Brazil Race Diary 1999

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Founder and Editor

Talk about racism, Brazil, and Esther's journey. Click here.

Part I. Going Down South

Day 1
We leave for Brazil through portals of racial tension. Mine is the recently renamed Reagan National Airport just outside Washington, D.C. Many among my fellow 85 African Americans from around the country are still smarting from their experience at Brazilian consulates. An architecture professor in her 50's watched a consulate employee handpicking Whites to serve. A brown-skinned woman in her 70's was hassled about her visa while her lighter-skinned siblings were not. We foreshadow our journey to this land where people not long ago chose more than 100 ways to classify themselves by color on the census—with "Black'' definitely hovering at the bottom, and undesirable.

Brazil. Whites consider it a land of mystery, primordial natural life and hedonism. But I am going to Brazil—nearly a dozen days in Bahia and a few days in Rio de Janeiro—to explore the country with the largest Black population outside of Africa. I'm one of dozens of professionals, artists, students and a few retirees traveling together and, right now, just glimpsing the education we will receive about race and class elsewhere in the "New World.''

As I transfer to our nine-hour flight in New York, I face the gaze: rows of people who in the United States might variously be considered White or Latino, staring at us—at our Black skins, assorted natural hairstyles, often African-inspired clothes—like we are Martians. As we make our way in mass to the cramped rear of the plane—"Hey, didn't Rosa Parks protest to end this?'' someone jokes—I can't resist stopping in the middle of the aisle and returning the bold stare of one short, dark-haired woman who is standing and leaning over a seat. I just look at her round face, her eyes, down to what I can see of her unremarkable clothing and up again. I communicate without words: "What the hell are you looking at?" I learned this fine art of "gritting" growing up in North Philadelphia. Our eyes meet for a few seconds and then she looks away. I keep going up the aisle.

Day 2
"If people stare, it's because they are not used to seeing so many African descendents traveling, especially on an airplane,'' says Simone, one of our guides in Bahia, as our tour bus winds through Bahia's ocean side capital, Salvador Da Bahia. "Most of our lower classes are formed by African descendents. They don't have a lot of opportunities. They are barely taking care of necessities, and travel is something you do after basic necessities are covered.''

Simone's words make many of us sit straight up and look away from the hilly landscape. Most of us are roughly 30 to 60, Black baby boomers and older who have maneuvered around United States racism to achieve various levels of comfort and achievement. We all had enough money to plunk down roughly $2,000 for the trip and more for additional excursions, nightlife and shopping. Yet here in Brazil, where half the population of 155 million is Black by our standards, there is a level of overt racial repression that we consider existing only in our past. Things are changing but at a snail's pace. A growing Black consciousness movement here seems similar to our Black pride movement of the 60's. A popular T-shirt worn by young Black men says, "100 % Negro,'' which in Portuguese translates to "100 % Black.'' Here that is a new, proud statement. Just as our presence on the plane was remarkable, there are buildings, restaurants, even the hotel where we are staying where it is obvious Black people rarely enter. At the airport at Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia, a White man indignantly tried to order a young college administrator from our group to the back of a long line.

From this introduction to the country, I realize Brazil possesses a complex duality. It is rich in transplanted African culture not allowed to flourish in the United States but—just 111 years since the official abolition of slavery and oppressed by a series of right-wing dictatorships—decades behind us in both economic progress and in developing a sense of race consciousness and pride.

We enter the heart of Salvador, the Pelhourinho—the place where slaves were whipped and tortured until, according to the oral history, the rough cobblestones ran red with blood. Now it is Bahia's nightlife district filled with historic buildings that have been turned into restaurants and shops and painted in pastel yellow, blue and pink. I look up at the gold, gaudy San Francisco Church built for Whites in 1720 and see nothing but slave and native blood on the walls.

I wind up, having not slept soundly in nearly 48 hours, at Oludum, a nightclub run by the popular drum band of the same name. The drums call. I dance. I sweat. I join a samba line led by a tall sister named Edy, who dances with finesse in a long Donna Summers weave and skimpy shorts and bra top. Rows of people face each other and repeat a series of moves initiated by Edy. The drums call. I dance. I sweat. This is an African place.

