The Journalists' Revolt and "Black Racism"

An article by the Brazilian anthropologist Antonio Riserio entitled “Racism of blacks against whites gains strength with alleged excesses of identity struggles that would be leading to inverted racism”, has created an internal revolt in the prestigious Brazilian newspaper,

. In an open letter to the newspaper's management, 186 of its journalists write: "We, journalists from

want to express our concern with the recurring publications of racist content on the pages of the newspaper." And they add: "Racism is a concrete fact of the Brazilian reality." The journalists make it clear in their letter that "the pluralism of opinion is one of the bases of the editorial project of

”, but they remember that the newspaper does not usually, for example, publish content that relativizes the Holocaust or gives voice to apologists for the dictatorship or representatives of the anti-vaccine movement.

The revolt of the

journalists poses, in effect, a double problem: that of racism, which is always present in the world —and which has been exacerbated in Brazil with the far-right fascist government of Jair Bolsonaro— and that of freedom of expression. even when it may be against the ideological line of the newspaper.

The controversy has reached social networks in which the anthropologist Riserio is criticized for having addressed an issue that always worries Brazil, such as the racism of white elites against blacks, considered inferior even when they manage to break through in the academic or business world. The response of the networks has been "no to inverted racism". And indeed, even in today's democratic Brazil, blacks, who still carry the stigma of slavery, always end up being sacrificed by the police forces and consciously or unconsciously considered inferior.

In the spheres of the left and of the movements against racism, the awareness that Brazil continues to be a country in which blacks and women are always discriminated against is becoming stronger every day. Hence, any discourse, even academic, that questions the problem, even if it is by referring to the history of the past, is viewed with concern and criticized.

The anthropologist Riserio, author of the controversial article in

is neither a Bolsonarist nor a fascist. Upside down. He was arrested during the dictatorship. He belonged to the left-wing revolutionary movement Polop (Worker Politics), the same one to which former president Dilma Rousseff belonged, who ended up imprisoned and tortured. He had an important participation in the elaboration of the programs of the presidential campaigns of Lula's Workers' Party and today he lives in seclusion on the island of Itaparica. He does not have Twitter or use WhatsApp and criticizes that "left-wing populism has given way to Bolsonaro's extreme right-wing populism."

In an interview with Duda Teixeria from

magazine , the anthropologist has tried to defend himself from the criticism that is raining down on him due to his controversial article published in

and affirms, for example, that “white is always the incarnation of privilege and oppression even if he is a taxi driver or a bricklayer”. Remember that in the 19th century “no one was against slavery as a system. Each group tried not to be enslaved, but nobody was interested in the enslavement of the others. According to the anthropologist, “the slaves who were sold to Brazil as soon as they crossed the Atlantic did not stop being slavers. The first thing, when ascending socially, was to buy slaves which they used with the same cruelty as the white masters”.

The newspaper responded this Thursday to the letter of its editors. "The management of

recognizes the journalists' letter as a legitimate instrument of demonstration, but affirms that the content goes against plurality and the defense of expression, pillars of the

project ." The newspaper has also announced that it will organize "a seminar to discuss pluralism and the racial question."

The controversial revolt of the

journalists is serving to sharpen, if possible, the eternal controversy of racism against blacks in a Brazil that carries the curse of slavery, in the last country to be abolished.

Left to their own devices, the millions of African slaves ended up without fundamental rights, which has made them, until today, the country's outcasts, always the object of open or covert discrimination.

An issue that will not cease to be alive in 2022, when Brazil celebrates its second centenary of Independence and presidential elections full of unknowns and controversies that may be crucial for the future of Brazilian democracy.

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