Bruno Cavalier is a professor
of Romance languages
and literature, an
affiliated professor
in African and
African-American studies
and Urban Planning and
Design at Harvard University.
He has published
widely on cities
as lived and imagined
spaces, with emphasis
on urbanization
processes in Brazil
from the 18th century onward.
And like yesterday,
each panelist
will be speaking 20
minutes, and then we'll
have an hour for discussion
before the coffee break.
Bruno.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
Before lunch.
We have lunch after--
no coffee break.
Thank you.
Bom dia.
Good morning.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
Asked to speak in English,
and as I'm obedient,
I'm going to change languages.
Thank you all for being here.
I'm especially thankful
to our Brown colleagues,
to Jim, to Ramon, to all
others, for putting together
such an urgent,
timely conference,
and assembling such
an exceptional group,
so to me it's an honor
to be part of this.
I'll introduce in the
orders in which you
will hear from the speakers.
So first, we will hear from
Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, who
is an associate
professor of sociology
at the University
of South Florida.
She specializes in racism,
inequality, and exploitation
in black families, and
is the author of the--
really, a book I
admire tremendously--
The Color Of Love,
Racial Features, Stigma,
And Socialization in
Black Brazilian Families,
published by the University
of Texas Press in 2015.
Then [? hear ?]
from [INAUDIBLE],,
who received his BA in political
science and MA in sociology
from the [INAUDIBLE]
at [INAUDIBLE],,
and a doctorate from Oxford
University in sociology,
and who writes a weekly column--
that always reminds me
of my own opinions--
in the [INAUDIBLE] Sao Paulo.
He's currently writing a book--
many of us are eagerly waiting
for-- on the workers party.
Last, we'll hear from
[INAUDIBLE] who's
currently acting as deputy
federal attorney for citizens'
rights.
He's been a federal prosecutor
in Brazil since 1995,
working on a wide range
of human rights issues,
with a special emphasis
in transitional justice
initiatives, business and
human rights, public security,
and the public health system.
So without further
ado, Elizabeth, please.
OK.
Thank you all so
much for being here.
Thank you for this opportunity
to present my research to you
all today, and to really talk
about the political context
in Brazil.
I initially struggled to
organize my thoughts related
to this broad topic of the
political context in Brazil,
largely because there are a
number of things that I could
have potentially discussed.
But ultimately, I decided
to take advantage of--
this invitation
to comment on how
the current political
context impacts
the groups that have been
most central to my research.
And so in this
presentation, I'll
explore what the rise of
Bolsonaro, for example,
and conservatism in Brazil,
means for black women,
for black families, and
for domestic workers--
all of whom are the focal
points of my research in Brazil.
From the onset, I think
it's important to establish
that my commentary on this
topic is very much rooted
in a type of transnational
black feminist tradition.
What that means is that
my analysis is concerned
with understanding how black
women's experiences are
a function of their
interlocking oppression--
the argument being that we
need to consider race, class,
gender, ethnicity, sexuality,
among other identities
to be able to understand
domination in their lives.
This perspective also demands
a type of self reflexivity,
and asserts that individuals
who experience subjugation
in their daily lives are in the
best position to explain it,
so their reflections
and interpretations
of their realities should
be taken seriously.
It also views research as
being inherently political,
which means that it can and
should not only describe
conditions, but challenge
dominant hierarchies of power,
and empower marginalized
communities,
especially black
women in this case,
to change their conditions
on their own terms.
There's a rich
tradition to draw on
as it relates to this
particular perspective
in Brazilian studies,
in particular in Brazil.
Some of the folks
who come to mind,
at least as it relates
to Brazilian research,
are people like [INAUDIBLE],,
[? Lelia ?] [? Gonzalez, ?]
[INAUDIBLE].
North American scholars, such
as France Winddance Twine,
[? Kialily ?] [? Caldwell, ?]
[? Keisha ?] [? Comperry, ?]
among a number of
them who do this,
and offer a model of what it
looks like when ethnography
and research centers the
experiences of black women
to have a better sense of
how oppression functions.
Now, while the
topic of this panel
is Brazil today and
really of this Congress,
the conference is Brazil today.
I want to begin my
presentation by reconnecting us
to a Brazilian figure of
yesterday, of yesteryear.
The one thing that my time
and experience has taught me
about Brazil is
that any assessment
of its current
situation requires
that we reflect on
the country's past,
with attention to the voices
and lives that have often
been relegated to the
margins, when included at all.
So in this case, I
returned to the case
of Joanna, a woman of indigenous
and African origins, whose
story of survival
in the 18th century
helps us to understand what
Brazilians, and particularly
black Brazilian women, are up
against in the 21st century.
So briefly, to 18th
century scholars--
historians of emancipation
in slavery in Brazil, Joanna
is a well-known figure because
she sold herself into slavery.
And this is important--
in Joanna's calculations,
the instability, insecurity,
and brutality of poverty
as a free woman was
such that she determined
it more beneficial to
negotiate her own enslavement
than to live as a free woman.
Her logic was
strikingly simple--
slave masters are required
to house, feed, and shelter
their slaves.
So as an enslaved
woman, she would
have her basic necessities met.
Moreover, and most importantly--
unlike enslaved persons
who encountered the day
to day brutalities of
harsh working conditions
under slavery, Joanna was
able to use her legal position
and use legal
mechanisms to negotiate,
not only the terms
of her enslavement,
but also the amount of her sale.
In accordance to
this legal contract,
she could keep the
proceeds and use them
as she saw fit,
and in order to--
as she quote, says,
"live her own liberty."
So inevitably, when faced
with this biography,
the question that people
tend to ask is, why?
