News — brazil

Bahia’s treasured costume, Baiana de Acarajé, is an extravagant piece of clothing worn by the beautiful women of Bahia. This group of people is in Salvador, a town on the northeastern coast of Brazil. It is impossible to stroll through the streets without seeing a woman or a group of women in this special attire.

The Transatlantic slave trade has had so much influence on Brazilian pop culture. The clothing of the women of Bahia carries a piece of this history.

Their traditional dress is made up of the Camino (a type of white cotton trousers), worn underneath a long maxi skirt, made extra flowy, and which is usually white. The dress also comes with a bodice that sinches at the waist and drapes slightly over the top of the skirt.

Although most of the styles are similar, every woman is at liberty to make their style more unique and personalized. The style inspiration for the traditional dress is that of ancient European Baroque — white lace and tons of layers. The headwraps, which are made with white lace, can be traced to the dress’s Afro-Islamic roots. The accessories include colorful bead necklaces and rings stacked upon each other.

In other parts of Brazil, the traditional dresses come in different colors and patterns but when it comes to the Baiana de Acarajé traditional dress in Bahia, it is an all-white affair. This is because it pays tribute to the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé.

Candomblé was formed in the late 19th century in Bahia where most of the enslaved can be traced. People from Yorubaland, Dahomey kingdoms (present-day southwestern Nigeria and Benin), and Bantu Africa were the larger groups in the settlement at the time.

Yoruba and Ewe-Fon rituals have heavily influenced Candomblé from the language of incantations to their religious organization and their mythology. The Candomblé faithful believe in several deities referred to as orishas (orixás) that are sometimes even likened to Catholic saints.

The Baiana de Acarajé traditional dress is also worn by women in Bahia who sell Acarajé, a dish made from peeled beans formed into a ball and then deep-fried in palm oil or vegetable oil. The meal serves as both a religious offering to the gods in the Candomblé religion and as street food.

Aside from the Acarajé, which is variously made with fried beef, mutton, dried shrimp, pigweed, fufu Osun sauce, and coconut, the women wear the traditional attire to sell other tasty street foods as well. They stress that donning the Baianas de Acarajé traditional dress is an intricate part of their culture that warms the hearts of the locals and tourists alike.

Labor inspectors in Brazil have rescued a Black woman who was enslaved from the age of eight and worked as a domestic servant – without receiving any remuneration or time off – for a White family for almost 40 years.

According to local television news magazine Fantástico, in an exclusive feature, the victim, identified as 46-year-old Madalena Gordiano, was found living in a small room without any windows at the residence in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, Daily Mail reported. Gordiano’s poor parents reportedly gave her to the family of a university professor also identified as Dalton Cesar Milagres Rigueira. She was raised by the professor’s mother though she wasn’t officially adopted.

“I helped clean up the house, cook, wash the bathroom, wash the house. I didn’t play, I didn’t even have a doll,” Gordiano told Fantástico.

“They gave her food when she was hungry, but all other rights were taken from her,” the inspector in charge of the rescue, Humberto Camasmie, also told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Gordiano was rescued on November 27 following a tipoff from neighbors who said she sent them notes asking them to purchase food and hygiene products for her as she did not have any money. While in captivity, Gordiano was also forced to marry an elderly relative of the family so they could continue receiving his R$ 8,000 ($1,557) pension after his demise. She has since been allowed to receive those funds, and Labor prosecutors also said they’re in talks with the Rigueira family with regards to paying compensation to her.

“She did not know what a minimum wage was,” Camasmie said. “Now she’s learning how to use a credit card. She knows that every month she will be paid a substantial amount [from the pension].”

Following her rescue, Rigueira’s employers, Unipam, announced he has been suspended, and the university is taking all “legal measures”, Daily Mail reported. A lawyer for the Rigueira family, however, said Fantástico had presented the accused as guilty even before they could present their defense in court.

“The premature and irresponsible disclosure by inspectors and agents of the state, before a lawsuit recognizes … their guilt, violates rights and sensitive data from the family, and compromises their safety,” the lawyer said.

