elites’ image of what a Black Brazilian should look like,” he says. “It should be clear, it wasn’t an attempt to mimic Americans. It was simply a way of expressing their own identification with Blackness in their own way.”
Black power’s popularity is beginning to challenge the Brazilian notion that ‘straight is beautiful.’
For Cipriane, who has been wearing her hair with frizz and curls for four years now and running her blog since 2012, it’s a paradigm shift. She says that Black power’s popularity is beginning to challenge the Brazilian notion that “straight is beautiful.”
“Contrary to the rules of society and straightening crazes, relaxing and stretching, many Black women are discovering the beauty, the charm and femininity of black power, with or without accessory, with or without comb cream,” she says. “The texture and volume of curly hair is conquering those who are tired of chemical alteration.”
While today’s Brazilian Black power is more a hairstyle than a political movement, it seems that the ideals that came to define Black power in its heyday, during the 1960s and 1970s—themes of Black consciousness, unity, pride and political cooperation—are in full effect.
Dion Rabouin is a freelance writer currently based in Rio de Janeiro. Follow him on Twitter.
Black Power in Brazil Means Natural Hair
Black Power in Brazil means natural hair
Comments: 0 | Leave A Comment
Jun 30, 2014
By Dion Rabouin, The Root
Share toFacebookShare toTwitterMore AddThis Share optionsMore
The pride in Blackness that migrated from African Americans in the U.S. brought big Afros and a natural style that has become a movement in Brazil. (Meninas Black Power/Facebook)
Black power is big in Brazil.
In the United States, Black power is most associated with raised fists, social revolution and political demands. When Americans think “Black power,” they generally think about the movement named and popularized in the 1960s by Southern Christian Leadership Conference founder and Black Panther Stokely Carmichael.
The concept of Black power spread through the music of James Brown and Curtis Mayfield, the trial of Angela Davis, the speeches of Malcolm X and the food drives hosted by the Panthers. The movement was able to transcend boundaries. The music, culture and pride that were emanating from African Americans also began to gain popularity with young black Brazilians.
But when Brazilians saw African Americans taking pride in their Blackness, owning it and wearing it with gusto, what they most identified with about the culture was the hair that many of the men and women wore: Afros.
Today in Brazil, when folks talk about Black power, their symbol is their hair—natural hair. For Afro-Brazilians in general but Black women especially, to wear an Afro or to wear their hair naturally is to wear Black power.
“Many women [who wear] Black power are adhering to the culture, others for political attitude, but there are also those who wear it simply because it is stylish and on point,” says Danielle Cipriane.
Crespos e Cachos (“frizz and curls”), Cipriane’s blog and Facebook page, is fast making her one of the most prominent voices in Brazil’s growing natural-hair movement. It features stories by Black Brazilian women about hair care, as well as horror stories about using chemicals and fake hair. Her Facebook page has so far received more than 200,000 likes, and Cipriane says she gets around 90 messages every day from women who want to share photos of themselves with “Black power” or are seeking advice on how to care for their hair naturally.
She is far from alone. A number of other groups have sprouted a challenge to Brazil’s preponderance of straight hair and are advocating for a quarantine on chemicals. One of the best-known is Meninas Black Power, or Afro Girls, a group founded by Elida Aquino to empower young girls to embrace their natural hair. Aquino started Meninas Black Power while she was a student studying nursing and midwifery in Rio de Janeiro. The name is “a mix of femininity and the strength that we extracted from our ancestry,” she says.
Dion Rabouin
“Meninas Black Power was created to bring together Afro-Brazilian women with different backgrounds who understand that naturally curly hair is also a weapon of political positioning,” says Aquino.
Hair as political positioning or protest is nothing new for Brazil’s Black population. American Black power and Black soul came to impact much of the country’s culture in the 1970s and 1980s, despite the existence of a military dictatorship until 1985. In Rio de Janeiro’s historically poor North Zone, young people started throwing parties with protest themes straight from Oakland or Los Angeles in California or Harlem in New York, which led to the importing of Black music, literature and style from the U.S.
The message of Black pride circulated at the parties, often with translations that emphasized “the commonalities of struggle among various African-descended populations, despite linguistic, cultural and regional differences,” writes Michael G. Hanchard, a professor of Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University, in a blog for Northwestern University’s Institute for Diasporic Studies.
In an interview with The Root, Hanchard further describes some of the impact of the Black power style during its early years.
“It was seen as something threatening, Afro-Brazilians donning styles and attitudes that didn’t fit Brazil, or the White elites’ image of what a Black Brazilian should look like,” he says. “It should be clear, it wasn’t an attempt to mimic Americans. It was simply a way of expressing their own identification with Blackness in their own way.”
Black power’s popularity is beginning to challenge the Brazilian notion that ‘straight is beautiful.’
For Cipriane, who has been wearing her hair with frizz and curls for four years now and running her blog since 2012, it’s a paradigm shift. She says that Black power’s popularity is beginning to challenge the Brazilian notion that “straight is beautiful.”
“Contrary to the rules of society and straightening crazes, relaxing and stretching, many Black women are discovering the beauty, the charm and femininity of black power, with or without accessory, with or without comb cream,” she says. “The texture and volume of curly hair is conquering those who are tired of chemical alteration.”
While today’s Brazilian Black power is more a hairstyle than a political movement, it seems that the ideals that came to define Black power in its heyday, during the 1960s and 1970s—themes of Black consciousness, unity, pride and political cooperation—are in full effect.
Dion Rabouin is a freelance writer currently based in Rio de Janeiro. Follow him on Twitter.
Black Power in Brazil Means Natural Hair
Black Power in Brazil means natural hair
“Preto” or “Negro”? In Portuguese both mean ‘black’, but which term should be used to define black people? Ghanaian-Brazilian man’s video on the topic goes viral
Note from BW of Brazil: In director Spike Lee’s 1992 epic film about the legendary human rights activist Malcolm X, there was an important scene in which the convict then known as Malcolm Little learned how racism could even influence words and terms in the English language. As Malcolm began making his transition to conscious black man, he soon realized how terms such as “blackmail”, “blackballed”, “black sheep” and many others with negative connotations were connected to the term black. He wondered, why did the “white man’s dictionary” associate terms such as ‘evil’, ‘wicked’ and ‘dirty’ to blackness while terms such as ‘pure, ‘honest’, an ‘square-dealing’ were associated with whiteness. Needless, the same associations apply to negritude and branquidade (whiteness) in Brazil.
Later in his years as a leading voice in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X would lead the way in the promotion of the usage of the term ‘black’ instead of the then popular term used to classify Americans of African descent, ‘negro’. For Malcolm,’negro’ referred to “Uncle Toms”, meaning passive people of color who would remain obedient to the rules of white supremacy and thereby helping to keep them “in their place”. Over the course of several decades, Americans of African descent would transition from the terms ‘colored’ to ‘negro’ to ‘black’ and ‘Afro-American’ and finally to the current term ‘African-American’. During the transition from ‘negro’ to ‘black’ there were many within the population who vehemently rejected defining themselves as ‘blacks’. According to some, ‘black’ was synonymous with being a ‘rabble-rouser’ or a ‘troublemaker’, which they didn’t wish to be and, as such, in some ways proved Malcolm X’s point.
In Brazil, there has been a similar evolution, although with subtle differences. As has been discussed in various posts here dealing with racial classification, Brazilians of African descent have long attempted to distance themselves from terms such as ‘preto’ or ‘negro’, both of which mean black. Decades ago, and for some still today, these terms were/are deemed offensive and to be avoided at all cost. Terms such as ‘moreno’ or ‘mulato’ not only signified that one was a product of some degree of racial mixture, but also denoted people who lacked a sense of politicized racial consciousness. Over the course of several decades, this has changed dramatically, as today millions of Brazilians of African descent proudly define themselves as negros and negras, signifying a rising black consciousness movement. But due the official choices of race/color on the official Brazilian census form, it’s difficult to say how many Brazilians really define themselves as negros/negras.
Generally, within Afro-Brazilian activists circles, the terms negro (masculine) and negra (feminine) are the terms that the population of African descent should utilize to define themselves in a racial sense instead of the terms preto or preta, which were thought to define the actual color black as in reference to black and white (preto e branco) films. Within the movement, being black is essentially a political position in which one assumes a black racial identity. But as many Brazilians use the terms interchangeably, is there any difference between the two terms?
University of São Paulo social anthropologist Lilia Moritz Schwarcz (2012) provided a clue as to how the terms preto and negro were seen during the slavery era. The term negro made reference to the rebellious, disobedient slave, while preto referred to a loyal captive. This can be noted in a news story featured in the Correio Paulistano (The São Paulo Post) in 1886.
“One particular day, the black João Congo was quietly working on his master’s farm when he noted that two fugitive negros were approaching, who soon said – ‘Leave this life behind, preto velho (old black), it’s not for you’ to which the loyal preto replied – ‘I’m not going to go wandering about here and there like some runaway negro.’ Irritated, the negros retorted – ‘Die, then, you preto covarde (black coward).’”
As we see, in the context of Brazilian terminology and folklore, the ‘preto velho’ refers to the old, docile, submissive folkloric figure somewhat similar to the Uncle Tom that Malcolm X referred to while negro was associated with the runaway, disobedient and possible revolutionary.