But rather than
frame this conundrum
as a question of an
unreasoned individual,
I ask, what is the state of
a society where freedom comes
with such misery that
individuals are faced
with decisions like these?
What type of Brazil
did Joanna live
in where negotiated enslavement
became the best option?
And more importantly,
for this research
I conduct on modern
Brazil, and our concerns
about democracy,
what does it mean
that similar calculations
happen faced all along
throughout the
history of Brazil,
and are only amplified
in Bolsonaro's Brazil?
So as a sociologist
for the past 10 years,
I've traveled to Brazil--
conducting research
with black families,
and collecting narratives
with black Brazilian women who
live as filhas de
criacao and admittedly,
I'm in the throes of completing
a book on this topic.
And so it feels as though
every fiber of my existence,
most recently, has been directed
towards finishing this project.
And for those of you who've
been fortunate enough
to not have me corner
you and obsessively
talk to you about
filhas de criacao
I want to tell you a
little bit about them,
and why they're so
important to my work.
So filhas de criacao
is a term that's
often used to refer
to Brazilian women
from poor families who are
taken in by wealthy families
under the guise of adoption.
So overwhelmingly, these
poor black and brown women
are referred to as informally
adopted or foster daughters,
but this language obscures
the principal reason
for their presence
in these homes, which
is to provide unpaid labor in
exchange for housing and food.
So my research on filhas
de criacao focuses mainly
on black Brazilian women between
the ages of 30 and 80 years old
who continue to live as filhas
de criacao, and in some cases
have dedicated several
decades of their life
to providing unpaid
labor to these families.
Now, I argue that
this group represents
one of the most vulnerable
groups in Brazil
because, in many ways, they
are hidden in plain sight.
Their position results
from them being--
from coming from very
poor families of color,
not occupying the same
position as a full family
member in their
adoptive families,
and they complete the
work of domestic workers
without having any type of
formal affiliation with being
a domestic worker.
So they are poised
to be distinctly--
excuse me.
Impacted by the current
administration's
positions that impact
family and impact
those who are domestic workers.
So by taking a closer
look at the way
that the political context
will impact family and labor,
and how this relates to the
lives of filhas de criacao,
we can better understand
the social implications
of the current
policies and the impact
that they might
continue to have.
Now some of the most significant
social programs developed
by previous administrations
was the Bolsa Familia program,
and I'm going to leave
it to the experts
to talk about the
intricacies of that.
But what I will say is that
this aggressive social program
was fundamental in terms of
addressing some of the issues
that Brazil was facing
with poverty and hunger.
So it impacted several
millions of Brazilians
around the country with these
conditional cash transfers,
and many of these cash
transfers were predicated
on this requirement that
families keep their children
in school-- there's this
requirement of medical checkups
and immunizations.
All of these things
have been great,
but what I've been
most interested in
is looking at what those
outcomes have been.
And what researchers
have found is that--
this initiative has led
to lower dropout rates
and increased rates of grade
promotion, increased health
outcomes.
But while Bolsa Familia has
had tremendous successes,
just two weeks ago, Bolsonaro,
citing incorrect information,
stated that who he refers to
as filhos de Bolsa Familia
suffer from
intellectual issues that
[? would ?] make it
difficult for them
to be successful in life--
and that [SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
even with the best schools,
there were concerns
about whether or not
they would be able to
make a good living,
make a contribution.
At the same time,
there's also reports
that he actually
might be warming up
to the idea of supporting
Bolsa Familia with the idea
that he might be able to garner
support among the northeast
if he did that.
But it's still unclear, and
so while he decides on that
though, hunger continues to
be a real issue in Brazil--
and Bolsa Familia offers
a direct intervention
into this problem for
families, and particularly
for black families.
In nearly all of the interviews
that I conducted with filhas
de criacao, for example,
a major motivation
for them being transferred
to these wealthier families
was this question of
hunger and poverty.
And just to give you an example
of that, one of them mentioned,
one of them says--
"you know what
it is for my mother to wake
up and not have anything
to put in a pot to give us, to
have a whole day of eating be
just tea because it
was all we had to make,
because the tea came from
the herbs in our own garden.
So neither me nor my
sisters hold anything
against my mother, because
it's like she was a warrior--
a batalhadora--
because for a person
to give her children
away, do you understand?
She gave us away so
that we would not--
because she did not have
anything to put on the table.
Hunger-- it was hunger."
And so this reflection is
really an extension of the types
of narratives that came from
other women who talked about,
what were some of the
catalyzing forces that
led their families
into criacao, that
led them to accept this
offer to help them,
that wealthier
families provided?
So in this sense, continuing
social programs-- for example,
like Bolsa Familia, which
provide necessary financial
support for families to keep
to maintain their children
in the household, and encourages
them to send them to school--
this has actually made it less
likely for these young girls
to be sent away than
they were in the past.
And so it's this outcome
that's potentially
threatened by a president or
a wave of a political movement
that's antagonistic
to programs who
helps populations, because
they are deemed to be,
quote unquote, beyond reform.
But the current
political context
also has implications for
domestic law and reform.
A legacy of slavery--
as many of you know, Brazil
has the largest population
of domestic workers
in the world.
So over 7 million
women, about 20% of--
all domestic workers
worldwide reside in Brazil,
and they're primarily indigenous
women and Afro-Brazilian women.
As recently as
March 2013, Brazil
passed some of the most
wide-reaching legislation
which really
allowed, which really
made some significant gains.
So widespread were
these initiatives
that it's been called "the
second abolition of slavery."
And these-- the
results were really
a product of the hard-fought
efforts of domestic rights
organizations,
activists, including
international mobilization.
