Race-based violence that plagued Afro Brazilians under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, the ex-military man who led the nation’s Liberal Party (Partido Liberal (PL), continues to this day. It began after the end of the first administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his successor Dilma Rousseff, in the first few decades of the 21st century.
Bolsonaro’s 2019–2022 term took place at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, three deadly weapons were used against Blacks: racial violence, overpowering religious influence, and the promotion of fake medicines to cure COVID, which only increased death and led to massive burials of the country’s poorest of the poor in common graves.
Bolsanaro’s middle name is Messias, which means “messiah.” He was known to try to sway the people who practice African matrix religions such as Candombe, Macumba, and Umbanda, and those who use Indigenous spiritual practices, by leaning on the impact of his name––Jair Messias Bolsanaro––and the tenets of orthodox Catholicism.
Brazilian Ku Klux Klan took over Brasilia
After losing the presidential elections in Brazil, Bolsanaro, who was also the captain of the Black Eagles, pushed for seizure of the seat of government in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, attempting to prevent Lula da Silva from assuming the presidency. The groups that generated and carried out his insurrectionist violence that day were white Bolsanaristas, evangelicals, and retired military men.
Democratic governments around the world rejected this attack. The main seats of government, such as the Supreme Court of Justice, Planalto presidential headquarters, and congress, were taken over by thousands of Bolsanaristas, who threw chairs through windows, defecated on floors and tables, defaced priceless artwork, and tried to destroy everything in their path.
Those accused of being the main leaders of this climate of terror were the former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres and Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who was Bolsonaro’s aide. So far, Bolsonaro’s actions have only led to his being officially barred from running for office again until 2030.
Racism and racial extermination continue
The nonprofit public safety organization, the Brazilian Public Security Forum (Forun Brasileiro de Segurança Pública), annually tracks the number of people who are killed due to police brutality. The states of Bahia, the Amazon, and Rio de Janeiro, and those who live in the northeast of Brazil tend to be the most affected––and where the rates of police brutality are the highest.
Statistically, the majority of those killed in favelas are Black and, sadly, most of them—almost 60% of those killed—are under 13 years of age.
Rio de Janeiro, which has a population that is 54% of African descendant, has one of the highest levels of police brutality, according to the Brazilian Public Security Forum. In Bahia, a state with one of the largest Afro Brazilian populations and where Lula’s Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores) has been in power for 16 years, the majority of those killed by the police are Black.
Bahia is where 19th-century forensic doctor and psychiatrist Raimundo Nina Rodrigues argued in his 1894 book “Human Races and Criminal Accountability” (“As raças humanas e a responsabilidade penal no Brasil”) that Blacks were inherently criminal. Rodrigues’s theories influenced the criminal anthropology taught in the police forces not only in Brazil but throughout the continent.
The U.S. State Department said, pointing to the Brazilian Public Security Forum’s report, that “that 84% of the persons killed by police in 2021 were Black, compared with the 56% of the country’s population that is Black.” The State Department also cited an infamous case of police abuse: “Video posted on social media showed police in Sergipe State forcing a Black man, Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, into the trunk of a police vehicle on May 25. According to a medical report, de Jesus died soon after of asphyxiation. De Jesus’s nephew, who witnessed the incident, said his uncle suffered from mental illness. The Federal Highway Police stated the victim resisted arrest. On October 10, the state public prosecutor’s office filed a complaint against the three highway police officers involved in the case. Federal Police agents previously indicted the officers for qualified homicide and abuse of authority.”
Lula’s current administration needs to escalate its reorganization of the police forces left by Bolsonaro, implement and widen efforts to dismantle structural racism within its police forces, democratize Brazil’s universities, and reinforce respect for those who practice African matrix religions.