The question over which term should be utilized continues today and was recently brought to the forefront after the stir created by a video by a Ghanaian man who has lived in Brazil for 30 years. The Ghanaian man, Nabby Clifford, prefers the term ‘preto’ and he is not the only one. While negro is still the more popular term used to organize and promote specifically black events throughout Brazil, preto still remains quite common. Every year in São Paulo, thousands of Afro-Brazilians flock to the year’s most popular cultural event, Feira PretaFeira Preta. Last week, we featured a story about three black women who provoked controversy for organizing a summer camp for black children. The group calls itself Das Pretas, meaning “of the black women”. We also have the slogan “Poder Para o Povo Preto”, meaning ‘power for the black people’ and various bloggers and vloggers such as Gabi Oliveira (DiPretas) who use the term preta in the names of their groups or monikers.
Clifford’s video on the difference between ‘preto’ and ‘negro’ went viral and led to debate
Before delving into the question more in terms of Nabby Clifford’s opinion on the topic, I consulted with the historian Kwame Asafo Nyansafo Atunda, administrator of the black men’s group/social network Homens Pretos (black men). Asked why he named the group Homens Pretos instead of Homens Negros, Atunda responded:
“The term ‘negro’ beyond all the negative and pejorative content is not and never was a classification that Africans gave themselves; Kemet (Antigo Egito/Ancient Egypt) denominated themselves as pretos and also the Anunnakis called themselves cabeças pretas (black heads), that is, we have to self-define ourselves and terms that have no racist, derogatory origins. Because of this we are homens pretos and mulheres pretas(black women).”
With that said, let’s take a look at a few comments from the video that stirred up the debate once again…If you understand Portuguese check out the full video and the bottom of this article.
Nabby Clifford video: ‘Negro or Preto?’
“Preto” or “negro”? The viral video that raised a semantic debate
By Marcos Sacramento with additional information courtesy of Hypeness
What is the correct word to refer to, say, afrodescendentes (African descendants) in Brazil, “preto” or “negro”? While the former is used routinely, including on official and academic documents, for musician and Ghanaian activist living in Brazil, Nabby Clifford “preto” is the only acceptable term.
Clifford is known as an ambassador of reggae in Brazil. Born in Ghana, the musician arrived here in 1983, and since then has become one of the leading names in the divulging of Reggae in Brazilian lands and ears.
In a recent video, however, Nabby decided to speak not just about this rhythm, but about something that is not only directly linked to the profound questions of reggae, but also to its cultural identity itself: Nabby recognizes himself not as ‘negro’ but as ‘preto’.
“One country, Brazil, uses words such as lista negra (blacklist), dia negro (black day),magic negra (black magic), câmbio negro (black trade), vala negra (black grave),mercado negro (black market), peste negra (black plague), buraco negro (black hole),ovelha negra (black sheep), fome negra (black hunger), humor negro (black humor),seu passado negro (his dark past), future negro (black future). You shouldn’t call a child negro (…). Get the Portuguese language dictionary, it is written, negro means unhappy, damned. When valuing something the Brazilian doesn’t say negro, he says preto.”
“He doesn’t eat feijão negro (black beans), he eats feijão preto, his car is not a carro negro, his car is carro preto, he doesn’t drink café negro, he drinks café preto (black coffee), hunger is negra, when you win the lottery, you win nota preta (big bucks/lot of money). If branco (white) is not negative, preto is also not negative (1).
But negro no, negro is a 100% negative word, and puts you back, it causes death, causes misery, diseases. Since the world has changed, let’s change our language too,” says Clifford, in a video that has nearly six million views on the TupiVox Facebook page.
The impact of the video sparked compliments but also questions about which word would be more appropriate.
A quick search on racial militancy illustrates permits one to see that the term “negro” is widely used. Collectives and organized groups use the word in their names and in texts. On the other hand, the use of “preto” is increasing, although the word sounds strange to those outside of militancy.
In search of more consistent answers, I turned to my friend and activist Mirtes Santos, of the Coletivo Negrada (Blackened Collective). “Negros who are not in the movement and don’t understand what Clifford said repudiate ‘preto’ because the word has always been used as a way to attack identidade negra (black identity). The term preto is being reframed,” explains Mirtes.
However, this process doesn’t imply the repulsion to the word “negro” in the way that the Americans did with “******”. The “n-word” as they call it, was used routinely, but with the progress of the struggles of the civil rights movement it was deconstructed to the point of becoming taboo.
Maybe this didn’t happen in Brazil, to the chagrin of Clifford. The most likely is that the two words co-exist, but without the negative meaning that structural racism incrusted upon it.
Even expressions like “dia de preto” (black day), “coisa de preto” (black thing) or “a coisa está preta” (the thing/situation is black) show that the word “preto” can indeed be used to perpetuate racist concepts.
And while the word is reframed and has its empowering sense, it will depend on the context in order to convey the full message, as shown by these two tweets that I found will thinking about the text and seeing Lewis Hamilton win the GP da Alemanha (German Grand Prix).
“And another story of a preto who wins! Parabéns Lewis Hamilton (Congratulations Lewis Hamilton)… “; “Sincerely I’ve never seen such a charming preto, you must be the only one also, right .. Lewis Hamilton”
The first is an example of the inoffensive and empowering use of “preto”. The second didn’t even need pejorative terms to overflow with racism (2).
Source: DCM, Hypeness, Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz. Nem preto nem branco, muito pelo contrário. Cor e raça na sociabilidade brasileira. São Paulo: Claro Enigma, 2012.
Note
“Preto” or “Negro”? In Portuguese both mean ‘black’, but which term should be used to define black people? Ghanaian-Brazilian man’s video on the topic goes viral
Note from BW of Brazil: In director Spike Lee’s 1992 epic film about the legendary human rights activist Malcolm X, there was an important scene in which the convict then known as Malcolm Little learned how racism could even influence words and terms in the English language. As Malcolm began making his transition to conscious black man, he soon realized how terms such as “blackmail”, “blackballed”, “black sheep” and many others with negative connotations were connected to the term black. He wondered, why did the “white man’s dictionary” associate terms such as ‘evil’, ‘wicked’ and ‘dirty’ to blackness while terms such as ‘pure, ‘honest’, an ‘square-dealing’ were associated with whiteness. Needless, the same associations apply to negritude and branquidade (whiteness) in Brazil.
Later in his years as a leading voice in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X would lead the way in the promotion of the usage of the term ‘black’ instead of the then popular term used to classify Americans of African descent, ‘negro’. For Malcolm,’negro’ referred to “Uncle Toms”, meaning passive people of color who would remain obedient to the rules of white supremacy and thereby helping to keep them “in their place”. Over the course of several decades, Americans of African descent would transition from the terms ‘colored’ to ‘negro’ to ‘black’ and ‘Afro-American’ and finally to the current term ‘African-American’. During the transition from ‘negro’ to ‘black’ there were many within the population who vehemently rejected defining themselves as ‘blacks’. According to some, ‘black’ was synonymous with being a ‘rabble-rouser’ or a ‘troublemaker’, which they didn’t wish to be and, as such, in some ways proved Malcolm X’s point.
In Brazil, there has been a similar evolution, although with subtle differences. As has been discussed in various posts here dealing with racial classification, Brazilians of African descent have long attempted to distance themselves from terms such as ‘preto’ or ‘negro’, both of which mean black. Decades ago, and for some still today, these terms were/are deemed offensive and to be avoided at all cost. Terms such as ‘moreno’ or ‘mulato’ not only signified that one was a product of some degree of racial mixture, but also denoted people who lacked a sense of politicized racial consciousness. Over the course of several decades, this has changed dramatically, as today millions of Brazilians of African descent proudly define themselves as negros and negras, signifying a rising black consciousness movement. But due the official choices of race/color on the official Brazilian census form, it’s difficult to say how many Brazilians really define themselves as negros/negras.
Generally, within Afro-Brazilian activists circles, the terms negro (masculine) and negra (feminine) are the terms that the population of African descent should utilize to define themselves in a racial sense instead of the terms preto or preta, which were thought to define the actual color black as in reference to black and white (preto e branco) films. Within the movement, being black is essentially a political position in which one assumes a black racial identity. But as many Brazilians use the terms interchangeably, is there any difference between the two terms?
University of São Paulo social anthropologist Lilia Moritz Schwarcz (2012) provided a clue as to how the terms preto and negro were seen during the slavery era. The term negro made reference to the rebellious, disobedient slave, while preto referred to a loyal captive. This can be noted in a news story featured in the Correio Paulistano (The São Paulo Post) in 1886.
“One particular day, the black João Congo was quietly working on his master’s farm when he noted that two fugitive negros were approaching, who soon said – ‘Leave this life behind, preto velho (old black), it’s not for you’ to which the loyal preto replied – ‘I’m not going to go wandering about here and there like some runaway negro.’ Irritated, the negros retorted – ‘Die, then, you preto covarde (black coward).’”
As we see, in the context of Brazilian terminology and folklore, the ‘preto velho’ refers to the old, docile, submissive folkloric figure somewhat similar to the Uncle Tom that Malcolm X referred to while negro was associated with the runaway, disobedient and possible revolutionary.
The question over which term should be utilized continues today and was recently brought to the forefront after the stir created by a video by a Ghanaian man who has lived in Brazil for 30 years. The Ghanaian man, Nabby Clifford, prefers the term ‘preto’ and he is not the only one. While negro is still the more popular term used to organize and promote specifically black events throughout Brazil, preto still remains quite common. Every year in São Paulo, thousands of Afro-Brazilians flock to the year’s most popular cultural event, Feira PretaFeira Preta. Last week, we featured a story about three black women who provoked controversy for organizing a summer camp for black children. The group calls itself Das Pretas, meaning “of the black women”. We also have the slogan “Poder Para o Povo Preto”, meaning ‘power for the black people’ and various bloggers and vloggers such as Gabi Oliveira (DiPretas) who use the term preta in the names of their groups or monikers.