All of these efforts culminated
in unemployment benefits,
overtime pay, safety and
health standards needing
to be met, and also paid leave.
And so for the
first time, this law
established a domestic
worker as a professional
who should be accorded
rights and responsibilities.
But recent political transitions
means that those gains
have also come under attack.
As early as 2017, Michel Temer
signed the Labor Reform Bill,
which in many ways loosens
the labor laws by extending
the minimum of time a worker--
can work per day, from 8
to 12, and limiting what
is considered time at work.
For his part, Bolsonaro
has previously
voted against laws that
would provide protections
for domestic workers, and--
in no unclear terms
expressed antagonisms
against the Landless Workers
Movement, the Homeless Workers
Movement, and the
Domestic Workers Movement.
His perspective is that
"o trabalhador tera que
escolher mais direito
e menos emprego,
ou menos direito
e mais emprego."
This was something
that really, I think,
reflects his viewpoint
on the rights of workers.
So rollback on these gains mean
that fewer domestic workers
will have their
carteira assinada.
It increases their
vulnerability,
but it also creates a
context for increased labor
exploitation of children.
And as it relates to this, I go
back to one of my respondents
who akins her experience of
being a filhas de criacao as,
not being one of
an adopted child,
but one of being a victim
of the [SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
so a child trafficking victim.
Now while these threats to
progressive social programs,
and these rollbacks
to labor reform,
are considered together-- when
they're considered together,
they're certainly
cause for concern.
But what has been clear
in the case of Brazil
and around the world is
where there is power,
there is also resistance.
And so we have the
domestic workers' unions,
who've been relentless
in pushing back
on some of those reforms--
and even on some of the
anti-activism that can be--
that has been articulated
by the president.
But what I want to
talk about is, even
beyond these more traditional
forms of mobilization,
is really something
that's happening online
and in social media,
which does not really
get as much attention
from researchers,
but I think it really
provides an opportunity for us
to think about alternative forms
of mobilization, and the power
that they have.
So for example, domestic
workers have created a website--
a Facebook page of
over 160,000 likes,
where they discuss
their experiences,
and this is a page that actually
has had an important role
in helping to mobilize these
women who might not necessarily
be part of formal groups.
We have other-- we have Ludmila
Teixeira, who created the Women
Against Bolsonaro
movement, which
has over 4 million
members online,
and which was really fundamental
to some of the organized
protests around the country.
And then of course,
we have the response
around the murder of
Marielle Franco that sparked,
not only a recognition of
the importance of activism
and recognition of the
challenges that families
and individuals in
favelas are facing,
particularly people of color.
It's also sparked a type
of black feminism in Brazil
that is attentive to
sexuality, and that's
appealing to a wider group
of individuals than before.
So I use these examples of
the untraditional methods
of resistance because
they're necessary,
and because they enhance the
formal forms of mobilization,
but also because they represent
a type of silver lining
in all of this, right?
There's a place of
resistance, there's
a way in which
folks have organized
in Brazil, in ways
that we haven't really
seen in a long time.
And so the ability to
appeal to a larger audience
has some potential
in terms of thinking
about citizenship and inclusion
in these conversations.
So what I want to do
is conclude by saying
there's still a great level
of uncertainty as it relates--
to the current policies
and the political context.
Bolsonaro has been unapologetic
in his racist, classist,
anti-homophobic, anti-women--
the list goes on and on.
Rollbacks to programs
such as Bolsa Familia
would have a
devastating impact--
on all families,
all poor families--
but disproportionately
black and brown families--
who are recipients of these
policies and programs.
Likewise, the continual
passage of policies
that loosen protections
against domestic workers
are also likely to lead to
the type of exploitation
that the passage of
that initial 2013 law
had at least begun to challenge.
So to conclude, I'd
like to reiterate
that what the story of
Joanna, who I introduced
in the beginning, tells us
is that poor black women
and women of color in
Brazil have the odds stacked
against them, and
they always have.
But even so, they've
always sought
to carve out a
space for themselves
by any means necessary.
What remains to be
seen now is what
it will mean for them to live
their liberty in a country that
might be referred to
as Bolsonaro's Brazil,
but is also very
much their Brazil.
Thank you.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
Good morning.
My name's Celso Rocha
de Barros, and I'm
going to talk to you guys
about the political context of
and the absolute collapse in
which Bolsonaro was able to be
elected president of Brazil.
I wanted to thank Professor
[? Green ?] and all the others
who helped organize
this conference,
the opportunity to be here.
It's a wonderful opportunity
to be able to speak with you.
Basically, I'm going to tell a
story about two crises and one
impeachment.
What happened in Brazil
was a perfect storm.
It was a confluence
of various factors
that didn't need to
happen at the same time,
but they did happen, and
with disastrous consequences.
And so what happened
in Brazil was--
three problems came together.
First, one of the largest
economic crises in history;
second, one of the
biggest political crises
in our history, which was
precipitated by the discovery
that lots of the Brazilian
political system was corrupt,
and it was accepting bribes;
and third, the impeachment
of Dilma Rousseff, which
was disastrous for her party
and for those who supported her.
You can see the size of
the economic collapse
in two years--
Brazil lost 8% of its
gross domestic product,
and it's a really big fall.
You see this kind of thing
when the countries are at war
or when they have some
kind of natural disaster.
The first thing we
see that we have to--
consider is that
this type of crisis
creates despair, and is
related to the rise of fascism,
and in recent years, the
rise of the extreme right.
And so the recent crisis--
of Brazil was particularly bad.
If growth doesn't happen in
the next couple of years,
as [? Pedro Paulo ?] might
talk to you about in his talk--
and it's very unlikely
that will happen--
this will be the worst decade
in recorded Brazilian history.