Day 3
I am peering out of the window at the countryside as our guide speaks. After slavery here, Blacks were banned initially from working on farms and Whites would not rent to them, so they formed favellas, independent communities, usually at the tops of mountains where Whites did not want to live. Many of these communities remain today, even in the cities, rising like stacks of brick cubicles up mountainsides.

But the highlight of this trip is our visit to Iramandade Da Boa Morte, the Sisterhood of the Good Death, the oldest organization of African women in the New World, located in a yellow and white convent/hotel/restaurant in Cachoeira, a town two hours southwest of Salvador. Just as American slaves were only allowed to gather to attend church, the sisterhood was formed more than 200 years ago because slaves here were only allowed to assemble independently for religious reasons. So under the auspices of the Catholic Church, the sisterhood collected money to buy the freedom of elderly slaves so they would not die as slaves. They also paid for their proper burials.

Today, Sisterhood of the Good Death, as well as two other organizations we will visit, are places where the candomble religion is practiced. Candomble is Brazil's African-derived faith that recognizes several orishas, or deities. The head of the organization, Analia, leads us to a patio where the sisters greet us wearing the traditional white dresses with full skirts as if puffed out by crinoline. They sing a Yoruban song passed down from slaves, Accompanied by male percussionists, the elderly sisters perform the samba de roa, an early form of the samba created by Africans that eventually developed into the national dance. Strutting one-by-one in a circular pattern around the floor, sometimes spinning, the sisters display a pride, confidence and wisdom. Some choose one of us to pull out onto the floor to dance . So the Baltimore therapist, the Chicago tax specialist, the Washington clothing designer all comply, honored as if asked to dance by their grandparents.

Tonight the town is also having its huge Sao Joao Festival in honor of St. John. Sacred fires burned on the streets burn my eyes and nostrils. There is a drink stand set up by a group of transvestites—another kind of sisterhood—beckoning you inside their booth with red puckered lips.

Day 4
"You cannot have an African place. White places you can have,'' our guide Bujao is telling us. We have walked to Piedade, a plaza notorious in Salvador's Black history as the site where in the late 18th century, Black leaders of an anti-government revolution were executed, decapitated and their heads were hung on fence posts as a warning to other Blacks. White leaders in the movement received penalties other than death. There is no memorial or monument to the park's history. It has recently been renovated to include thick marble benches and a circular fountain with carved mermaids.

On foot, we wind through hilly neighborhoods. Toni Braxton's "Un-Break My Heart'' blares from someone's window. Just as we round the corner atop one hill, we look down and see Dique do Tororo, a lake where offerings have traditionally been made to the orishas. Within the last two years, it was renovated to include 22-feet-high copper sculptures of several deities, each in his or her characteristic colors and carrying their weapons of choice to protect us.

It seems to me that Bujao is wrong. To me, this is an African place. The creation of the park shows some measure of Black progress here. Until the 1940's, candomble was illegal. And until the 1960's worshippers needed special permission to beat African drums. Dique de Tororo is clearly a place and faith of power: the orishas appear to dance on the water in wide skirts, carrying machetes, swords and whips. They protect and fight for us, in front of us and behind us, for our coming and going.

***

It is also an African place at Tunuri Jancara, a candomble compound that follows traditions of Bantu culture—from southern African countries such as Mozambique and Angola—rather than the better known West African Yoruban traditions. The head of the compound, Valdina Oliveira Pinto, lectures about and serves us African-rooted Bahian delicacies that took several of her members a whole day to prepare for our large group: fish moceca, rich with coconut and palm oils; ground okra; black-eyed pea salad; acaraje and abara—steamed and fried black-eyed peas and free-range chicken.

"When you receive food prepared by hand, you receive the energy of the person who prepared it,'' Pinto says. "And that's not the case in a restaurant where the food goes from the freezer to the microwave to your mouth.'' Pinto explains that most important occasions in Bahian life are celebrated and marked with food. "There is a Bantu saying, she says. "Everything in life happens around the cooking pan.''
***

The last African place of the day is our hotel, where—as we often do—we have a discussion about race. Acklyn Lynch, a professor at the University of Maryland and Carlos Moore, an expatriate, anti-Communist Cuban author visiting here in Bahia, hold forth. Lynch speaks passionately about the links between Africans in the Americas, noting that two important contradictions in the 1800's continue to have an impact at the close of this century: first, the decision of "mulattos'' to consider themselves superior to other Blacks and, second, the betrayal of Blacks by other Blacks.