Clifford’s video on the difference between ‘preto’ and ‘negro’ went viral and led to debate
Before delving into the question more in terms of Nabby Clifford’s opinion on the topic, I consulted with the historian Kwame Asafo Nyansafo Atunda, administrator of the black men’s group/social network Homens Pretos (black men). Asked why he named the group Homens Pretos instead of Homens Negros, Atunda responded:
“The term ‘negro’ beyond all the negative and pejorative content is not and never was a classification that Africans gave themselves; Kemet (Antigo Egito/Ancient Egypt) denominated themselves as pretos and also the Anunnakis called themselves cabeças pretas (black heads), that is, we have to self-define ourselves and terms that have no racist, derogatory origins. Because of this we are homens pretos and mulheres pretas(black women).”
With that said, let’s take a look at a few comments from the video that stirred up the debate once again…If you understand Portuguese check out the full video and the bottom of this article.
Nabby Clifford video: ‘Negro or Preto?’
“Preto” or “negro”? The viral video that raised a semantic debate
By Marcos Sacramento with additional information courtesy of Hypeness
What is the correct word to refer to, say, afrodescendentes (African descendants) in Brazil, “preto” or “negro”? While the former is used routinely, including on official and academic documents, for musician and Ghanaian activist living in Brazil, Nabby Clifford “preto” is the only acceptable term.
Clifford is known as an ambassador of reggae in Brazil. Born in Ghana, the musician arrived here in 1983, and since then has become one of the leading names in the divulging of Reggae in Brazilian lands and ears.
In a recent video, however, Nabby decided to speak not just about this rhythm, but about something that is not only directly linked to the profound questions of reggae, but also to its cultural identity itself: Nabby recognizes himself not as ‘negro’ but as ‘preto’.
“One country, Brazil, uses words such as lista negra (blacklist), dia negro (black day),magic negra (black magic), câmbio negro (black trade), vala negra (black grave),mercado negro (black market), peste negra (black plague), buraco negro (black hole),ovelha negra (black sheep), fome negra (black hunger), humor negro (black humor),seu passado negro (his dark past), future negro (black future). You shouldn’t call a child negro (…). Get the Portuguese language dictionary, it is written, negro means unhappy, damned. When valuing something the Brazilian doesn’t say negro, he says preto.”
“He doesn’t eat feijão negro (black beans), he eats feijão preto, his car is not a carro negro, his car is carro preto, he doesn’t drink café negro, he drinks café preto (black coffee), hunger is negra, when you win the lottery, you win nota preta (big bucks/lot of money). If branco (white) is not negative, preto is also not negative (1).
But negro no, negro is a 100% negative word, and puts you back, it causes death, causes misery, diseases. Since the world has changed, let’s change our language too,” says Clifford, in a video that has nearly six million views on the TupiVox Facebook page.
The impact of the video sparked compliments but also questions about which word would be more appropriate.
A quick search on racial militancy illustrates permits one to see that the term “negro” is widely used. Collectives and organized groups use the word in their names and in texts. On the other hand, the use of “preto” is increasing, although the word sounds strange to those outside of militancy.
In search of more consistent answers, I turned to my friend and activist Mirtes Santos, of the Coletivo Negrada (Blackened Collective). “Negros who are not in the movement and don’t understand what Clifford said repudiate ‘preto’ because the word has always been used as a way to attack identidade negra (black identity). The term preto is being reframed,” explains Mirtes.
However, this process doesn’t imply the repulsion to the word “negro” in the way that the Americans did with “******”. The “n-word” as they call it, was used routinely, but with the progress of the struggles of the civil rights movement it was deconstructed to the point of becoming taboo.
Maybe this didn’t happen in Brazil, to the chagrin of Clifford. The most likely is that the two words co-exist, but without the negative meaning that structural racism incrusted upon it.
Even expressions like “dia de preto” (black day), “coisa de preto” (black thing) or “a coisa está preta” (the thing/situation is black) show that the word “preto” can indeed be used to perpetuate racist concepts.
And while the word is reframed and has its empowering sense, it will depend on the context in order to convey the full message, as shown by these two tweets that I found will thinking about the text and seeing Lewis Hamilton win the GP da Alemanha (German Grand Prix).
“And another story of a preto who wins! Parabéns Lewis Hamilton (Congratulations Lewis Hamilton)… “; “Sincerely I’ve never seen such a charming preto, you must be the only one also, right .. Lewis Hamilton”
The first is an example of the inoffensive and empowering use of “preto”. The second didn’t even need pejorative terms to overflow with racism (2).
Source: DCM, Hypeness, Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz. Nem preto nem branco, muito pelo contrário. Cor e raça na sociabilidade brasileira. São Paulo: Claro Enigma, 2012.
Note
- Although Clifford’s opinion is well-taken, we must also recognize when the terms preto/preta are used in the context of the racial insult as seen here or here.
- This point once again shows that a term can be used in an affectionate, non-offensive manner as well as in a very offensive manner depending on how the word is verbalized and the context of the situation. We’ve previously explored this topic in reference to the term ‘neguinha’.See here and here.
“Preto” or “Negro”? In Portuguese both mean ‘black’, but which term should be used to define black people? Ghanaian-Brazilian man’s video on the topic goes viral
Meet ChocQuibTown, the Biggest Afro-Colombian Band in the World
08.02.16
by KILLAKAM
Gloria Martínez, her husband Carlos Valencia and brother Miguel Martínez step off a black SUV into the streets of Brooklyn. The three Colombian artists are in town to wrap up their American tour with a show in Central Park, in promotion of their latest album El Mismo.
Under their respective stage names of Goyo, Tostao, and Slow, the trio form ChocQuibTown, the biggest Afro-Colombian group out right now.
ChocQuibTown gets its name from the Chocó department and its capital Quibdó, a region along Colombia’s Pacific coast that’s known for its large Afro-Colombian population—and the place where all three of the group’s members were born and raised.
ChocQuibTown’s songs blend strong pop melodies and rapping with the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of Chocó and their handful of singles all average tens of millions of views on Youtube.
Over the span of a decade, the Latin Grammy Award-winning band has become one of the foremost voices for Colombia’s often overlooked Afro-Caribbean community.
Below, we sat down with ChocQuibTown in our offices to talk about their music and Afro-Colombian culture.
Tell us about Chocó and Quibdó, where you guys come from, and their meaning within Colombia.
Tostao: Chocó and Colombia’s Pacific region (el Pacífico) has been named the “Africa within Colombia.” It’s a region that, for years, has supplied a lot of rhythms to the country. It’s where we grew up, were born and it’s our source of inspiration for ChocQuibTown.
With ChocQuibTown, we wanted to get people talking about this region, which doesn’t really get coverage on the radio or television. We wanted to tell our own stories so that they’re also part of the daily story of life in Colombia.
Now, a lot of people more people are aware of Chocó because of this movement we’ve helped start.
Is there a fair representation of Afro-Colombian music and art in Colombia?
Goyo: I think it’s a process. Some doors have opened but it’s just starting. I think it’s important that we’re continuing this task, which wasn’t started by us. For example, bands like Grupo Niche, a salsa orchestra that was very well known in the 90s, put the issue on the table and brought up the conversation of race. They opened up the path through music.
As I’m thinking about it, it makes me want to tell you our own group’s path and how we went this route. There’s a song called “San Antonio,” which was our first song to play on the radio. It’s a song that comes from an oral tradition and was used for funerals—like what they do in New Orleans, we also do in Chocó. It’s got a close connection to Africa with the nature of the ritual.
Then we had “Somos Pacífico,” which further introduced our identity and our region—the Colombian Pacific—to Colombia.
T: For the country, the Pacific region only gets on the news if there’s something negative about it—corruption or crime. We stopped and said, wait, there’s a lot more going on here and you only want to talk about the negative things.
We try and flip that argument and narrative to make el Pacífico more attractive and lessen the collective narrative about it being a negative place. Now, the Pacific region has become really strong and positive within the national story, which is something that we’ve always tried to promote. It’s important that the rest of Colombia becomes aware of that.
We want all eyes on el Pacífico.
ChocQuibTown in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Photo by Aaron Leaf.
Is there a strong division between Afro Colombia and rest of the country?
G: There’s a sense of inequality. It can be seen, economically, in the difference between the port of Buenaventura, which is in the Pacific, and the northern port of Barranquilla, which is favored by the government.
T: Peter Wade was in Colombia and wrote a book called Música, Raza y Nación—he explains that the central government always goes to the Northern Coast, not the Pacific coast. So they only take into account, in their government decisions, the Northern coast and not ours.
In these last year, Afro-Colombian society has understood this and is now looking for its own political and economic power to influence these decisions.
G: The problem has been a lack of opportunity. We live it through music ourselves. At first, we were only seen as a “cultural” band and couldn’t get into mainstream or commercial music channels. There were only three black people on mainstream TV back then. And there weren’t many references to black culture, apart from our soccer players.
Is there a conversation or movement equivalent to ‘Black Lives Matter’ in Colombia?
G: Afro-Colombian movements are more abundant every year. It used to just be us and our friends and, now, I feel a lot has happened politically, musically, and nationally. We see that we need to do the work for ourselves, since the government wont do it. Through that, there are a lot of movements and ethnic groups that look to create better vision for minorities.