The economic crisis
is also caused by--
a variety factors, and
it was just bad luck
that they happened
all at the same time.
The prices of commodities
of Brazilian products that--
they sell abroad
fell a lot in 2014,
and it's important to remember
that, during the Lula years--
the golden years of Lula-ism--
exportation was
really beneficial
for Brazil and for its economy.
The first term of Dilma
Rousseff's presidency
was really bad in
terms of economics,
and her plans didn't work out.
The economists
don't agree exactly
on why things didn't
work out, but--
there's a big discussion about
how much this was responsible,
how much this contributed
to the economic crisis.
During the impeachment,
it was coming
to say that Dilma had
caused that 8% fall
in the gross domestic product.
But nobody on the right says
this is not really possible,
but the debate about how
much responsibility she had,
what role she had in
the crisis, continues.
It's-- 30%, there's some people
who estimate a little higher,
a little lower.
But there's no doubt
that it was one of--
the important factors
in causing the crisis.
The Car Wash operation--
this investigation of
corruption and bribery--
and I'll talk a little
bit about this later,
but this had short-term effects.
For those who live in
Rio, it's very clear
that when the accusations came
against the Petrobras, but as
the national oil company, it
was a big blow to that company
and to their stocks.
Petrobras, that company,
is integral to the Car Wash
investigation, and it
was essentially paralyzed
by this investigation.
Petrobras is responsible for
a large part of Brazilian
investments, and [? this ?]
[? stopped ?] from [? night ?]
[? to ?] [? day. ?] In terms
of the long-term effects,
it's possible that this
investigation will have good
consequences--
because if we clean out,
and get rid of corruption,
we'll have less money
that's embezzled later on--
but in short term, it's bad.
And of course, the
political crisis--
that made it difficult to deal
with the other three crises.
So we had essentially four years
without an effective government
that would be able to
deal with these problems.
And all these things
were going on,
but there was nobody
to respond to them.
And this would have been a bad
economic crisis regardless,
but if it hadn't been
during these four years--
if we had had a president
who was elected,
and who had saved
the four years,
and the government had been
functioning as it normally
does, and if its institutions
were more or less running
as they should, it's
impossible to doubt
that this would've been
less of a big deal,
this economic crisis.
This Car Wash operation,
this investigation--
this image is for you guys to
see the complexity of what's
going on.
You can see the
construction companies,
you have politicians
who are involved,
you have those who
are whistle blowers--
so the size of this
operation is impressive,
and it's probably the largest
corruption investigation
of history in all the world.
And I wouldn't
call it a scandal,
but [? it's-- ?] [? not ?] the
largest one that's happened,
but the largest one that we
know about that [? has ?] been
actually denounced.
It's probable that in Russia,
there's been something worse.
But when we compare this
to Russian privatization,
it's bad news.
As you may know, the
Car Wash operation
discovered that there was
a cartel of construction
companies, and they were
doing fraudulent invoices,
and they would give
money to politicians,
so that they would allow the
cartel to continue to run.
And all of the big parties
were involved in this,
and most of the
political leaders
in Brazil on all sides of
the aisle were involved.
And as a result, you
arrive at this point
where the Brazilian population
doesn't know who to support.
There's the Workers'
Party was started,
and then they fell
with these charges.
And then they went to
support the other party,
but that was also accused, and
so they're unsure who to trust
and who to support, so
there was a fall in the--
perceived legitimacy of
political institutions
in Brazil.
This graph shows how
much people trust
in political parties in Brazil,
and the number of people
that distrust political
institutions has
risen as a result of
this investigation.
You see here the approval
ratings for democracy in 2018.
And this is-- the
number of people
who are satisfied with the
state of democracy in Brazil.
Essentially, we're below
Venezuela, which is collapsing.
This is the election
year, and you
can see there's a lot
of dissatisfaction.
Bolsonaro won this election
in the year in which
9% of Brazilians approved
or were happy with the way
democracy was going in Brazil.
We've come now to
what I think is
the crucial misconception of
public discourse in Brazil
today.
If you talk to people,
what most of them will say
is that the economic crisis
was caused by corruption--
because the money ran out,
because the politicians stole
it all.
And it's really hard--
there's a DataPopular
poll that says
that 67% of those
who were interviewed
said that the corruption was
the main cause of the crisis,
but this is not true.
This is totally-- doesn't
jive with the facts.
So if you look at the corruption
scandals, and the size--
the amount of money that was
embezzled, there are few zeros.
It's missing a few zeros in
terms of the bigger problems
that Brazil is facing, all
these questionable operations.
If corruption were
eliminated entirely,
then the economic crisis would
be improved just a little bit,
but not that much.
But it's really important
what the population thinks,
so if you have a march of
government workers in Rio,
they said it's not a crisis--
it's a question of robbery.
They'd gone six months
without being paid--
the public funds
had disappeared,
people weren't being
paid, and the press in Rio
said that hundreds of millions
of dollars were embezzled.
And it's possible that this
person thinks that they didn't
get their salary because--
[? Serge Ikabada ?]
was taking the money.
This is a very reasonable
conclusion for them to make,
but it's not true--
it's false.
If this is true, if
my hypothesis is true,
then this helps to explain
Bolsonaro's election, because--
it means that the type of--
because economics was
always a big question
in terms of elections.
If the economy is doing well,
then the political party
in power will have
support-- and if it's not,
then they'll lose that support.
But this year was an exception--
the economy was
really bad, people
thought the left would
win because of this,
but it wasn't what happened.
I think they didn't win
because most people think
that the economy is in bad
shape because of corruption.
They think the solution to
this is not economic policy
or reforms of structures.