In Brazil, labor officials say domestic servitude has been a compounding problem, and alleviating it has been a major challenge as the victims seldom see themselves as modern-day slaves, Daily Mail reported. And though labor inspectors can go to workplaces and homes to investigate cases of slavery, they are required to obtain a permit from a judge to be able to enter, and victims must also officially notify them.

The main startups hubs in the country have traditionally been São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, but now a new wave of cities are building their own thriving local startup ecosystems, including Recife with Porto Digital hub and Florianópolis with Acate. More recently, a “Black Silicon Valley” is beginning to take shape in Salvador da Bahia.

While finance and media are typically concentrated in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, a city of three million in the state of Bahia, is considered one of Brazil’s cultural capitals.

With an 84% Afro-Brazilian population, there are deep, rich and visible roots of Africa in the city’s history, music, cuisine and culture. The state of Bahia is almost the size of France and has 15 million people. Bahia’s creative legacy is quite clear, given that almost all the big Brazilian cultural patrimonies have their roots here, from samba and capoeira to various regional delicacies.

Many people are unaware that Brazil has the largest Black population in any country outside of Africa. Like counterparts in the U.S. and across the Americas, Afro-Brazilians have long struggled for socio-economic equity. As with counterparts in the United States, Brazil’s Black founders have less access to capital.

According to research by Professor Marcelo Paixão for the Inter-American Development Bank, Afro-Brazilians are three times more likely to have their credit denied than their white counterparts. Afro-Brazilians also have over twice the poverty rates of white Brazilians and only a handful of Afro-Brazilians have held legislative positions, despite comprising more than 50% of the population. Not to mention, they make up less than 5% of the top level of the top 500 companies. Compared with countries like the United States or the United Kingdom, the racial funding gap is even more stark as more than 50% of  Brazil’s population is classified as Afro-Brazilian.

To reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the black community, Google opens applications for the Black Ads Academy and supports entities working on projects to combat violence

To celebrate Afro-Entrepreneurship Week, Google is launching initiatives to support the black community, which includes training and financial support through Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm. In addition to announcing the new edition of the Black Ads Academy, aimed at helping Afro-entrepreneurs and Afro-entrepreneurs to use digital marketing to navigate this moment of uncertainty, the company will allocate around R $ 2.5 million to NGOs focused on projects to combat violence police and the genocide of black people in Brazil.

The novelties are intended to help the 14 million black and black entrepreneurs in Brazil - who are among the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a  survey conducted by Sebrae and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV).

“The difficulties brought by the current moment, added to structural racism, make black entrepreneurs form one of the communities most impacted by the pandemic of COVID-19”, says Christiane Silva Pinto, product marketing manager for small and medium companies at Google Brazil. "The announced initiatives aim to value the daily efforts of Afro-entrepreneurs who struggle every day to keep their businesses alive."

Check out the details of the main ads below: 

• Black Ads Academy

In September, Google will hold the new edition of the Black Ads Academy, a project designed by Google to develop skills in Digital Marketing and create opportunities for black entrepreneurs and professionals in the advertising market.

This year, the project will count on the partnership of non-profit organizations, such as Diver.SSA, FA.VELA and Instituto GUETTO, who will be responsible for the workshops on entrepreneurship and career development. Besides, the program will be carried out in the digital environment, allowing the participation of candidates from all over the country. To register, free of charge, just go to fill the form until 09/08.

• Google Academy training

The  Google Academy, education hub, and online content on digital advertising receive a training session focused on specific challenges and needs of Brazilian afroempreendedores. The live training will be taught by Google product specialists in partnership with AfroGooglers.

To participate, interested parties must access the official website and register using the form. Then, just connect on the scheduled day and time. It is worth mentioning that all content is available on the platform, to access later.

• Google.org donation to NGOs

Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, will allocate about R $ 2.5 million to Brazilian non-governmental organizations focused on projects related to racial justice and ensuring a safe environment for black people in Brazil. Soon, NGOs selected to receive financial support will be announced.

• Commitments to racial equity

In addition to the ads, Google is also launching the Portuguese version of its commitment to racial equality website, with the latest updates on the company's efforts worldwide. In addition, throughout the week, the social networks of Google Brazil will receive a series of publications in addition to the #CoisaDePreto Manifesto, for the valorization of Afro-entrepreneur.