There’s a group of women from the valle called Chontudas—which is a negative way of calling someone with an Afro—this group took that name and made it their own. They approach young girls and make sure they don’t feel bad because we don’t have the usual aesthetic that might be seen across Latin America.
What other Afro-Colombian artists should we be on the lookout for?
T: There’s a ton. If you go to Chocó and say “Afro artists” it’s redundant because they all are. There’s a lot in Cali, in the northern coast, in Cartagena, in Palenque. There are a lot that go through this line—like Alexis Play—who are trying to reclaim not just the “Afro” but the “African.” They all try to bring up this conversation about ethnicity.
G: Not necessarily because they want to, but because of necessity.
ChocQuibTown in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Photo by Aaron Leaf.
Meet ChocQuibTown, the Biggest Afro-Colombian Band in the World
08.02.16
by KILLAKAM
Gloria Martínez, her husband Carlos Valencia and brother Miguel Martínez step off a black SUV into the streets of Brooklyn. The three Colombian artists are in town to wrap up their American tour with a show in Central Park, in promotion of their latest album El Mismo.
Under their respective stage names of Goyo, Tostao, and Slow, the trio form ChocQuibTown, the biggest Afro-Colombian group out right now.
ChocQuibTown gets its name from the Chocó department and its capital Quibdó, a region along Colombia’s Pacific coast that’s known for its large Afro-Colombian population—and the place where all three of the group’s members were born and raised.
ChocQuibTown’s songs blend strong pop melodies and rapping with the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of Chocó and their handful of singles all average tens of millions of views on Youtube.
Over the span of a decade, the Latin Grammy Award-winning band has become one of the foremost voices for Colombia’s often overlooked Afro-Caribbean community.
Below, we sat down with ChocQuibTown in our offices to talk about their music and Afro-Colombian culture.
Tell us about Chocó and Quibdó, where you guys come from, and their meaning within Colombia.
Tostao: Chocó and Colombia’s Pacific region (el Pacífico) has been named the “Africa within Colombia.” It’s a region that, for years, has supplied a lot of rhythms to the country. It’s where we grew up, were born and it’s our source of inspiration for ChocQuibTown.
With ChocQuibTown, we wanted to get people talking about this region, which doesn’t really get coverage on the radio or television. We wanted to tell our own stories so that they’re also part of the daily story of life in Colombia.
Now, a lot of people more people are aware of Chocó because of this movement we’ve helped start.
Is there a fair representation of Afro-Colombian music and art in Colombia?
Goyo: I think it’s a process. Some doors have opened but it’s just starting. I think it’s important that we’re continuing this task, which wasn’t started by us. For example, bands like Grupo Niche, a salsa orchestra that was very well known in the 90s, put the issue on the table and brought up the conversation of race. They opened up the path through music.
As I’m thinking about it, it makes me want to tell you our own group’s path and how we went this route. There’s a song called “San Antonio,” which was our first song to play on the radio. It’s a song that comes from an oral tradition and was used for funerals—like what they do in New Orleans, we also do in Chocó. It’s got a close connection to Africa with the nature of the ritual.
Then we had “Somos Pacífico,” which further introduced our identity and our region—the Colombian Pacific—to Colombia.
T: For the country, the Pacific region only gets on the news if there’s something negative about it—corruption or crime. We stopped and said, wait, there’s a lot more going on here and you only want to talk about the negative things.
We try and flip that argument and narrative to make el Pacífico more attractive and lessen the collective narrative about it being a negative place. Now, the Pacific region has become really strong and positive within the national story, which is something that we’ve always tried to promote. It’s important that the rest of Colombia becomes aware of that.
We want all eyes on el Pacífico.
ChocQuibTown in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Photo by Aaron Leaf.
Is there a strong division between Afro Colombia and rest of the country?
G: There’s a sense of inequality. It can be seen, economically, in the difference between the port of Buenaventura, which is in the Pacific, and the northern port of Barranquilla, which is favored by the government.
T: Peter Wade was in Colombia and wrote a book called Música, Raza y Nación—he explains that the central government always goes to the Northern Coast, not the Pacific coast. So they only take into account, in their government decisions, the Northern coast and not ours.
In these last year, Afro-Colombian society has understood this and is now looking for its own political and economic power to influence these decisions.
G: The problem has been a lack of opportunity. We live it through music ourselves. At first, we were only seen as a “cultural” band and couldn’t get into mainstream or commercial music channels. There were only three black people on mainstream TV back then. And there weren’t many references to black culture, apart from our soccer players.
Is there a conversation or movement equivalent to ‘Black Lives Matter’ in Colombia?
G: Afro-Colombian movements are more abundant every year. It used to just be us and our friends and, now, I feel a lot has happened politically, musically, and nationally. We see that we need to do the work for ourselves, since the government wont do it. Through that, there are a lot of movements and ethnic groups that look to create better vision for minorities.
There’s a group of women from the valle called Chontudas—which is a negative way of calling someone with an Afro—this group took that name and made it their own. They approach young girls and make sure they don’t feel bad because we don’t have the usual aesthetic that might be seen across Latin America.
What other Afro-Colombian artists should we be on the lookout for?
T: There’s a ton. If you go to Chocó and say “Afro artists” it’s redundant because they all are. There’s a lot in Cali, in the northern coast, in Cartagena, in Palenque. There are a lot that go through this line—like Alexis Play—who are trying to reclaim not just the “Afro” but the “African.” They all try to bring up this conversation about ethnicity.
G: Not necessarily because they want to, but because of necessity.
ChocQuibTown in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Photo by Aaron Leaf.
Meet ChocQuibTown, the Biggest Afro-Colombian Band in the World
Black Brazilians And Americans In Rio Made The Fight For Their Lives A Global One
BY CARIMAH TOWNES
AUG 4, 2016 10:50 AM
CREDIT: LAUREL RAYMOND/DYLAN PETROHILOS
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Two and a half weeks ago, during Juhlo Negro, or “Black July,” members of the Black Lives Matter movement met with mothers of police brutality victims and young black activists in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As athletes from all over the world were gearing up for the biggest sporting event of their lives, the activists walked side by side through the heart of the city.
On July 23, roughly 200 Brazilians and six Black Lives Matter delegates from Boston wound their way through central Rio with fists raised and pictures of police brutality victims. “Jogos Olimpicos Pra Quem?” they asked. “The Olympic Games for who?”
They walked to Candelaria cathedral, holding a vigil for seven homeless teens and a 20-year-old man slaughtered by police who opened fire on approximately 60 kids sleeping at the church in 1993.
With its influence in Washington, D.C. and dominance in the media, Black Lives Matter has gained a level of fame that black activism in Rio has yet to achieve. But now that the Olympics are drawing the global spotlight to Rio, Brazilians’ fight for life is starting to receive international recognition — and with it, powerful allies.
Although their partnership is new, 2014 was a monumental year for black Brazilians and Americans. It was the year Mike Brown and Eric Garner were killed by police, inspiring millions to take to the streets in protest of racist policing. Unbeknownst to most onlookers, it was also the year an eerily similar incident happened 5,235 miles away.
A continent apart
Residents of Pavao-Pavaozinho slum clash with riot police during a protest against the death of Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira after his burial in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
CREDIT: AP PHOTO/FELIPE DANA
On April 22, 2014, Douglas Rafael Pereira da Silva, a famous black TV dancer and local hero, wasbeaten and fatally shot in the back by Rio police. His body was found in the Pavão-Pavãozinho slum of Copacabana, laying in the backyard of a childcare center.
Word of Pereira’s death spread through the slum, or favela, and within hours, hundreds of outraged residents stormed the streets. Even though most of them were black Brazilians accustomed to extrajudicial killings and repression, the murder of a beloved star, who regularly visited the favela to see his 4-year-old daughter, was a breaking point.
The protest began peacefully, as demonstrators marched to the local police station for answers. But things escalated quickly when military police responded with tear gas and stun grenades. Soon, cars and barricades were set ablaze by locals. Gunfire from shootouts with police echoed throughout the slum.
Then came a second tragedy. As the clashes raged on, an officer fired at random into a crowd and struck an unarmed mentally ill man. Witnesses later said 27-year old Edilson Silva dos Santos was walking with his hands raised when the bullet went into his head. He wasn’t dangerous, and certainly wasn’t a threat to the police.
“The policy of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ has placed Rio de Janeiro as the one of the deadliest cities on earth.”
Pereira and Silva were two of 580 people killed by police in the larger state of Rio de Janeiro in 2014, the same year cops in the United States killed Brown, Garner, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, andmore than 1,000 others.
Since 2014, at least 85,000 security personnel — 65,000 police officers and 20,000 soldiers — have been stationed in the city of Rio to keep the peace for the Olympics. With their presence, police suppression and violence has reached fever pitch in slums like Pavão-Pavãozinho.
Before Black Lives Matter got there, there was a decades-long black consciousness movement in Rio and other parts of Brazil, with young black people and mothers at the forefront. But activists in both countries are eager to ramp up their efforts and build a global movement.
The two groups are a continent apart, but are grappling with parallel challenges. They share a history of slavery and systemic racism, as well as the devastating consequences of tough-on-crime policing that has ravaged their communities. At the most fundamental level, the two groups are fighting for the dignity of black men, women, and children who are disproportionately stopped, searched, arrested, and imprisoned.
Both are demanding an end to the police occupation of their communities — the freedom to move without fear of being killed by officers with impunity for a phone in their pockets, for illegally selling cigarettes, for playing with a toy. The freedom to express their grievances without being smeared by politicians and pundits for demanding visibility and police accountability.
