Using a photo of black hands holding a gun to illustrate a crime committed by a white man was no simple mistake in a newspaper. It was racism full steam ahead, naturalizing the idea that crime was a black thing. On Friday (11/25), tragedy struck Brazil. In the city of Aracruz, in the state of Espirito Santo, a young man invaded two schools (one public and the other private) and shot at teachers and students with a gun. So far, four people have died and five remain hospitalized. The killer in question is a 16-year-old boy, the son of a military policeman, who used his father’s weapons and car to commit the crime.
According to the investigations, the attack had been planned for two years, a premeditation that allowed two schools to be attacked on the same day, by the same person – even if the police have not yet ruled out the participation of other people.
The reasons for the crime are not entirely clear, but at the time of the crime, the teenager had a Nazi swastika imprinted on his clothes. Furthermore, the father of the assassin would have used his social networks to advise and spread the reading of the book Minha Luta by Adolf Hitler.
The case has shocked the country and the public, as this type of crime is rare in Brazil. However, the facilitation of access to weapons and the expansion of hate speech that have marked the last four years of our history can, unfortunately, transform this type of tragedy into something more frequent in Brazilian lands.
But in Brazil, a small tragedy is meaningless.
ever-present racism
On top of all the pain and suffering that the bombing has brought and the fear that this action is the result of a perfidious combination widely defended by the government that is about to end, we have racism there, ever present.
When it reported on the crime, Estado de S. Paulo, one of Brazil’s largest and most respected newspapers, ran its headline accompanied by an image of black hands brandishing a gun, as if those hands were those of the killer.
The placement has caused a lot of criticism. The perpetrator of the crime, who has already been arrested, is a white boy and, if that weren’t enough, the possibility remains strong that the motives for the crime are Nazi-fascist. But even this does not seem sufficient to dissuade an important part of the Brazilian media and public opinion, which stubbornly believe and disseminate that, in Brazil, a good bandit is a black bandit.
The direct relationship between perpetrators and people of color is one of the most perverse and ancient facets of racism that structures our history and our society. It should be remembered that the General Police Intendancy of the Tribunal, created in 1808, was the body that gave rise to the Military Police of Brazil, and had among its main powers the hunt for escaped slaves.
Throughout the 19th century, the repressive organs of the Brazilian state established a presumption of guilt that fell on all blacks. This perspective, based on scientific racism, was also widely publicized by a good number of 19th century newspapers and periodicals, which systematically reaffirmed their suspicion of “colored people” in Brazil.
Slavery was abolished (1888), the Republic proclaimed (1889) and the new Brazilian national state continued to act on the basis of the assumptions established by the ideology that founded colonization, eugenics and Nazism. Blacks and browns continued to be seen as potential criminals, for being what they were: black and brown men. And, precisely for this reason, they have remained the object of gruesome actions by the state and the racist opinion of the Brazilian media.
white privilege
The black hands gripping the gun in a case where the criminal is known to be a white man were not an oversight by the paper’s editors. It was Brazilian racism at full blast, naturalizing the idea that crime was a black thing.
We are still in November, a month that, in recent years, has been consecrated as a peak moment for the debate on racism in Brazil: the month of black consciousness. And not even this warning was enough to “contain the slip” of the newspaper, a slip which, it should be said, is echoed in a large part of Brazilian society.
The criticisms were many and fierce. And, revealing the dimension of Brazilian racism, they also underline the privilege of white men and women who run Brazilian newspapers. An exemplary case that highlights the importance of having black people in positions of leadership and power, to prevent “failures” like this from happening. Because, sadly, we still live in a country that defends (albeit unknowingly) that criminals are always black.
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Master and PhD in Social History at the USP, Ynaê Lopes dos Santos is Professor of History of the Americas at the UFF. She is the author of the books Além da Senzala. Slave Housing Arrangements in Rio de Janeiro (Hucitec 2010), History of Africa and Afro-descendant Brazil (Pallas, 2017), Juliano Moreira: black doctor in the foundation of psychiatry in Brazil (EDUFF, 2020) and Brazilian racism: A history of training from the country (However, 2022), and also responsible for the Instagram profile @nossos_passos_vem_de_longe.
Text reflects the author’s opinion, not necessarily DW’s.
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Source: Terra
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