The announcements made today are in addition to other initiatives to support black entrepreneurs recently announced by Google in Brazil, such as the R $ 5 million funds for startups founded and led by black entrepreneurs in Brazil, announced in July by Google for Startups. This is the first time that Google invests financially in startups in the country and the expectation is that, initially, about 30 investments will be made in the next 18 months, without any counterpart. 

Close to 2 million residents of the Rio de Janeiro’s impoverished favelas are struggling to cope with two lethal threats. The first, Covid-19, affects us all, but is a heightened risk for those who live on cramped streets where social distancing is hard and homes lack decent ventilation, sanitation, and access to potable water. Most favela residents rely on informal jobs and cannot work from home. About 300 residents have died of coronavirus.

The other threat is entirely man-made. In the first four months of 2020, Rio police, by their own count, killed 606 people. In April, as isolation measures came into place, robberies and other crimes dropped dramatically, but police violence surged. Police killed close to six people a day, a 43 percent increase from the same month last year. They were responsible for 35 percent of all killings in Rio de Janeiro state in April.

To put that in perspective, imagine police in the United States killing at a similar rate; they would be responsible for more than 36,000 deaths each year. Instead, US police shoot and kill about 1,000 people per year. That number includes cases where the use of deadly force was excessive and unwarranted, and too often indicative of flagrant discrimination against African-Americans. Some of those cases have led to public protest and unrest, as with the recent killing of George Floyd.

More than three quarters of the close to 9,000 people killed by Rio police in the last decade were black men. Nationwide, police killed more than 33,000 people in the last ten years. There have been some protests, particularly in the communities that suffer the brunt of that violence, but not the uproar seen in the United States.

The numbers alone cannot convey the tragedy. On May 18, three police officers, supposedly pursuing suspects, entered a home in the Salgueiro favela where six unarmed cousins had gathered to play. They opened fire hitting 14-year-old João Pedro Matos Pinto in the back. A relative drove João Pedro to a helicopter used by police in the operation, which took him away. The family spent  more than 17 hours not knowing his whereabouts or condition, and finally found João’s body at the coroner´s office.  

Three days later, as teachers, students, and other volunteers outside a school in the Providência favela handed out food packages to families left hungry by the economic fallout from Covid-19, the police opened fire. They said they were responding to gunfire from unidentified suspects. They killed Rodrigo Cerqueira, a 19-year-old whose teacher described him as a “wonderful boy” who always sat in the front row in school.

In the May 18 and May 21 operations, the police made no arrests and no officer was injured. The police routinely excuse themselves in killings, saying they opened fire in self-defense. Sometimes, it is true, as they face dangerous gangs. But many times, it is not.

The same rules for the use of lethal force apply in Providência or Salgueiro as in Copacabana and other wealthy Rio de Janeiro neighborhoods, but you wouldn’t know it. Human Rights Watch research over more than a decade shows that in poor neighborhoods, police open fire recklessly, without regard for the lives of bystanders. Sometimes they wantonly execute people.

That they only behave so abusively in poor neighborhoods may explain the lack of an uproar over the killings in a society as deeply unequal as Brazil´s.

Police operations resulting in injuries and killings make law-abiding citizens of poor neighborhoods see officers as the enemy and a threat to their children. Such brutality does nothing to dismantle criminal groups. Instead, it feeds a cycle of violence that also puts officers at risk.

Rio de Janeiro state authorities need to draft and put into effect a plan with concrete steps and goals to reduce police killings. And when those killings occur, the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor´s office needs to ensure prompt, thorough, and independent investigations, including by opening its own investigations, in addition to those undertaken by the police.

While Covid-19 will affect favela residents for a long time, effective public health policies can help bring it under control. But as long as officers responsible for reckless shootings and cold-blooded executions are not held accountable, we’ll keep losing innocent young people in Rio de Janeiro, with no end in sight.

Brazil has for years presented itself as a “racial democracy” – a land of harmonious racial relations and free of racism. This image has many times been questioned, while the murder in April 2018 of social justice campaigner Marielle Franco shed new light on the violence many of the country’s black women face. And today, a particular form of racism is increasingly on display online.