Slavery’s stronghold
CREDIT: DYLAN PETROHILOS
The 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics have inspired crackdowns and heavy-handed policing over the past few years, but oppression and suffering has always been the standard for poor black Brazilians living in Rio’s favelas. Pushed to the margins of society, they are surveilled, slaughtered, and tortured by police every day. For them, the only difference now is that the world is paying attention.
With a story that’s all too familiar among previously colonized countries, black oppression and disparate treatment in Brazil has origins in slavery and its immediate aftermath. At the height of Portugal’s colonial reign — and 60 years after it ended — Rio served as a central hub for human chattel and trade. When slavery was banned in 1888, freed Brazilians were prohibited from living in the city’s main streets and unable to find jobs to earn money for proper housing. Out of necessity, former slaves found a home in Rio’s hills, forming large communities of informal settlements — today’s favelas — that have stood for hundreds of years.
Racism in Brazil was never formally codified the way it was in the United States, where Jim Crow laws carried on the legacy of slavery by formalizing segregation and subjugating the black population. Still, going as far back as the 19th century, police have been around to keep black Brazilians in their place and maintain the de facto racial caste system.
And in the 1990s, the War on Drugs that swept black and brown communities in the United States also made its way into Rio’s favelas, extending even more power to law enforcement and leading to the criminalization of poverty and egregious policing of poor blacks.
‘Shoot first, ask questions later’
CREDIT: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
BY CARIMAH TOWNES
AUG 4, 2016 10:50 AM
CREDIT: LAUREL RAYMOND/DYLAN PETROHILOS
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Two and a half weeks ago, during Juhlo Negro, or “Black July,” members of the Black Lives Matter movement met with mothers of police brutality victims and young black activists in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As athletes from all over the world were gearing up for the biggest sporting event of their lives, the activists walked side by side through the heart of the city.
On July 23, roughly 200 Brazilians and six Black Lives Matter delegates from Boston wound their way through central Rio with fists raised and pictures of police brutality victims. “Jogos Olimpicos Pra Quem?” they asked. “The Olympic Games for who?”
They walked to Candelaria cathedral, holding a vigil for seven homeless teens and a 20-year-old man slaughtered by police who opened fire on approximately 60 kids sleeping at the church in 1993.
With its influence in Washington, D.C. and dominance in the media, Black Lives Matter has gained a level of fame that black activism in Rio has yet to achieve. But now that the Olympics are drawing the global spotlight to Rio, Brazilians’ fight for life is starting to receive international recognition — and with it, powerful allies.
Although their partnership is new, 2014 was a monumental year for black Brazilians and Americans. It was the year Mike Brown and Eric Garner were killed by police, inspiring millions to take to the streets in protest of racist policing. Unbeknownst to most onlookers, it was also the year an eerily similar incident happened 5,235 miles away.
A continent apart
Residents of Pavao-Pavaozinho slum clash with riot police during a protest against the death of Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira after his burial in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
CREDIT: AP PHOTO/FELIPE DANA
On April 22, 2014, Douglas Rafael Pereira da Silva, a famous black TV dancer and local hero, wasbeaten and fatally shot in the back by Rio police. His body was found in the Pavão-Pavãozinho slum of Copacabana, laying in the backyard of a childcare center.
Word of Pereira’s death spread through the slum, or favela, and within hours, hundreds of outraged residents stormed the streets. Even though most of them were black Brazilians accustomed to extrajudicial killings and repression, the murder of a beloved star, who regularly visited the favela to see his 4-year-old daughter, was a breaking point.
The protest began peacefully, as demonstrators marched to the local police station for answers. But things escalated quickly when military police responded with tear gas and stun grenades. Soon, cars and barricades were set ablaze by locals. Gunfire from shootouts with police echoed throughout the slum.
Then came a second tragedy. As the clashes raged on, an officer fired at random into a crowd and struck an unarmed mentally ill man. Witnesses later said 27-year old Edilson Silva dos Santos was walking with his hands raised when the bullet went into his head. He wasn’t dangerous, and certainly wasn’t a threat to the police.
“The policy of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ has placed Rio de Janeiro as the one of the deadliest cities on earth.”
Pereira and Silva were two of 580 people killed by police in the larger state of Rio de Janeiro in 2014, the same year cops in the United States killed Brown, Garner, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, andmore than 1,000 others.
Since 2014, at least 85,000 security personnel — 65,000 police officers and 20,000 soldiers — have been stationed in the city of Rio to keep the peace for the Olympics. With their presence, police suppression and violence has reached fever pitch in slums like Pavão-Pavãozinho.
Before Black Lives Matter got there, there was a decades-long black consciousness movement in Rio and other parts of Brazil, with young black people and mothers at the forefront. But activists in both countries are eager to ramp up their efforts and build a global movement.
The two groups are a continent apart, but are grappling with parallel challenges. They share a history of slavery and systemic racism, as well as the devastating consequences of tough-on-crime policing that has ravaged their communities. At the most fundamental level, the two groups are fighting for the dignity of black men, women, and children who are disproportionately stopped, searched, arrested, and imprisoned.
Both are demanding an end to the police occupation of their communities — the freedom to move without fear of being killed by officers with impunity for a phone in their pockets, for illegally selling cigarettes, for playing with a toy. The freedom to express their grievances without being smeared by politicians and pundits for demanding visibility and police accountability.
Slavery’s stronghold
CREDIT: DYLAN PETROHILOS
The 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics have inspired crackdowns and heavy-handed policing over the past few years, but oppression and suffering has always been the standard for poor black Brazilians living in Rio’s favelas. Pushed to the margins of society, they are surveilled, slaughtered, and tortured by police every day. For them, the only difference now is that the world is paying attention.
With a story that’s all too familiar among previously colonized countries, black oppression and disparate treatment in Brazil has origins in slavery and its immediate aftermath. At the height of Portugal’s colonial reign — and 60 years after it ended — Rio served as a central hub for human chattel and trade. When slavery was banned in 1888, freed Brazilians were prohibited from living in the city’s main streets and unable to find jobs to earn money for proper housing. Out of necessity, former slaves found a home in Rio’s hills, forming large communities of informal settlements — today’s favelas — that have stood for hundreds of years.
Racism in Brazil was never formally codified the way it was in the United States, where Jim Crow laws carried on the legacy of slavery by formalizing segregation and subjugating the black population. Still, going as far back as the 19th century, police have been around to keep black Brazilians in their place and maintain the de facto racial caste system.
And in the 1990s, the War on Drugs that swept black and brown communities in the United States also made its way into Rio’s favelas, extending even more power to law enforcement and leading to the criminalization of poverty and egregious policing of poor blacks.
‘Shoot first, ask questions later’
CREDIT: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
“The police have always existed in the favelas to control — to subjugate — black people,” Fran, a native Brazilian and Rio activist, told ThinkProgress. “The policy has an address and it has a color.”
Fran and other residents of his home favela, Manguinhos, learned that officers would be arriving en masse in 2013, supposedly to provide enhanced security ahead of the World Cup. This was the Pacifying Police Unit (UPP), a special task force of military police established to crack down on drug trafficking and build a permanent network of police bases in the favelas.
People in Manguinhos were immediately skeptical. Although drugs were present in the massive favela, which is partitioned into five communities, most residents knew each other and didn’t see a need for an infusion of police to keep the peace. They’d also heard horror stories about law enforcement taking over and terrorizing favelas in other parts of Rio. But as a marginalized group with few rights to begin with, there was nothing that Manguinhos residents could do to prevent the UPP from coming.
reported in June. “The country’s historic ill-conceived public security policies, coupled with the increasing human rights violations we have documented during major sports events and the lack of effective investigations are a recipe for disaster.”
CREDIT: DYLAN PETROHILOS
Approximately 6.5 million people live in Rio, roughly two million fewer than New York City. In the four years leading up to the World Cup, on-duty police officers killed 1,275 people. Of those killed, exactly three-quarters were young people aged 15 to 29 years old. Nearly 80 percent were black, and 99.5 percent were male. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of police killings skyrocketed by 54 percent, with kids as young as 10 and 11 years old gunned down in the streets.
In 2015, 645 people were killed by police in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Police killings accounted for one in five homicides in its capital city. As of May, the number of extrajudicial killings in the city hadjumped 135 percent from the year before.
According to human rights lawyer Joao Tancredo, who works closely with families affected by police violence, the tactics used to repress people started changing in the years leading up to the World Cup. Public outcry about mass killings from major organizations, including Amnesty International, was drawing too much negative attention to police operations. Instead of killing, police turned to kidnap and torture, making it much harder for families to prove their wrongdoing. The number of disappearances surged with the arrival of the UPP.
“[We] have a lot more people that are missing. We can’t find their bodies, but the family knows that [it] was police violence. [The] people can’t prove that,” Tancredo explained.
50 percent of Brazilians support the country-wide saying, “A good crook is a dead crook.”
“People understand that poor people are naturally criminal and have to be violent,” Tancredo said. “So people naturalize this policemen approach a lot, here in Brazil. They think it is important for the security of the city.”
With their lives hanging in the balance and few Brazilian allies to stand with them, favela residents are looking beyond their own borders for support.
A meeting of the minds
CREDIT: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
With so much in common, a meeting between Brazilian and American activists was, arguably, hundreds of years in the making.