Following Lynch, Moore builds to a poetic crescendo about considering slavery as the beginning of a new African society in the New World. But to make his point he repeatedly says that no one can really say what racism is. Second, he says that while we know that slavery was oppressive and brutal, no one can really describe 24 hours in the life of a slave. I am deeply disturbed by what he says. I think his comments too easily support the ideas of people in U.S. who want to paint slavery in a benign way or say that we now live in a colorless society.

When they ask for questions and comments, I stand and make the point that I can define racism and that as a mother I feel I need to define it for my son. Secondly, I say that scores of books have given us a good sense of what a typical day could be for a slave. I understand the need to look forward and not backward but I think I differ on what my son and I need in the future in order to survive. Late into the night, we debate what has been said about race—as we often do.

(I think it is interesting how people react after this meeting. Many come up to me and thank me for saying what I said. They say they felt disturbed by what Moore was saying too. Others look away from me as if they are angry at me or are suddenly suspicious of me like I rocked the boat or something.

I realize that in the life drama of some Black nationalist circles, I have stepped over the line of proper conduct—especially for someone who is not an "elder" and not a man. When these race talks are scheduled, we are supposed to sit and listen. Challenging what you feel is bullshit is like getting up on stage in the middle of a play, as the drama is being presented. And so many things about me just can't stomach the drama anymore. I'm really tired of some (not all) folks who were adults in the 60's and 70's acting like those of us who were children then have never grown up. Because we are from a later generation, that didn't march or watch our friends go to jail or die, some older folks seem to think that we don't have the same political credentials as them, and that we need to keep listening to them until we die. As a journalist, I have questioned poised heads of state, brutal military dictators and artistic geniuses. So why would I not question anyone? Also, as a thirtysomething, existing in the last generation influenced by feminism and leftist political organizing, I don't think I need a dick in order to express my opinion.)

So, on the trip, we also have race, and generation, drama among ourselves.

Day 5
We visit Opo Afonja, a candomble compound with the date 1910 posted on one of the houses. Like the compound we visited yesterday, in this compound there are small cottages, maintained immaculate and empty for many deities—like Oxossi, Xango and Oxum. I take pictures of the dwellings, remembering interviewing Quincy Troupe, who fumed about all the churches in Harlem—expensive to buy and maintain, and empty for most of the time. What a waste of our limited resources, he thought.

***

The Ballet Folklorico de Bahia presents the state's culture in a refined, polished performance that depicts orishas in vibrant red, gold and blue costumes and a demonstration of the martial arts, including capoeira. Many from our group stand up in the theater because all the seats are taken. Up front are a bunch of White tourists and a young Black man has pushed past many of us in line to clear a seat for himself and his two friends. Towards the end of the show, another older Black man pushes past us, most of us are women, and rudely attempts to stand in front us for the remainder of the show. When confronted, he is hostile. I honestly think he is crazy but I can't help think of how Black women seem so disrespected here. The racial repression, the persistent depiction of European beauty debases Black women. Since I have been here, I have not seen one Black woman on a billboard. The promotional videos shown on the plane were filled with so many blonde, blue-eyed people, you would have thought that we were headed to the Netherlands. There were a few music videos showing us singing and dancing. I strained excitedly on the bus the other day because I saw a small advertisement in a drugstore with a smiling Black face.

Part II. Different Place, Same Struggles

Day 6
We visited three artists studios today. All of the artists looked like what we would call Latino. Zu Campos is working on a series of totems to represent all the nations of the African diaspora. J. Cunia paints in vibrant colors to evoke the orishas and speaks passionately of his Bantu heritage. Folks were dissing the third artist because her work seemed so Eurocentric, like she interpreted African legends but with a blonde-haired babe in the starring role. We didn't come all the way to Bahia to see that.