In Brazil as around the world, Facebook, Twitter and the like have become a sort of modern-day pillory for distilling varied forms of racism, bigotry and misogyny – and Brazil’s digital public sphere is seeing a distinctive, deep-seated, colonial-like racism unleashed against upwardly mobile black women.

The posts concerned bear the hallmarks of “whitening” ideology – the belief that whiteness represents the only legitimate form of beauty, the ultimate and unquestionable symbol of modernity and progress, whereas blackness embodies exactly the opposite. The racist posts that proliferate on social media are part of an attempt to undermine black women’s social advancement and delegitimize their demands for greater racial equality, putting them back into their “natural” position of inferiority and subservience.

According to a study by the organization Safernet Brasil, in 2017 there were 63,698 reported cases of hate speech on the internet in Brazil, and a third of them comprised racist discourses against black people. In a recent study of my own, I found that 81% of victims of racist discourse on Facebook in Brazil were middle-class black women aged 20-35.

Within the dozens of cases that have reached the headlines, it is worrisome to identify colonial-like expressions: “Where did you buy this slave? Can you sell her to me?”. “Say hi to your cellmates.” “Your place is not travelling across Europe but rather in the fields harvesting cotton.” “Wow, I had no idea that a black could become medical doctor. Who’d fancy taking the chances of a consultation?”. “A N *****. Wait a minute; let me get my whip.”

Shielded by anonymity

There’s plenty here that should have Brazilians deeply worried. For a start, it’s possible that this digital technology and the discourse it hosts are in fact helping reshape contemporary racial relations in Brazil, as bigoted racial stereotypes are constructed, enacted and reinforced in the realm of social media.

More than that, the proponents of racist ideologies disregard any personal distance that might exist between themselves and the victims of their offences. I found that in two-thirds of the cases I studied, those posting the abuse had no previous relationship with their targets either online or offline. The corollary is that anyone who fits the profile is potentially a target.

In Brazil, most racist discourse is conveyed through derogatory humor, often a socially acceptable form of communication. To many people, this provides the convenient excuse that these sorts of caustically racist posts are for “entertainment”. Examples I came across on Facebook include: “Why was a pregnant black woman expecting triplets arrested? She was charged with gang formation”, and “What shines most in a black? The handcuffs, when he’s not holding a knife to rob the bank”.

Finally, these people often believe that online anonymity “shields” them from being held accountable for their attitudes. Nevertheless, the moment that their racist posts reach the headlines of news articles, they do one of four things: delete the post, switch their profile from public to private, delete their account, or claim that the post was “just” a joke.

On July 18, a protest against religious intolerance took place in Duque de Caxias, in Greater Rio’s Baixada Fluminense region, at the former site of the terreiro (outdoor place of worship for Afro-Brazilian religions) of Joãozinho da Gomeia, babalorixá (high priest) of the Candomblé religion. The demonstration was organized because the mayor of the city, Washington Reis, announced that a daycare center would be constructed on the site, abandoning the current recovery process of the historical memory and religious significance of the place. Participants in the demonstration called for the space to be preserved as a heritage site. Currently, the site is considered unsanitary and is abandoned.

On July 27, almost ten days later, the demands made by the black movement and by religious movements were met by the Duque de Caxias city government: the site will be preserved, and the sacred memory of the land will be maintained. The municipal government resolved to build the new school unit in a different location, fence off the land, and clean up the site.

Understand the Case and Its Importance to Afro-Brazilian Culture

Who was João da Gomeia?

Considered the most famous Brazilian babalorixá, João Alves Torres Filho, from the state of Bahia, better known as João da Gomeia, was an important pai de santo (male priest) in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1946, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, establishing his terreiro in Duque de Caxias, where he attended to politicians and artists. Rumor has it that former Brazilian presidents Getúlio Vargas and Juscelino Kubitschek visited him at his terreiro. His bibliography is the subject of two published books, one play, academic studies, and, more recently, a parade theme in Rio’s carnival. In 2020, the samba school Grande Rio, which is located in the same municipality as the terreiro, took the story to Rio’s Sambadrome. The tribute considered the artistic soul and religious life of the pai de santo.