The prevalent opinion
is that if they
stopped bribing and
accepting bribes,
then the money would come back.
This is very common--
it's not something
that you'll see just
talking to people who are
in groups of lower income,
but it's judges,
it's people that
are higher in terms of
socioeconomic status, that'll
say this as well.
And this has become a
trap for Bolsonaro--
because he won, and now he has
to make a bunch of reforms.
A bunch of unpopular
things, and the population
didn't elect him for this--
they elected him thinking
that, if he was honest--
which-- he doesn't look
like an honest person,
but if he were honest, then
the problems would disappear.
You wouldn't have to make all
these reforms to institutions,
[? to ?] economic policy.
But in reality, he will have to.
And the third
factor that I think
contributed for
Bolsonaro's election
was that the impeachment
killed the center
right of Brazilian politics.
If you ask political
scientists in Brazil,
a couple months before
the impeachment,
if [? Dilma ?] was going
to be impeached today,
would've said no, no-- she's
not going to be impeached.
Because the center
right isn't crazy--
they wouldn't put Temer,
the Vice President, in power
during this time
of economic crisis.
But whoever does this is going
to lose the next election.
They would be stupid to do
this, so they're not going
to take her out of power--
but they did.
So then what happened?
I don't even know if you guys
can see this, the popularity
ratings of Temer.
He's got 3% approval.
It's the lowest--
last year, he did--
it was the lowest popularity
ratings in history,
and it's lower than--
the margin of error
is 3%, so it's
possible he had 0% approval.
As you know, the
center right party--
the PSDB-- after a couple
of internal gaffes,
they decided to support
the impeachment.
And so they put Temer
in power, and you guys
can see, in the
graph to the right,
that they did horribly
in the last elections.
It was a complete
disaster in 2018.
And so I want to
tell you guys again--
I was talking to
[? Jean ?] about this--
I went to the Brazilian
Association for Political
Science last year, and--
it was two months
before the election,
and these two scholars, these
two political scientists
in Brazil, they
thought that the PSDB
would make it through
the first round
and go to the second
round, that they
would have a fighting chance.
Because-- if you got some
statistics of what happened
last year, and there's the
issues of economy of course,
which was going to be in
the Labor Workers Party--
and then in terms of political
alliances, and so everyone
thought that that's
what would happen,
but what [? Jean Nikola ?]
was saying is that--
are you sure this
model's right forever?
That these conditions in
which these facts occurred--
haven't changed, that nothing
has changed this year?
And he was absolutely right.
As you can see, in
the 2014-2018 maps,
in terms of who voted for whom.
You can see that
Bolsonaro essentially
Stole all the votes of the
center right in the first round
of the election.
Just about one week before the
election, he had about 30%--
but then the last week, he
garnered so much more support,
that he almost won
in the first round.
What's blue in the first map--
always voted for the right.
Sao Paulo-- was already
essentially Bolsonaro's.
And the left, they lost
those states in which
they had a fighting chance.
And in Rio, the case of
Rio was a little bit more
complicated, because
Bolsonaro was there.
This graph shows that the
Workers' Party, in the 2018
election, they were very
strong, but very polarized.
If you look at the
proportion of people
who thought that Lula
should be able to run,
and those who thought he
shouldn't, it's 50/50.
This is the really
important issue--
you might say that
they decided not--
vote for him, but
in reality, Brazil
was split down the
middle on this issue.
And so-- when you have a
two-stage election process,
it's really hard
to win like that.
So if 50% of population thinks
that the candidate that you
want to support should be in
prison, then it's hard to win.
But it's easy it is to make
it past the first round
and to make it to
the second round
if 50% thinks that
he should be elected.
If you look at how Bolsonaro
was able to take advantage
of this environment,
of these trends, how
he's able to capitalize on this
climate of dissatisfaction--
this Datafolha poll in
October shows that--
asked those who
voted for Bolsonaro
why they voted for him.
And 30% wanted
change, and the left
has to think seriously
about why, in 2018, they
were seen as the establishment.
Why people looked at the Labor
Party candidates and said,
this guy's involved in
the Car Wash operation,
those are the guys who
were causing problems
in the government, and I can't
see these guys and these people
making a positive
change in the country.
Anger against the
Workers' Party was 25%,
and these are the
25% who were going
to be on the right either way--
that the left is never going
to win over, and that's fine.
And then here's another--
failure of the left, which is
the fears about public safety.
The left did not address
this in their campaigns.
They criticized the
right's policies,
that has tons of problems--
as many of you here will--
as many scholars here will say.
But-- they weren't able to tell
the person who gets robbed--
the guy who was paying
a loan on his cell
phone he'd just gotten a loan
for, he'd made one payment,
and then was robbed, and
he has to keep paying--
the left wasn't able to explain
to this man, and these people,
how they would help
him, and how he would
have a more dignified life.
If people are getting
robbed on the bus,
then they want a solution now.
We also need to admit that
the Workers' Party was not--
it wasn't up to
openly discussing
its failures and its
economic mismanagement,
and the corruption inside it.
It's sad that they weren't
able to do this, and--
the excuses that were
given were not convincing.
At the same time, the
economic mismanagement
in Dilma's government
contributed
to this dissatisfaction
with the Workers' Party.
If you were part
of Dilma's party,
you have to say, look, we're
not going to do the same thing.
We're going to change.
We've learned from our mistakes.
We're going to change policies.
Especially in light of
the right's comments
that the left had caused
100% of the economic crisis.
In the second round,
[INAUDIBLE],, the candidate
who was running
against Bolsonaro,
essentially forgot about
the Workers' Party,
and he just went off
script and started
talking about his own opinions.