Day 7
A new friend, a marketing executive, warned me that when half of our group took this boat tour to neighboring islands the day before, they experienced something remarkable on the beach at Frades. When they took to the water, Whites retreated to the sand. They weren't sure if what happened meant what it could, that is until they left the water "and all the White people got back in,'' she said.

We don't experience the same today but our boat does make the same two-island hop with another group of White (Maybe Europeans. We don't know) tourists. And this proximity starts the tension roiling: while we're leaving Frades, the Whites have to cross our boat to get to theirs. At the next stop, Itaparica, Alex elbows a White man who jumps in front of him in the banquet line. "I hit him hard. I let him feel it,'' Alex says. And then as we are leaving, all pretense of civility breaks down. The Whites have to get to their boat and we have to get to ours, both by a small motorboat ferry. We're supposed to alternate loads but when it is time for our second turn, some of the Whites bum rush our boat, meaning that five in our party must stay on shore. To us, it seems like a clear case of their sense of privilege overriding common sense and fairness. "They weren't expecting this,'' says Tony, an author, of our aggressiveness. "They came looking for a colonial experience.''

The boat motors, bobs and hops back to Salvador. The sun is setting over ocean that is naked navy blue except for the distant coast. I think my queasiness is bullshit compared to the vomit, feces, menstrual blood and oozing sores that my ancestors laid in as their approached these same shores centuries ago. The view tonight is pretty and eerie and saddening. Dera, a Washington concert producer who has long thick locks hanging down her back, sits not far from me atop the stern like our ship mascot.

Day 8
Blacks here have been struggling in this country steadily. Some of the quilombos, independent communities of escaped slaves, still exist today in spirit, say our speakers tonight, Valdelio Santos Silva and Gilberto Leal. Slavery was not abolished here until 1888, after which Blacks were banned from working on farms and then, like in the United States, eventually forced into sharecropping-like situations.

There have been several rights movements over the decades. The current one focuses on bettering education opportunities and—like the demonstrations in the U.S. against the Christopher Columbus quincentennial in 1992—demonstrating against the large celebration being planned for Brazil's quincentennial. They are offering a counter-celebration: "500 Years of Resistance—Negro, Indigenous and Popular.''

"We're not for any kind of idea that the Portuguese discovered Brazil,'' Silva says. "To give credence to that idea translates to a disrespect of the original people of this country who had been here for 40,000 years.

"There were 500 million indigenous people decimated—one of the worst genocides in the history of the earth. The genocide was of the same intensity of the Africans in the country, Leal says "But we are not crying. If we have anything to celebrate, it is 500 years of our resistance and struggle.''

Day 9
As if a fitting follow-up to the night before, we visit three places of African "resistance and struggle'' today. The first is the Calabar Community, a neighborhood in the heart of Salvador. The 20,000 who live here occupy land that was considered unusable until it was founded about 40 years ago. We walk through wide dirt alleys flanked on both sides by brick and shanty houses stacked atop each other and rising up the low-rise hills. We head straight to the community school, formed as an alternative to the poor public school available to Black children.

From educators and tour guides we have learned that while the government- supported higher education is free in Brazil, slots at the university are almost all filled by middle class and wealthy young people who have attended private prep schools. Poor people, including almost all Blacks who cannot afford private school, are shut out. Schools like this one at Calabar and the four-year-old, local Steve Biko Institute, which works with high school students, are fighting against the status quo to prepare more Black students for college.

In the afternoon we visit the populous neighborhood of Liberdade, home to the Ile Aiye, music collective founded 25 years ago so that Blacks could participate in Carnival. Though Blacks are the majority in Bahia, they were relegated at that time to "pulling floats and drumming while the White people danced,'' says Antonio Carlos Vovo Dos Santos, known as Vovo, head of the organization.

The first time Ile Aiye marched, they had 100 people, but now 2,000-3,000 people, all Black, proudly march with the group's drummers and dancers in the vibrant red, yellow and Black fabric. Their movement for Black pride has been emulated by dozens of other groups around the country. They have also instituted a Festival of Black Beauty to honor Black women. They caused a stir when they placed a full-page ad in a local newspaper with a large photograph of Vovo's mother, wishing a happy mother's day to her and to "every Black mother in the country.'' To top it off, Vovo has been in a propaganda fight with local officials over his insistence that membership in Ile' Aiye's contingent is just for Blacks. Officials have taken the opportunity to label Ile Aiye racist.