In addition to his renowned and respected spirituality, the pai de santo was also an artist who brought the terreiro dances to the stages of theaters in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro. The religious community did not receive these (public) performances well, but the babalorixá, with his striking and irreverent personality, kept his art alive despite the criticism.

Currently, there is a committee dedicated to keeping the memory and work of the babalorixá alive. The Gomeia Committee is led by Pai João’s filha de santo (a female religious pupil, spiritual daughter), Seci Caxi (sacred name given to Sandra Seci Reis), and since 2015 they have planned to build the Joãozinho da Gomeia Memorial. The Rio de Janeiro State Institute of Cultural Heritage (INEPAC) also initiated a process to establish the area as a protected public landmark, which is still underway. “I’m not against it. No one here is against the construction of a daycare. But this is a sacred site and we must respect Pai João and the importance of his name within Afro-Brazilian culture,” said Seci de Caxi during the July 18 protest.

Pai João’s terreiro unquestionably made its mark on Brazilian history. But more deeply still, it marked the lives of many residents of the Baixada Fluminense, such as that of journalist Sílvia Mendonça, Ekedi (spiritual role in the Candomblé religion), a resident of Duque de Caxias and activist in the black movement. “I was born nearby, and my family used to come to the parties. I’m the youngest, but my oldest brother would be 97 years old if he were still alive. My father was born in 1900. Everyone knew Pai João’s stories around here, but no one knew him as Joãozinho da Gomeia. He was Pai João. And what would be the importance of building [the daycare] here? It’s not only about preserving his memory, that wasn’t the only thing he wanted. He wanted to empower the population. The black population especially.”

A week before the death of George Floyd in the US city of Minneapolis in May, Brazilians were mourning one of their own.

Fourteen-year-old João Pedro Mattos Pinto was killed while playing with friends during a botched police operation in a favela in Rio de Janeiro.

The two deaths happened thousands of kilometres apart, yet millions of people were united in grief and anger. "Black lives matter here, too," Brazilians chanted in the weeks following the deaths.

But history keeps repeating itself.

Only last week, a police officer in São Paulo stepped on the neck of a black woman in her fifties. The video that surfaced showing the incident caused outrage. She survived, but so many do not.

There is much that connects Brazil to the US - guns, violence and these days their politics, too. But in the São Paulo favela of Americanópolis, people are hardly living the American dream.

Joyce da Silva dos Santos shows me a video of her son Guilherme celebrating his birthday with a big cake and candles. He was a 15-year-old with his whole life ahead of him. He had dreams of following his grandfather into the bricklaying business, of one day buying a motorcycle, too. But his dreams were cut short.

A few weeks ago, he disappeared outside his family's house. His body was found dumped on the outskirts of the city. One policeman has since been arrested. Another, an ex-policeman, is still on the run.

"Guilherme was so loving, he cared for everyone," Ms dos Santos tells me, hardly able to speak through her tears. She fears for her other children now. "We don't know if when we leave home, we will come back - I don't have the will to live anymore."

In the street, the neighbours are enjoying a sunny Saturday afternoon, swigging beer and chatting. People here have come together since Guilherme's death, but so much has changed.

"The police should be protecting us," says a neighbour, also called Joyce, whose daughter was friends with Guilherme. "They don't though, because of the colour of our skin."

Last year police here killed nearly six times as many people as in the US and most of them were black.

"Police violence goes back to this complex way of accepting that some lives matter less than others," says Ilona Szabo, executive director of the Igarapé Institute, a security think tank based in Rio.

For a long time, the 1959 film Black Orpheus served as a crowning reference of Black Brazilian culture. Orishas, samba and majestic melanin took center stage against the backdrop of carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Fast forward many years to 2003’s City of God, which followed two young Black men as they took vastly different roads out of Rio’s favelas, and the more recent Café com Canela, the 2017 indie film about a long night of revelations amongst five friends.

However, for a country with an estimated 80 million people who are of African ancestry, Afro-Brazilians do not see much of themselves on screen. Enter: Netflix’s Girls from Ipanema. While the 1960 set drama centers around four women who forge a bond around Maria Luiza, who has been royally wronged by her husband, it’s Adélia (played by Pathy Dejesus) the domestic worker-turned-entrepreneur from “the hills” who made us dig into the series.