It eventually came to fruition in April, when favela youth and the mother of a slain teen flew to the United States to meet organizers from Black Lives Matter, One Million Hoodies, Cop Watch, and Stop Police Torture in Washington, D.C., New York, and Miami. A second meeting of the minds happened in Black July, when Black Lives Matter delegates from Boston traveled to Rio to meet more of their Brazilian counterparts.
Black Brazilians and Americans quickly discovered they’re not only facing similar struggles, but they’re using similar tactics of resistance: occupying space, filming cops, and documenting abusive police activity. Sitting in the same room was a victory in and of itself though, because it demonstrated that the two groups were willing to work together and opened up a dialogue about how to do that.
Visibility in the media is a key aspect of making their shared struggle a global one.
Daunasia Yancey said during the Black July meeting.
Extrajudicial killings happen more frequently in Rio than in the United States, but they get far less media attention. Even with the surge of killings leading up to the Olympics, most of the international news is focused on “construction costs, dirty water, Zika, and crime,” according to Elizabeth Martin, the founder of Brazil Police Watch and a delegate who flew to Rio. One of the objectives of the meeting was to showcase what local news outlets won’t.
Yancey told Rio On Watch, an online news site dedicated to community reporting in Rio, that getting more media attention is a top priority to make the movement a global one. Because Black Lives Matter has much more visibility than local activists in Rio, delegates were able to generate some buzz by flying to the city and standing with them.
“We need the media to be honest, to tell the truth and to share all of these stories,” said Yancey. “Together we must refuse that any more killings happen.”
Keeping the alliance alive
Boys prepare to fly their kites atop the Babilonia slum, overlooking Copacabana beach
CREDIT: AP PHOTO/FELIPE DANA
Maintaining that solidarity will ideally make a lasting impact internationally. But Rio, in particular, needs outside allies now more than ever.
Despite significant pushback from police and many lawmakers in America, the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. has received significant support from white, Asian, Latin, and Native American allies. Black Americans are steering the ship, but others have stood by their side.
Rio organizers haven’t had the same success finding people to stand with them. Race is a taboo subject in Brazil. People of privilege are reluctant to join the struggle — choosing to ignore the suffering of poor black people in the favelas, instead.
“The lack of allyship has made this conversation less potent,” Fran said.
But the Olympics, coming to Rio at the same time that the Black Lives Matter movement is starting to notch its biggest mainstream victories in the United States, is starting to force the elites to pay attention.
“The Olympics have gravely highlighted the racism and genocide against the black people at the hands of a racist state,” Fran said. That attention, in turn, has helped poor black Brazilians forge a game-changing relationship at a time when police brutality is getting worse.
2016 Olympics
Black Brazilians And Americans In Rio Made The Fight For Their Lives A Global One
Fran and other residents of his home favela, Manguinhos, learned that officers would be arriving en masse in 2013, supposedly to provide enhanced security ahead of the World Cup. This was the Pacifying Police Unit (UPP), a special task force of military police established to crack down on drug trafficking and build a permanent network of police bases in the favelas.
People in Manguinhos were immediately skeptical. Although drugs were present in the massive favela, which is partitioned into five communities, most residents knew each other and didn’t see a need for an infusion of police to keep the peace. They’d also heard horror stories about law enforcement taking over and terrorizing favelas in other parts of Rio. But as a marginalized group with few rights to begin with, there was nothing that Manguinhos residents could do to prevent the UPP from coming.
reported in June. “The country’s historic ill-conceived public security policies, coupled with the increasing human rights violations we have documented during major sports events and the lack of effective investigations are a recipe for disaster.”
CREDIT: DYLAN PETROHILOS
Approximately 6.5 million people live in Rio, roughly two million fewer than New York City. In the four years leading up to the World Cup, on-duty police officers killed 1,275 people. Of those killed, exactly three-quarters were young people aged 15 to 29 years old. Nearly 80 percent were black, and 99.5 percent were male. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of police killings skyrocketed by 54 percent, with kids as young as 10 and 11 years old gunned down in the streets.
In 2015, 645 people were killed by police in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Police killings accounted for one in five homicides in its capital city. As of May, the number of extrajudicial killings in the city hadjumped 135 percent from the year before.
According to human rights lawyer Joao Tancredo, who works closely with families affected by police violence, the tactics used to repress people started changing in the years leading up to the World Cup. Public outcry about mass killings from major organizations, including Amnesty International, was drawing too much negative attention to police operations. Instead of killing, police turned to kidnap and torture, making it much harder for families to prove their wrongdoing. The number of disappearances surged with the arrival of the UPP.
“[We] have a lot more people that are missing. We can’t find their bodies, but the family knows that [it] was police violence. [The] people can’t prove that,” Tancredo explained.
50 percent of Brazilians support the country-wide saying, “A good crook is a dead crook.”
“People understand that poor people are naturally criminal and have to be violent,” Tancredo said. “So people naturalize this policemen approach a lot, here in Brazil. They think it is important for the security of the city.”
With their lives hanging in the balance and few Brazilian allies to stand with them, favela residents are looking beyond their own borders for support.
A meeting of the minds
CREDIT: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
With so much in common, a meeting between Brazilian and American activists was, arguably, hundreds of years in the making.
It eventually came to fruition in April, when favela youth and the mother of a slain teen flew to the United States to meet organizers from Black Lives Matter, One Million Hoodies, Cop Watch, and Stop Police Torture in Washington, D.C., New York, and Miami. A second meeting of the minds happened in Black July, when Black Lives Matter delegates from Boston traveled to Rio to meet more of their Brazilian counterparts.
Black Brazilians and Americans quickly discovered they’re not only facing similar struggles, but they’re using similar tactics of resistance: occupying space, filming cops, and documenting abusive police activity. Sitting in the same room was a victory in and of itself though, because it demonstrated that the two groups were willing to work together and opened up a dialogue about how to do that.
Visibility in the media is a key aspect of making their shared struggle a global one.
Daunasia Yancey said during the Black July meeting.
Extrajudicial killings happen more frequently in Rio than in the United States, but they get far less media attention. Even with the surge of killings leading up to the Olympics, most of the international news is focused on “construction costs, dirty water, Zika, and crime,” according to Elizabeth Martin, the founder of Brazil Police Watch and a delegate who flew to Rio. One of the objectives of the meeting was to showcase what local news outlets won’t.
Yancey told Rio On Watch, an online news site dedicated to community reporting in Rio, that getting more media attention is a top priority to make the movement a global one. Because Black Lives Matter has much more visibility than local activists in Rio, delegates were able to generate some buzz by flying to the city and standing with them.
“We need the media to be honest, to tell the truth and to share all of these stories,” said Yancey. “Together we must refuse that any more killings happen.”
Keeping the alliance alive
Boys prepare to fly their kites atop the Babilonia slum, overlooking Copacabana beach
CREDIT: AP PHOTO/FELIPE DANA
Maintaining that solidarity will ideally make a lasting impact internationally. But Rio, in particular, needs outside allies now more than ever.
Despite significant pushback from police and many lawmakers in America, the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. has received significant support from white, Asian, Latin, and Native American allies. Black Americans are steering the ship, but others have stood by their side.
Rio organizers haven’t had the same success finding people to stand with them. Race is a taboo subject in Brazil. People of privilege are reluctant to join the struggle — choosing to ignore the suffering of poor black people in the favelas, instead.
“The lack of allyship has made this conversation less potent,” Fran said.
But the Olympics, coming to Rio at the same time that the Black Lives Matter movement is starting to notch its biggest mainstream victories in the United States, is starting to force the elites to pay attention.
“The Olympics have gravely highlighted the racism and genocide against the black people at the hands of a racist state,” Fran said. That attention, in turn, has helped poor black Brazilians forge a game-changing relationship at a time when police brutality is getting worse.
2016 Olympics
Black Brazilians And Americans In Rio Made The Fight For Their Lives A Global One
9 Artists Leading Brazil’s New Generation Of Funkeiros
The most exciting voices in Brazil’s favela-born funk in 2016.
By NEELIYA DE SILVA
Karol Conka "É o Poder" video screenshot
From the kinetic, tongue-in-cheek bars of MC Bin Laden, to Karol Conka’s fearlessly political dance music, MCs are rapidly changing the musical landscape of Brazil in 2016. Many of the current wave of artists rap openly about the daily realities of living in the overpopulated Brazilian favelas, reacting to — and resisting against — poverty and marginalization. While their self-expression has long been frowned upon by the conservative media and authorities of Brazil, the viral hype and, in some cases, global popularity of these rising young funkeiros can’t be ignored.
Since the 1980s, the music of many of Brazil's most daring artists has been rooted in the favela-born sound of baile funk. Today, it's evolved into many different strands, each defined by a distinct sound and lyrical concerns. The glossier-sounding subgenre of funk ostentação flashily displays symbols of wealth and status, while the dirtier, Miami bass-inspired funk proibidão is paired with lyrics which engage with gang violence and police brutality. Meanwhile, funk putaria is a more sexually explicit twist on the genre, with a sensual sound springing from the feverish, free-for-all funk parties of Rio. Today’s young MCs tend to dabble in multiple variations on these subgenres, cherry-picking characteristics from each musical style.
As the world’s gaze turns towards Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics, The FADER highlights 9 of the best young MCs at the forefront of this new generation of Brazilian funk.