If the Workers' Party
had done more work
in terms of coming to terms with
its own problems in the past,
it would have--
had a much better chance
of defeating Bolsonaro.
For the first time, all the
major evangelical churches
supported the same candidate--
this has never happened before.
Usually they're split between--
they vote for the more
conservative parties
in terms of questions of
morality, and things like that.
But the number of pastors
and church leaders
that voted for
Lula was terrible.
Excuse me-- it was much
better in the past,
and in this most
recent election,
they all voted for the right.
Because there are a lot
of evangelical churches,
and the vote is not
always guarantee
that it will go to the right.
But in this case, it
happened, and they
have a very powerful machine.
If you look at--
the demographics of who
voted for Bolsonaro,
it was just shocking.
I remember-- I was in Rio
[? at ?] the [INAUDIBLE]..
I was trying to talk to a group
of evangelical [? women ?]
at a picnic--
a tough crowd, right?
And I was-- what I
heard essentially was
that they believe these stories
that the left is in favor
of pedophiles,
that they're going
to force all children to become
gay, and things like that.
There was a really
concerted effort
on the right to spread these
myths and spread these lies.
So what do we do now?
Bolsonaro government so far--
the good news is that
his government has been
an incredible failure so far.
He has very, very low
approval ratings--
the lowest at this
point in his term
of any Brazilian president.
There's windows in which
nobody's criticizing him--
excuse me.
There's been constant
criticism of him.
There's always something
that he's doing wrong,
he's saying wrong, and so people
are constantly attacking him.
There are conflicts
between those
who support the military
and the populists,
and the population
has recognized this,
and his popularity is falling.
We can't guarantee you
that this is going to--
his approval ratings
are going to stay low,
and that he can't win the
next election, so we need to--
he can learn from his mistakes.
So we have a difficult dilemma.
This is-- the big
question for us.
So on the one hand, do we
need to increase militancy
and protests against
Bolsonaro in terms
of defending the rights of
women, gay, poor people?
But on the other
hand, we also need
to create a coalition
against Bolsonaro.
We can't offend people that
are more in the center in terms
of their politics, but who
also don't like Bolsonaro--
we can't antagonize them.
So there are liberals
who don't like him,
there are people from the
center who don't like him,
and I think would be a
mistake for us to radicalize
so much that we push those
people away and classify them
in the same category
as fascists.
And that's what I
[? have ?] to say.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
Good morning, everyone.
I'd like to start by thanking
Jim Green for the invitation,
and I'm going to speak in
Portuguese although the slides
are in English, and
this might cause
some mental problems for you--
some challenges.
I also wanted to note that
although I'm a government
employee, everything
that I say here
is not an institutional opinion.
This is a personal opinion--
I'm not speaking
for the government.
This is all my personal views.
Celso's talk is going to allow
me to skip a couple of things,
and let me get his
name out of here.
But parts of our talks
overlap, and so I'm
going to skip through some of
what I prepared a little bit
more quickly so that I can--
get to my main point.
So just to add to what he said.
I think we can't forget 2013.
2013 is a crucial
turning point in which--
spontaneous protests
that were usually--
the left had been engaging in--
there was this question of the
bus fare was raised 20 cents,
and that caused a
lot of protests,
and that changed the
agenda for the paper,
because a reporter was attacked.
Then the newspaper
that he belonged to
switched to supporting
all those protests,
and so this is a big time of
protests and public movement.
And so when the
press appropriates
these kind of
movements, they're going
to learn how to move this
forward more effectively.
The other thing we
can't forget about 2014
is the election in 2014.
So for me, there's
two characteristics
that we need to highlight.
You can see the profound split.
Celso showed this
similar map already,
and it was an election that was
largely based on the idea of
[? yes. ?]
It wasn't really a question of
defining their own policies,
but of destroying and
attacking the other person's.
There was a-- this
happened with [? Marina, ?]
another political
candidate at that time.
And so in 2014, there was--
the most important
question of all
is that the center
right party threw away
the rule of the democratic
system, which is that those
who lose accept the outcome.
So because this is essential
to the democratic integrity
of the country,
because if you lose,
then you have the chance
of winning next time,
but you have to accept
the democratically elected
candidate.
The impeachment of Dilma
started to undermine
the democratic system,
which precipitated
an economic crisis.
[INAUDIBLE] because the
government wasn't functioning
fully, then we weren't able to
address the economic crisis.
There was no political vehicle
to address the economic crisis.
And so this was one of
the causes, I think,
that led to the big recession
in the period, the 8% recession.
And then 2016, we have
Dilma's impeachment,
and as I showed
before, the right
started making all
of these protests.
People started giving money,
because these kind of protests
cost money.
And it was almost
immediate that--
they were able to
have a million people
out on the streets in Sao
Paulo almost immediately.
This is a really important
aspect of the time,
and the conservative
agenda started
to take advantage
of this movement,
and exercised violence
against the left.
There were various
episodes, there
were various physical
aggressions against the left.
I'm going to tell a
story about-- that
happened to my own daughter.
She was leaving a protest
after the impeachment already.
She was against
manifesting against Temer,
and they started to try and
get away from the police state.
They threw a watermelon out
of an apartment building
onto the group that was below.
So you see the outright hate.
And luckily, nobody
was hurt-- they were
able to get out of the way.
But that could have killed her.
A mango out of a apartment
window can have a--
can cause a lot of damage,
so imagine a watermelon.
So in this period,
we have this increase
in violence and in hate, which
is going to lead to 2018.
I also want to have us consider
a couple more elements--
the most important causes for
the political situation today
in Brazil.
The Car Wash
Operation, which Celso
talked about already, as
one of the major issues.