Truthfully, Adélia’s storyline in the first season is minimal. Even though Adélia becomes Maria’s equal partner in the launch of a music club, Adélia’s authority as a business owner would rarely surface in scenes unless she’s directing workers to clean up. At her club, Coisa Mais Linda, she’d often be background or sitting quietly as the other three White leads carried on their complicated lives. It’s not until Adélia’s at home do we see her layers: she’s in a struggling relationship with Capitão (Ícaro Silva) who has painfully discovered their daughter Conceição (Sarah Vitória) is not his.

But in season two—now streaming—that all changes. Dejesus’s Adélia broadens so widely there’s nearly a whole episode dedicated to her and Cap’s wedding, which introduces her estranged father (Val Perré) and jubilant mother-in-law (Eliana Pittman). The new season also anchors Ivonne (Larissa Nunes), Adélia’s little sister, who’s finding her own way out of the hills.

Brazilian gymnast Angelo Assumpcao still wonders how far he could have gone if not for the decision he says derailed his career: speaking out against the racism he was subjected to by his white teammates.

Could he have made the Olympics? Won a medal? At 24 years old, he may never get the chance to find out.

"Some people think racism doesn't exist. I wonder where my career would be without it," he told AFP in an interview.

Assumpcao's career was as short as it was promising.

A muscular dynamo with an exuberant afro, he grew up on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil's economic capital, where he developed a love for gymnastics that soon landed him at the revered Pinheiros Sporting Club.

Located in the upscale neighborhood from which it takes its name, Pinheiros is a veritable institution in Brazilian sport.

Founded in 1899 -- just 10 years after Brazil became the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery -- it has trained some of the country's best athletes, including 12 Olympic medalists.

Assumpcao came of age in its elite training academy, a lone black boy learning backflips and dismounts surrounded by white gymnasts.

- 'New sensation' -

He got his big break in 2015, when he took the place of injured teammate Arthur Nory on the vault at the Gymnastics World Cup stage event in his hometown, Sao Paulo.

Assumpcao won gold, upsetting Brazil's leading gymnast at the time, veteran Diego Hypolito, who won bronze.

Globo Sports, part of Brazil's biggest media house, proclaimed Assumpcao "the new sensation" of Brazilian gymnastics.

Days later, though, his celebration was cut short.

Nory put a video on social media in which he and two other young white gymnasts cracked racist jokes with a visibly uncomfortable Assumpcao.

"When your cell phone's working, the screen is white. When it breaks, what color is it?" a snickering Nory asks in the video.

"Black!" comes the answer.

"The plastic bags at the supermarket are white. What color are garbage bags?"

The video went viral online, triggering outrage in Brazil, a country of 212 million people where 54 percent of the population is black or mixed race.

The Brazilian Gymnastics Federation suspended the three white gymnasts for a month. They later apologized.

But Assumpcao says it was not an isolated incident.

He was regularly mocked for his skin color, hair and Afro-Brazilian heritage, he says.

He pinpoints his decision to speak out against such behavior as the moment his career started to unravel.

He was not selected for the 2016 Olympics, held in Brazil's second city, Rio de Janeiro. Hypolito and Nory were, taking home medals -- silver and bronze, respectively, in the floor competition.

Assumpcao says he sank into depression because of the discrimination he faced.

At first, he kept his complaints behind closed doors, going to Pinheiros directors in private because he feared reprisals, he said.

When he felt the club failed to listen, he went public about the "structural racism" he says prevails there.

- Training at home -

In November 2019, Pinheiros rescinded his contract, saying he was under-performing.

Assumpcao says it was punishment for condemning racism in the gymnastics world.

"You pay a very heavy price when you're a victim of racism in Brazil, or anywhere in the world," he said.

"But the oppressors pay a much cheaper price. Look at Arthur Nory. He got to go on with his life."

Last year, Pinheiros carried out an internal review that confirmed incidents of "racial abuse" and "harassment" at the club, according to a report by Globo Sports.