Listening to Vovo speak today, it was easy for me to understand his position and the hypocrisy of the officials. It was o.k. as long as Blacks were excluded from the other "blocos'' or marching groups through economics or other discriminatory means. No similar public campaign was launched against those groups. But when he takes a radical racial position to heal extreme conditions and uplift Blacks, he is attacked. What's happening here reminds me of a poetry production I was involved in as a freshman in college. My White dorm mates spread the word that it was an "anti-White" show. I then realized that most Whites don't know the difference between something being pro-Black and it being anti-White.

"I have said in the past that we have been successful in changing how White people saw us. They have more respect and fear of our group,'' says Vovo, a tall, dark man with big eyes and long dreadlocks. "But it's also important that we were able to change how Black people saw themselves and how Black men looked at Black women.

"Our strategy is not to talk badly about other races, it's to talk positively about Blacks,'' he says. "We want to bring up our self-esteem in this country.''

Tonight, dozens of us don white—we are quite a magnificent site—and head back to Opo Afonja for the Xango festival. Men are women are separated on opposite sides of the building, which is packed. The women from our group stand or squeeze into the upper rafters. We watch initiates of Xango dance in a circular motion around the center of the floor in wide white skirts, some accented with bright fabric. Many stop and give honor to Mae Estella by kneeling before her or kissing her hand. When the dance reaches a crescendo, some of the members get possessed by the spirit. It reminds me of my childhood growing up in the Church of God in Christ. Those folks got the holy ghost. These people are possessed by Xango. Here, they eat fire and pass a bowl of fire from head-to-head. I wonder if it is the same African spirit, the same spirit, with different names in different places on the globe. (Left the Xango folks and went to a club playing techno and house. That was real African too.)

Part III. Heading Home

Day 10
Walked around the Pelhourinho, walked on the beach at Corsario for a long, good time and went to a club at night where the group was playing kind of a samba Muzak.

Day 11
Dera, a music promoter and medical librarian in our group, traveled with the Bob Marley entourage for several years before his death. Tonight she shows us rare footage of one his last and most important concerts—at Zimbabwe's independence ceremony in 1980. Standing beside him in the outdoor stadium as the new country's soldiers marched in, she turned around to see tears streaming down Marley's face. He told her it was the first time he'd seen African soldiers who had fought for their own freedom.

"He was so proud,'' Dera tells us. "He was the only non-Zimbabwean performing that night. When the British flag was lowered for the last time on the continent of Africa, and the Zimbabwean flag was raised for the first time, people cheered and cheered for 30 minutes.''

On the video, Bob sings. Two of his sons, including Ziggy, run around on the stage. You can feel the emotion and heat of the moment through the cool screen. In five months after this concert, Marley would be in full-scale treatment for brain cancer. I know this and I wonder every time he holds his head in his hands if he is in pain.

Afterward, a debate about Haille Selassie draws most of the locals out into the hall. Those of us American artists there to share our poems, slides, videos etc. shared them with other Americans: Uzikee showed video about his massive and awesome "St. Dennard'' sculpture erected in Washington. I read poems. Mychael gave dramatic readings, including depicting a man raped in prison. Tony talks about his books on race observations and Eric shows his video from the Million Man March.

Day 12
Our last night in Bahia, we had like our version of the prom: a fancy buffet, a fierce fashion show and a special performance by Ile Aiye that has the whole hotel, to the top floor, rocking to the drums. I go out afterward and wind up dancing until 3 A.M. I don't want to go to bed.

Earlier today, I went back to Mercado Mondelo and went to the lower level, a cement and stone dungeon that some say was a holding pen for slaves. There are still slaves in spirit there, in the dark corners, sitting in the center of spooky curved archways. They call, reach out and touch you. They drench the air in tight sorrow, things horrible, secrets and muffled screams.