The Car Wash
Operation, the feeling
of a corrupt political
system that we can't trust,
that doesn't represent the
will of the people, the public,
and security.
Neither the left
nor the right was
able to present a solution
that people liked.
The economic downturn and the
anti-Workers' Party sentiment,
and the anti-Lula
feelings, they are
an integral part in this
ascent, this rise of the right.
There were five years in
which every day, people
said the Workers' Party
and the left is corrupt.
The Workers' Party and
the left is corrupt.
Five years on the TV, and
newspapers, and the radio--
of course this is going
to affect people, and--
have people want to
get rid of the left.
And then also the
continuing consequences
of the dictatorship in which
the transitional justice
measures were not taken,
and so as a result,
there's this nostalgia for
the golden years in which
the military was in power,
and there was order,
and there was public
security-- this idealism that
in the dictatorship
everything was better.
The economy was better, there
was more public safety--
none of this was--
none of this really
came to the surface
because of the lack of
transitional justice measures.
So one of the ideas of
transitional justice
is to prevent things
from happening again.
And so we are repeating history.
This is showing us that
the transitional justice
measures that were not taken
are causing the same problems
to come up again.
And so I think all of these
are related in a second, deeper
layer of causes, which
is structural racism
and social prejudice.
Our social structure, which
is very, very layered--
there's a lot of gaps between
the different classes,
there's not a lot
of social mobility.
One class is violent against
another class of people.
There's no solidarity
between people.
There's a lot of solidarity
within among people
of our own class--
you're somebody like me, I'd
give up everything for you.
But if I'm talking
about a different class,
I'm very cruel.
I don't like this difference--
Brazil, which claims
to be a plural society,
is very, very biased in
terms of class structure--
classism and racism,
and prejudice
in terms of sexual
orientation and gender,
and things like that.
In 500 years of Brazilian
history, 90% of this time,
we lived under
authoritarian regimes.
And so the exception
has been the attempt
to establish a democratic state.
Of course you know all of
the public institutions
and private institutions,
the civil society,
the relationships, are based
on this authoritarian model,
because that's the result of
almost 500 years of history.
And so in this historically
unequal and socially unequal
state, with absurd
levels of inequality,
and state violence
being sponsored,
it was always a tool to
guarantee and to preserve
this inequality.
The public security apparatus,
which is inspired in these
feelings that I'm talking
about of anti-Labor Party
and economic downturn
and things like that--
the result in essentially
state violence
being used to guarantee
and to preserve
the position of the elite.
So they wanted to preserve
their way of life,
so they create these discourses
about a war on drugs,
which results in
oppression of those
who live on the periphery--
minorities, and just reinforces
all this social inequality.
So how are people in the
mare favela ghetto in Rio,
how are they going
to ascend socially
if there are tanks rolling
down the streets during--
throughout months and
years of their life?
It's disrupting the public life.
So when you have this
military presence,
there's not the possibility
of having public life.
So the model is perfect,
I think, for the elites,
in benefiting the elites.
But I wanted to
talk about democracy
in Brazil versus the
lack of commitment
that the elites have
to preserve democracy.
Democracy in Brazil works
only if it doesn't threaten
the privileges of the elite.
This is what I call a
democracy of convenience.
In our history, every
time that democracy
was attempted--
there was an attempt
to establish democracy--
and in so doing,
was going to threaten the
privileges of the elite,
then I drop democracy
as a political project.
In fact, I actively
campaign against it
if I'm a member of the elite.
At the end of the Worker Party
years, it was this attitude,
along with the end of
the second slavery--
which Elizabeth talked about--
the relative gains
in worker's rights,
this was threatening the
elite and preventing them
from maintaining the distance
between other classes
in Brazil.
And 50% of people at
the federal universities
were now people who didn't
share the racial background
of the elite, and the airport
became a very uncomfortable
space, because it now
looks like a bus station,
because people who are poor
aren't all of a sudden sitting
next to me on the plane.
And so the idea of
inequality, and state violence
used to maintain
that [? inequality ?]
is essential to what
we need to understand
to be able to move forward.
And so when we talk about,
when we go to look at another
detail-- which I think is--
I think the
statistics that Celso
brought were very helpful.
We need to understand that,
since the end of the Cold War
and the fall of the Berlin Wall,
that globalization has been
unchecked and has been growing.
And this has
increased inequality--
the current capitalist model,
which is based on money,
is concentrated on the
technological advances,
has been instrumental in
increasing inequality.
I didn't have any statistics.
I don't think we need
to talk about this--
I think you guys all know this.
But there's extreme
poverty, despite--
or perhaps because of--
these advances in capitalism.
And whether their governments
are the right or the left,
if they are not able to deal
with this phenomenon, then--
well, they're not able to
deal with this phenomenon.
If you look at
Argentina, they're
unable to deal with an
economic crisis there.
There were people who,
from one day to the next,
were in a position of
privilege, and then
all of a sudden with
an economic downturn,
they were treated as dirt--
because of this focus on money.
[INAUDIBLE],, the Brazilian
president's administration,
there was a lot of speculation
and a lot of inflation,
and unsafe growth of
the capitalist system.
And so states are held
hostage by big corporations
and financial institutions.
But in-- the average
citizen's mind,
it's not capitalism that's
failing, it's democracy.
So the association of my
position of inequality
and poverty, I'm thinking--
democracy just [? is ?]
not working.
And so that opens the
door for populism,
whether it's from the
left or from the right.
I think populism of
the right capitalizes
on hate, and on this angst.
But either way, opening
the door to that
is dangerous, whether it's
from the left or the right.
It's a very subtle process,
but the capitalist--
capital doesn't allow
the state to be strong,
but the blame for those
consequences goes on the state.