However, in a statement to AFP, the club denied racism in the decision to cut ties with Assumpcao.

His bitter experiences rushed back recently when another Brazilian, Neymar, accused a defender of using racist insults against him during Paris Saint-Germain's 1-0 loss to Marseille Sunday.

"That just goes to show that you can be the best athlete in the world, rich and famous, but they still judge you by the color of your skin," said Assumpcao.

Today, the gymnast trains by himself at home, getting by with the help of donations from friends and family and hoping to get the chance to compete again.

Lagos is a city with a rich multicultural history as the return of the Afro-Brazilians in the 19th century can still be felt today in the Brazilian Quarter in Lagos. The returning slaves’ presence is seen through the architecture on the Quarter as they designed and built most of the buildings although most of the original structures have deteriorated.

According to a study conducted in the 19th Century, it is estimated that between 3,000 and 8,000 former slaves returned to Africa from Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Those who took part in the Malé Revolt of 1835, described as the most significant slave rebellion in Brazil, resided in Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, and Togo.

Those who settled in Nigeria were in an area of Lagos Island known as Popo Aguda and the Afro-Brazilian population, known as “Aguda” meaning “Catholic” in Yoruba were the largest group of the returnee slaves in the 1850s.

It was Benjamin Campbell, the consul of Lagos from 1853 to 1859 who persuaded these freed Africans to emigrate from Brazil and offered the protection in exchange for their assistance with the colonial administration.

Their return to West Africa is noticeable through their contributions to the early architectural design of their settlements. Which is one form of cultural exchange that is deemed a part of the larger global black narrative on black Africa’s architectural heritage.

Speaking of cultural exchange, architecture is one of the subtle forms of the exchange that ensued between the Afro-Brazilians who returned to Lagos and other parts of West Africa.

Lagos’ architectural landscape was influenced immensely by the returning Afro-Brazilian slaves and these astonishing buildings are important indicators of a rich history.

Today, these historical landmarks are losing its value as they are threatened mostly by urbanisation and the lack of conversations about preserving the history of the Quarter, thus most of the buildings lie in ruins.

It is best to forget the horrific nature of the transatlantic slave trade but it is also important to educate the new generation on their past and the best way the Brazilian Quarter does so is seen through the integration of cultures. A trip to Lagos Island offers a unique glance into the amazing architecture and the indelible legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.

There is an outcry to save the last remaining Afro-Brazilian buildings in the Quarter because the area is experiencing swift gentrification and pervasive demolition. Local communities, activists and conversation groups have taken up the mantle to rekindle essential discussions on the preservation of the history of Afro -Brazilians in Lagos City.

Oluremi Dacosta, a conservationist, activist and a local resident of Afro-Brazilian descent is a key figure whose role to save the architecture of the Brazilian Quarter has not gone unnoticed.

Some may not understand the need to preserve the Brazilian Quarter and its architectural heritage but Dacosta sees it differently. According to him, people are curious about the Afro-Brazilian influence in Lagos and the tourism in the area has seen a major boost as all his daily tours are constantly sold-out.

He views the conservation of the area as very important to “Nigerian-Brazilian cultural heritage and […] one of the unique architectural histories on the African continent.”

Another means of preserving the heritage is the Tiwa N’ Tiwa’s Street Art Festival. An initiative that celebrates the culture of Afro-Brazilians in a three-day annual street art and community festival.

Past celebrations took place on the streets of the Brazilian Quarter where there was tour to highlight the architectural masterpieces in the Quarter led by Dacosta in collaboration with the festival organisers.

The tour included the exploration of 12 historic sites, mosques, schools, local family homes in the quarter and the churches of which the highlight was the Cathedral Church of Christ. Other activities included a block party and interactive workshop sessions.

A real glimpse of the Brazilian Quarter of Lagos can be experienced in areas around Tinubu Square Upper Campos Square, Campos Street, Igbosere Road, Broad Street Marina Road and Campbell Street.

Like most kids around the world last spring, João Pedro Mattos Pinto found himself on lockdown because of the raging coronavirus. Unable to go to school on May 18, the 14-year-old Black Brazilian joined his cousins at their house in a favela outside of Rio de Janeiro. When gunfire erupted in the neighborhood, he sent his mother a WhatsApp message: “I’m inside the house. Don’t worry.”