Day 13
The mountains surrounding Rio create awe-inspiring scenery. While Blacks in Bahia seem to be reaching for their roots, Blacks in Rio seem to still run from them. One of our new tour guides, a chocolate-colored woman with a bad hair weave, tells our group that she categorizes herself as Portuguese or White, adding that the lighter-skinned people traveling with us would definitely be considered White as well.

My first night in Rio, I can't decide, when looking at a campy tourist Carnival show, how I feel about its depiction of Black women. The café-au-lait mulattos come first. The second line is brown, all of them are scantily clad in g-string, sequined outfits with their butts covered only by skin tone pantyhose, which on close examination has a lot of holes and runs in them. I feel like I'm at a cheesecake show and I feel embarrassed. A White couple from the states has brought their two young blonde-haired sons who sit behind me gawking.

Day 14
The 30-meter-high Christ the Redeemer statue atop one of the mountains, Corcovado, is Rio's trademark. Take the train uphill and then walk to the statue's base. Up close, the statue is not so awesome. The face and clothing are not striking or in bold relief. Despite his size, he is a minimalist Jesus, his mask-like face offering nothing in the way of wisdom, counsel, warning or rapture. And of course his features are very European, which draws comments and jokes from our group, embracing a different image of Christ.

"Now we all know there is no way he could have looked like that, right?'' Eric says. "Not like Willem DeFoe.''

Tony, the author, doesn't think it makes sense to fume about an Aryan-looking Jesus. "I don't blame White people. They did what they should do—make a monument to yourself, celebrate your own image.'' But what floors him is that, "White people came here, decimated the indigenous people, enslaved Africans—and they are considered a vehicle for spirituality. Even in some of the poorest communities here today, they only want a White priest.''

He also tells me something that sticks with me: that Brazilians embarked on a race-management strategy they considered superior to that used in the Unite States. Rather than segregate and institute the "one drop of Black blood' rule, their strategy was – instead—to encourage intermarriage, create a privileged class of mulattos and gradually wipe out "pure'' Blacks—those who now proudly proclaim themselves "100% Negro.''

But his larger point is that we need to make our own monuments to our own heroes and our own image. And that is why Uzikee's sculpture, St. Dennard, dedicated to the memory of a longtime Washington educator, is so important in D. C. And this discussion somehow winds its way to Malcolm X Park, formerly Meridian Hill Park in Washington.

"I never call it Malcolm X Park,'' Tony says in disgust. "The condition the park was kept in was a disgrace to Malcolm X. It was a disgrace to name it after him. And we only started complaining about it being cleaned up after the White people who moved into the neighborhood began to complain.''

Uzikee, as usual, is playing provocateur at this moment, and says, "Oh, you know we don't have any power…."

Then, fully enjoying how he has set me up, he hides his smile behind his video camera as I angrily respond to him. "We do have the power!'' I retort, talking about grassroots organizing being more important than the philosophizing we love to do.

So the day before we are set to leave this country, where we have seen a different level of racial repression, we argue about our own condition, attitudes and power to change things at home—as we often do.

Day 15
Rain scuttles most plans for our final day in Brazil. I get dragged by my room mate to the jeweler H. Stern, where I am sure I will buy nothing but wind up buying a ring I cannot afford. The salesman looks Latino, speaks flawless English, visits New York regularly to visit Pace Gallery and is knowledgeable and a follower of candomble.

He considers the murderous, corrupt state of Nigeria and tells me that at least slavery allowed that country's Yoruban religions to be saved when transported to the new world. I am angry, sad and weary. I tell him I don't agree he can find virtue in slavery for the sake of candomble.

In the afternoon, most of us stand for more than two hours in the hotel lobby without being pre-checked in for our flight by Varig as promised. The unit supervisor is unconcerned with our large group and busies herself instead helping a few White and Japanese tourists who bypass us and are helped individually. It's time to go home.

Day turns into night and back into day on the nine-hour flight. When we land in New York City, there is scattered applause on the packed flight, as we reach home, that we now know is only the northern end of a new African society in the New World.

— January 16, 2004

© Copyright 2001-05 Seeing Black, Inc. All Rights Reserved.