1. MC Bin Laden
The first time you heard the boisterous funk proibidão of MC Bin Laden might have been when he remixed Kelela’s “Rewind” in 2015. But the 22-year-old São Paulo artist — real name Jefferson Cristian Do Santos de Lima — went viral in his home country way before that with a string of viral hit singles, including the gunfire-sampling, high-octane “BOLOLO HAHA.” After referencing famed Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho in the choreography for his bombastic hit“Ta Tranquilo Ta Favoravel,” Bin Laden even had a brush with the man himself, who in turn performed the song with the MC on TV. Bin Laden’s eyebrow-raising name choice has caused him U.S. visa problems, but he’s far from a genuine threat. In fact, he claims that it’s all an act, and is a self-professed evangelical Christian.
2. MC Pikachu
MC Pikachu is 16-year-old Matheus Sampaio Correa, the younger cousin of MC Bin Laden, whose QT moniker is taken from the beloved Nintendo game. He joined the funk scene last year at age 15 with the festive “Jingle Bells”-sampling “Feliz Natal!,” featuring MC Bin Laden and São Paulo’s rising viral star MC 2K. After that, it didn’t take long for Pikachu to blow up. His DIY video for “Lá No Meu Barraco,” which has 25 million views to date, epitomizes his goofball charm: he builds and paints a shack only to knock it down after he takes a bikini-clad woman inside. A preview of his most recent offering “I Love Favela,” meanwhile, shows him riding high on luxury car bonnets on rooftops. These days, after all, he has DJ fans playing his tunes internationally, running the spectrum from Diploto Evian Christ.
3. Karol Conka
The music of Karol Conka, an MC based in Brazil’s largest southern city, Curitiba, delivers a message of protest with a party-starting flow. As she put it in a 2015 interview with Afropunk, “Music for me is a kind of resistance to many forms of prejudice that I have suffered in life [for] being black, female, and poor.” Drawing from the raw percussive rhythms of Afro-Brazilian batucada, as well as hip-hop and baile funk, her songs deal in self-esteem and confidence. After gaining a solid following with her 2013 debut Batuk Freak, her recent track “Tombei” takes its title from the Portuguese expression to “Topple” or mark your territory, while her latest single “É O Poder,”translates roughly to “It’s The Power.” After listening to Conka, you’re left in little doubt who’s in charge.
4. MC Livinho
Since beginning his musical career as a violinist in a church at age 9, Oliver Santos’s musical identity has taken a 180 turn. His first song asMC Livinho, at the age of 16, was the fairly self-explanatory “Mulher Kama Sutra” ["Women Kama Sutra"], which somehow manages to sound seductive while sampling the famous 1876 orchestral piece "In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Now, the 21-year-old MC from São Paulo has a playboy image that makes him something like a Brazilian answer to Justin Bieber, specializing in his own brand of “erotic-romantic,” ostentação-based funk.
5. MC Pedrinho
14-year-old Pedro Maia from São Paulo — better known as MC Pedrinho — blew up after his irrepressible collaboration with MC Livinho, “Dom Dom Dom,” became a national hit. Since he started MCing at the age of 12, he’s gained a reputation for the R-rated content of his lyrics – even if his voice hasn't quite dropped yet. Despite being threatened with censorship and having his shows cancelled by Brazilian authorities, his success has reaped such financial rewards that his mom has been able to quit her job as a maid.
The most exciting voices in Brazil’s favela-born funk in 2016.
By NEELIYA DE SILVA
From the kinetic, tongue-in-cheek bars of MC Bin Laden, to Karol Conka’s fearlessly political dance music, MCs are rapidly changing the musical landscape of Brazil in 2016. Many of the current wave of artists rap openly about the daily realities of living in the overpopulated Brazilian favelas, reacting to — and resisting against — poverty and marginalization. While their self-expression has long been frowned upon by the conservative media and authorities of Brazil, the viral hype and, in some cases, global popularity of these rising young funkeiros can’t be ignored.
Since the 1980s, the music of many of Brazil's most daring artists has been rooted in the favela-born sound of baile funk. Today, it's evolved into many different strands, each defined by a distinct sound and lyrical concerns. The glossier-sounding subgenre of funk ostentação flashily displays symbols of wealth and status, while the dirtier, Miami bass-inspired funk proibidão is paired with lyrics which engage with gang violence and police brutality. Meanwhile, funk putaria is a more sexually explicit twist on the genre, with a sensual sound springing from the feverish, free-for-all funk parties of Rio. Today’s young MCs tend to dabble in multiple variations on these subgenres, cherry-picking characteristics from each musical style.
As the world’s gaze turns towards Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics, The FADER highlights 9 of the best young MCs at the forefront of this new generation of Brazilian funk.
1. MC Bin Laden
The first time you heard the boisterous funk proibidão of MC Bin Laden might have been when he remixed Kelela’s “Rewind” in 2015. But the 22-year-old São Paulo artist — real name Jefferson Cristian Do Santos de Lima — went viral in his home country way before that with a string of viral hit singles, including the gunfire-sampling, high-octane “BOLOLO HAHA.” After referencing famed Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho in the choreography for his bombastic hit“Ta Tranquilo Ta Favoravel,” Bin Laden even had a brush with the man himself, who in turn performed the song with the MC on TV. Bin Laden’s eyebrow-raising name choice has caused him U.S. visa problems, but he’s far from a genuine threat. In fact, he claims that it’s all an act, and is a self-professed evangelical Christian.
2. MC Pikachu
MC Pikachu is 16-year-old Matheus Sampaio Correa, the younger cousin of MC Bin Laden, whose QT moniker is taken from the beloved Nintendo game. He joined the funk scene last year at age 15 with the festive “Jingle Bells”-sampling “Feliz Natal!,” featuring MC Bin Laden and São Paulo’s rising viral star MC 2K. After that, it didn’t take long for Pikachu to blow up. His DIY video for “Lá No Meu Barraco,” which has 25 million views to date, epitomizes his goofball charm: he builds and paints a shack only to knock it down after he takes a bikini-clad woman inside. A preview of his most recent offering “I Love Favela,” meanwhile, shows him riding high on luxury car bonnets on rooftops. These days, after all, he has DJ fans playing his tunes internationally, running the spectrum from Diploto Evian Christ.
3. Karol Conka
The music of Karol Conka, an MC based in Brazil’s largest southern city, Curitiba, delivers a message of protest with a party-starting flow. As she put it in a 2015 interview with Afropunk, “Music for me is a kind of resistance to many forms of prejudice that I have suffered in life [for] being black, female, and poor.” Drawing from the raw percussive rhythms of Afro-Brazilian batucada, as well as hip-hop and baile funk, her songs deal in self-esteem and confidence. After gaining a solid following with her 2013 debut Batuk Freak, her recent track “Tombei” takes its title from the Portuguese expression to “Topple” or mark your territory, while her latest single “É O Poder,”translates roughly to “It’s The Power.” After listening to Conka, you’re left in little doubt who’s in charge.
4. MC Livinho
Since beginning his musical career as a violinist in a church at age 9, Oliver Santos’s musical identity has taken a 180 turn. His first song asMC Livinho, at the age of 16, was the fairly self-explanatory “Mulher Kama Sutra” ["Women Kama Sutra"], which somehow manages to sound seductive while sampling the famous 1876 orchestral piece "In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Now, the 21-year-old MC from São Paulo has a playboy image that makes him something like a Brazilian answer to Justin Bieber, specializing in his own brand of “erotic-romantic,” ostentação-based funk.
5. MC Pedrinho
14-year-old Pedro Maia from São Paulo — better known as MC Pedrinho — blew up after his irrepressible collaboration with MC Livinho, “Dom Dom Dom,” became a national hit. Since he started MCing at the age of 12, he’s gained a reputation for the R-rated content of his lyrics – even if his voice hasn't quite dropped yet. Despite being threatened with censorship and having his shows cancelled by Brazilian authorities, his success has reaped such financial rewards that his mom has been able to quit her job as a maid.
6. MC Soffia
She may be just 11 years old, but independent rap artist MC Soffia is already a feminist role model, speaking out against racism with an aim to empower Afro-Latina girls. In “Menina Pretinha,” she effervescently raps, I’m black and I’m proud of my color in Portuguese over light synths and a snarling bassline. In a 2015 interview, she said, "They say [black girls] are ugly because they are black. They shouldn’t accept that…Do not be ashamed." Soffia’s currently raising money for her first album through a campaign on Brazilian crowdfunding platform Kickante, so donate here.
7. Flora Matos
Hailing from Brazil’s capital city Brasília, Flora Matos first broke onto the scene with her debut mixtape Flora Matos vs Stereodubsback in 2010. It introduced her woozy, lo-fi hip-hop beats as well as her ability to flip between dreamy vocal hooks and fast-spitting bars. For her harder side, listen to her #FreeGucci posse cut from earlier this year; for a taste of her softer side, see the video for the melancholy, acoustic “Comofaz.”
8. MC Brinquedo
São Paulo-based MC Brinquedo, with his pink and blue hair, mischievous charisma, and playful singing, was unmissable when he first appeared in MC Bin Laden’s “TchuPlin TchuPlin” video in 2015. Since then, Brinquedo’s music has already gained the approval ofBjörk herself, who played one of his tracks in a DJ set in New Yorklast year. On songs like “Roça Roça,” he exuberantly details his sex life over a thudding, blown-out beat — although he does also have a song called "Viciei no Minecraft" [“Since I Got Addicted to Minecraft”], which shows he’s a typical 14-year-old after all.