Suddenly, 10 police officers burst into the house, searching for a purported drug trafficker and firing off more than 70 shots. João Pedro was hit in the back. His relatives bundled the bleeding boy into a police helicopter, and he was airlifted away. The police barred family members from accompanying the minor and refused to provide the family with any more information. Police arrested no one in the operation.

João Pedro’s cousin, Daniel, put out a desperate message on Twitter, begging people for help locating him. The #procurasejoaopedro (find João Pedro) hashtag trended on Brazilian Twitter overnight. While more than 1,400 young Black men are killed by police every year in Rio, João Pedro’s disappearance grabbed the headlines. It took his family 17 hours to locate his body in a public morgue.

That was seven days before the world would see the haunting video of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd; before Black Lives Matter uprisings erupted across the United States, spreading quickly around the world. These two events helped to spark #VidasNegrasImportam (#BlackLivesMatter in Portuguese) protests in Rio de Janeiro and across Brazil, the South American country with the largest population of Black people outside Africa, just ahead of the United States. And in an ironic confluence of events—Joao Pedro’s death combined with the coronavirus—police in Rio were forced to stop almost all operations, at least temporarily, leading to a stark decline in fatal police encounters.

In a world without coronavirus, João Pedro’s death wouldn’t have trended on Twitter, nor would it have been front-page news. But the pandemic and subsequent protests forced Brazilians to focus on anti-Black police violence, which they had long ignored or normalized. Rio activists and lawyers, who had been working against such violence for years, filed an emergency petition asking Brazil’s Supreme Court to stop police operations during the pandemic. And one Supreme Court justice temporarily ruled in favor—with startling results.

One month after Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin’s June 5 order barring police operations in Rio—except in extreme circumstances—killings by police had dropped 70% compared to the previous 12 years. A study revealed that the suspension of police operations in Rio’s favelas could save more than 400 lives this year alone.

On August 3, a majority of justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court voted to uphold Fachin’s temporary ban on police operations in Rio—a decision that could have broader implications for addressing police violence across the country. The Supreme Court must still determine whether Rio’s state security policing needs to be aligned with national and international human rights standards.

“It is possible that if COVID hadn’t happened, we would not have had a [judicial] decision like we had,” said Wallace Corbo, a lawyer who works pro bono on behalf of the Educafro, an education and social justice nonprofit in Brazil. He started working on the Supreme Court case to stop Rio police operations last year.

“COVID and João Pedro changed everything,” Corbo explained.

The COVID-19 pandemic further unmasked the extent of racial inequities. Although it was the White and wealthy who brought the coronavirus to Brazil from their European holidays, the workers who live in favelas and periphery communities—the Black and poor—were dying at the highest rates. A recent study revealed that 80% of Rio’s coronavirus deaths were registered in the city’s most impoverished areas. And the hardest hit demographic group is older, Black, impoverished men. As of August 27, the country of more than 211 million people had registered more than 117,000 coronavirus deaths.

In many ways, Brazil has emerged as an almost mirror image of the United States, even down to the racial uprising that resulted from a police killing. It is second only to the United States in the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus. And like U.S. President Donald Trump, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro downplayed the virus from the beginning of the pandemic, calling it a “little flu.” Between March and May, two health ministers resigned; their posts remain vacant. The country has yet to implement a national coronavirus plan.

Such lack of coordination and planning leaves favela activists such as Fernanda Viana Araujo, 40, scrambling to provide food and other basic necessities to people quarantined in tight quarters in these neighborhoods. Mothers who supported their families as domestic servants had to stay home. Fathers who earned a living as parking lot attendants had no work. Grocery store attendants continued to work, potentially exposing their families to the virus.

Araujo said her focus recently has shifted to providing COVID-19 testing to residents of Maré, a favela with the highest number of both COVID cases and deaths overall in Rio.

“We normally focus on building our community through culture, art, public policy, and education,” said Araujo, who works with the nonprofit Rede da Maré, which is in the Maré favela. “But we realized we needed to do something to help our people stay alive. And that means giving them food for their table.”