9. Diamond
With a winning combination of venomous bars and a DGAF attitude, rap trio Diamond — fka Pearls Negras — warp funk carioca with trap rhythms and club beats to create a fierce, heavy-hitting sound. Formed of Alice Coelho, Mariana Alves, and Jennifer Loiola, three 18-year-olds from Rio’s Vidigal favela, the group first attracted worldwide attention when they released their Biggie Apple andNossa Gang mixtapes in 2014. In their 2015 video for the burbling-bass tune “Meu Bem” (roughly translated to “my dear”), the three teens breezily stomp down the boardwalk, swing by a pickup basketball game, and walk into the ocean, owning every single frame. They've been quietly working in the studio for the past year, with new material due very soon.
She may be just 11 years old, but independent rap artist MC Soffia is already a feminist role model, speaking out against racism with an aim to empower Afro-Latina girls. In “Menina Pretinha,” she effervescently raps, I’m black and I’m proud of my color in Portuguese over light synths and a snarling bassline. In a 2015 interview, she said, "They say [black girls] are ugly because they are black. They shouldn’t accept that…Do not be ashamed." Soffia’s currently raising money for her first album through a campaign on Brazilian crowdfunding platform Kickante, so donate here.
7. Flora Matos
Hailing from Brazil’s capital city Brasília, Flora Matos first broke onto the scene with her debut mixtape Flora Matos vs Stereodubsback in 2010. It introduced her woozy, lo-fi hip-hop beats as well as her ability to flip between dreamy vocal hooks and fast-spitting bars. For her harder side, listen to her #FreeGucci posse cut from earlier this year; for a taste of her softer side, see the video for the melancholy, acoustic “Comofaz.”
8. MC Brinquedo
São Paulo-based MC Brinquedo, with his pink and blue hair, mischievous charisma, and playful singing, was unmissable when he first appeared in MC Bin Laden’s “TchuPlin TchuPlin” video in 2015. Since then, Brinquedo’s music has already gained the approval ofBjörk herself, who played one of his tracks in a DJ set in New Yorklast year. On songs like “Roça Roça,” he exuberantly details his sex life over a thudding, blown-out beat — although he does also have a song called "Viciei no Minecraft" [“Since I Got Addicted to Minecraft”], which shows he’s a typical 14-year-old after all.
9. Diamond
With a winning combination of venomous bars and a DGAF attitude, rap trio Diamond — fka Pearls Negras — warp funk carioca with trap rhythms and club beats to create a fierce, heavy-hitting sound. Formed of Alice Coelho, Mariana Alves, and Jennifer Loiola, three 18-year-olds from Rio’s Vidigal favela, the group first attracted worldwide attention when they released their Biggie Apple andNossa Gang mixtapes in 2014. In their 2015 video for the burbling-bass tune “Meu Bem” (roughly translated to “my dear”), the three teens breezily stomp down the boardwalk, swing by a pickup basketball game, and walk into the ocean, owning every single frame. They've been quietly working in the studio for the past year, with new material due very soon.
Jamaica Needs A Slave Museum
Published: Thursday | August 4, 2016 | 12:09 AM
Recently, on a visit to the slave museum in Nassau, The Bahamas, courtesy of Rev Dr Timothy Stewart, pastor of the historic Bethel Baptist Church, there was the realisation that Jamaica needs a slave museum.
This Pompey Slave Museum is in honour of Pompey, an enslaved person, who, as a 32-year-old, led a rebellion in 1830 on the Exuma plantation. The Pompey Museum is small but effective. It displays powerful artifacts such as instruments of punishment, but it does not have even one hundredth of the artifacts that Jamaica has stored in Port Royal. The museum has books on sale but again could not compare in quantity to the books on Jamaica's slave history.
It is not just the Bahamas and Jamaica alone who have a story to tell about resistance. The book, The Cross and the Machete highlights a worldwide culture of resistance by oppressed persons to free themselves from degrading colonial slavery. In the sixteenth century there was a series of revolts by the enslaved in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama, and Honduras. The Palmares, a government of escaped Africans on Brazilian soil, existed from 1605 to 1694. In the 1770s and 1780s, there were peasant insurgencies against colonial oppression in Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. There were revolts also in the USA. The enslaved Haitian people overthrew the French colonialists and declared independence on January 1, 1804. In Barbados, there were aborted rebellions in 1649, 1675, 1692 and 1816.
Orlando Patterson, noted sociologist, claimed that Jamaica has an impressive record of revolts by the enslaved during slavery's 180-year existence. The first serious revolt in Jamaica was in 1684. The Africans in Jamaica confronted their experiences of dehumanisation through resistance. One of the most celebrated resistances in Jamaica was led by the Maroons. In 1738, Maroon Cudjoe, a leader of runaways, led a resistance which resulted in negotiations with English Colonel John Guthrie and Francis Sadler and the establishment of the first free settlement in the British West Indies for the formerly enslaved Africans.
A STORY ABOUT SLAVERY
Then there was the Tacky Rebellion of 1760 in St Mary. However, the most far-reaching resistance was the Baptist War of 1831 - so called because Baptist leaders and members were identified with this resistance to slavery, especially Sharpe.
This resistance was the catalyst that forced the British to pass the Emancipation Act in 1833 which conditionally freed thousands from slavery. This emancipation in Jamaica and the British West Indies occurred before the enslaved in the USA, Cuba, and Brazil got their freedom. We have a significant story to tell in a slave museum.
Museums are important teaching tools which in a snapshot can relate a story about slavery. Many Jamaicans still claim that slavery in Africa was comparable to what happened in the British West Indies and the implications for reparations would be due from Britain and Africa.
However, the Pompey museum made it clear that chattel slavery in the British West Indies was unique in that for the first time persons were owned and treated as property. There was slavery in Africa such as becoming temporarily enslaved to pay a debt or as prisoners as war or as punishment for a criminal offence.
Importantly, the Pompey museum ends with a display about human trafficking and a call to end this practice. Jamaica needs a slave museum to tell the story of resistance to slavery more accurately, and help build our identity as a people of resilience, develop loyalty to country and abhorrence to modern day slavery.
Note: Last week's article contained some errors such as claiming Ferncourt as a non-traditional High School and failing to recognise that Immaculate Preparatory is a single sex school.
- Rev Devon dikk is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew. He is author of 'The Cross and the Machete', and 'Rebellion to Riot'. Send feedback to columns@ gleanerjm.com.
Jamaica Needs A Slave Museum
Published: Thursday | August 4, 2016 | 12:09 AM
Recently, on a visit to the slave museum in Nassau, The Bahamas, courtesy of Rev Dr Timothy Stewart, pastor of the historic Bethel Baptist Church, there was the realisation that Jamaica needs a slave museum.
This Pompey Slave Museum is in honour of Pompey, an enslaved person, who, as a 32-year-old, led a rebellion in 1830 on the Exuma plantation. The Pompey Museum is small but effective. It displays powerful artifacts such as instruments of punishment, but it does not have even one hundredth of the artifacts that Jamaica has stored in Port Royal. The museum has books on sale but again could not compare in quantity to the books on Jamaica's slave history.
It is not just the Bahamas and Jamaica alone who have a story to tell about resistance. The book, The Cross and the Machete highlights a worldwide culture of resistance by oppressed persons to free themselves from degrading colonial slavery. In the sixteenth century there was a series of revolts by the enslaved in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama, and Honduras. The Palmares, a government of escaped Africans on Brazilian soil, existed from 1605 to 1694. In the 1770s and 1780s, there were peasant insurgencies against colonial oppression in Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. There were revolts also in the USA. The enslaved Haitian people overthrew the French colonialists and declared independence on January 1, 1804. In Barbados, there were aborted rebellions in 1649, 1675, 1692 and 1816.
Orlando Patterson, noted sociologist, claimed that Jamaica has an impressive record of revolts by the enslaved during slavery's 180-year existence. The first serious revolt in Jamaica was in 1684. The Africans in Jamaica confronted their experiences of dehumanisation through resistance. One of the most celebrated resistances in Jamaica was led by the Maroons. In 1738, Maroon Cudjoe, a leader of runaways, led a resistance which resulted in negotiations with English Colonel John Guthrie and Francis Sadler and the establishment of the first free settlement in the British West Indies for the formerly enslaved Africans.
A STORY ABOUT SLAVERY
Then there was the Tacky Rebellion of 1760 in St Mary. However, the most far-reaching resistance was the Baptist War of 1831 - so called because Baptist leaders and members were identified with this resistance to slavery, especially Sharpe.
This resistance was the catalyst that forced the British to pass the Emancipation Act in 1833 which conditionally freed thousands from slavery. This emancipation in Jamaica and the British West Indies occurred before the enslaved in the USA, Cuba, and Brazil got their freedom. We have a significant story to tell in a slave museum.
Museums are important teaching tools which in a snapshot can relate a story about slavery. Many Jamaicans still claim that slavery in Africa was comparable to what happened in the British West Indies and the implications for reparations would be due from Britain and Africa.
However, the Pompey museum made it clear that chattel slavery in the British West Indies was unique in that for the first time persons were owned and treated as property. There was slavery in Africa such as becoming temporarily enslaved to pay a debt or as prisoners as war or as punishment for a criminal offence.
Importantly, the Pompey museum ends with a display about human trafficking and a call to end this practice. Jamaica needs a slave museum to tell the story of resistance to slavery more accurately, and help build our identity as a people of resilience, develop loyalty to country and abhorrence to modern day slavery.
Note: Last week's article contained some errors such as claiming Ferncourt as a non-traditional High School and failing to recognise that Immaculate Preparatory is a single sex school.
- Rev Devon dikk is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew. He is author of 'The Cross and the Machete', and 'Rebellion to Riot'. Send feedback to columns@ gleanerjm.com.
Jamaica Needs A Slave Museum