And so pay attention to
how the discussion is not
where it should be, that
the deepest causes, the most
profound causes, of these
problems are capitalism,
but they're not being addressed.
And now we got to talk about
the alliances, the coalitions,
that Bolsonaro has created.
The conservatives in the
military and the police forces
that defend these harsh,
repressive public security
programs, and have this--
they support this
idea of controlling
the state in an authoritarian
way to defend their ideas.
We have the evangelical
churches who
are talking about education
needing to be based on God--
we have to talk
about creationism.
And then we've gone back to
this pre-Enlightenment stage,
and the churches have been
very effective in this.
Now also the interests of--
and this is also
related to the idea
that the economy
has no commitment,
has no compunctions
about who it serves.
The population of--
people are pushed
to be anti-Workers'
Party, anti-Lula,
and the fake news
is allowing you
to hear what you already
think, hear what you already
agree with, and causes
these kinds of problems.
And [? it ?] allows people
to think, for example,
that the Workers' Party is
in support of pedophiles.
This wave of violence is
spiraling out of control,
it's becoming more
and more political.
So the [INAUDIBLE] episode,
that of [? Marielle ?]
the last week, or
the week before,
that was 80 shots fired.
And there's an operation
last week repressing it,
and the violence to
ostensibly get rid
of the problems in an
area, but really were
an excuse to exercise violence.
So I'm going to sum
up here a little bit.
I was going to mention
a couple of measures
that the government has adopted
in their first 100 days that
prove that what they were
saying wasn't just rhetoric--
that they are actually trying
to deliver on what they promised
during the campaign.
Controlling NGO activities,
withdrawing from the UN Global
Compact for Migration,
shutting down land reform,
making it easier to
purchase weapons,
and controlling the access to
information, draft of a law
that I called the Slaughter
Act, which allows security
forces to execute suspects--
to prevent being
hurt themselves.
Rio-- has been--
the death rate is nine
for every 100,000 people.
And so it's not just violence,
but it's actually violence
that's exercised by the police.
The paralyzation of
public participation
in the government, and losses
in terms of prohibiting
torture, the announcement of the
Brazilian embassy in Jerusalem
that the offer to
the US to build
a military base in Brazil,
and things like that.
So let's focus on four--
on understanding-- I'm
almost to the end of my talk.
But the 100 days
of misgovernment
that we've been living through.
What we see is
this internal fight
between these four
groups disputing
for control and for the
control of the agenda.
Although those who look
the most sophisticated--
it might be surprising,
but they're actually
the military officers.
They've been the moderating
forces in these discussions,
and I would say that an
important characteristic
that we continue to
see is the attempt
to undermine the popular
conception of the government
to destabilize
political parties,
and to subscribe to
this Trump-ian idea
that we can just go
directly to the people
through social
media, and we don't
need to go through the media,
into big media news outlets.
So the government is declining
and losing popularity.
And that makes me wonder--
what about the other powers?
How have they been
reacting to this?
And I've been surprised
till now, positively
with the Congress--
they have played a
stabilizing role,
and have controlled and cut
back Bolsonaro's attempts
to pass these reforms
and these laws.
We don't know exactly
how this is happening--
I don't know exactly
who's wielding
power in these relationships,
but they have been actually
able to rein in Bolsonaro.
What about the Supreme
Court, the judiciary?
The judiciary has been
doing the exact opposite.
They have been attacked by
the virtual militia, and those
who are supporting the
Car Wash operation,
and the groups of the
far right, they react--
the judiciary has reacted in
a way that's incomprehensible.
They started an investigation
that has said that censorship--
that this supports
censorship, that
supports concentrating powers.
And the court can
now decide that it's
a victim, investigator,
prosecutor,
and judge all in one.
So the foundation
of the judiciary
is now controlled
by the far right.
So now we start to
get worried, right?
And now I'm looking at--
those who are younger might
not recognize this, but--
that's the old shoe
phone from Get Smart,
and there's also an episode
of when there's a prepaid shoe
phone, and so he has to put
coins in the phone for it
to work.
I'll talk about that a
little bit later, maybe.
But our feeling is that we
live in this chaotic moment,
this chaos, this organization,
this secret organization
would be undermining all of the
traditional models of living
and of politics.
So the question is,
what will come next?
What is our crystal
ball telling us?
There's a lot of factors
that the answer depends on.
Whether the opponent
forces will find a balance,
and which of them will win out--
how and when the opposition
and the parliament
will be able to make
an organized stand,
if the government is
strong enough to keep--
pushing, excuse
me, other powers--
if they're pushing
back and resisting
the other powers in
the internal disputes,
the outcomes of the
investigation into Marielle's
assassination, and the militia.
And I think this is a
really important aspect
to highlight the outcome
of this investigation,
and the investigation
between the president's sons
and the militia, how the
social movements will organize
the struggle for
rights and democracy.
And I think there's
also a question
of our changing the narrative.
We need to change
the narrative-- we've
bought into the narrative
of the right in many ways,
and we have to change
that narrative,
and create a narrative
from the left
to understand what's happening.
I see a lot of different
possibilities that could come.
One is that we are
able to balance
the interplay between
these various forces,
and allow Jair Bolsonaro
to complete his four
years of term,
which would actually
support the left's argument
in defense of our democracy.
We could have this
lasting chaos,
or we could have
the right solution,
which is the military
forces winning out,
or that they end the
democratic process,
and elect a general as a
Vice President essentially.
Or another possibility
is the return
of old discourses about
opportunist parliamentarism.
So the future is very
unstable and open--
we don't know exactly where
we're going to end up.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, for all of
you, for your three talks--
very rich.
I have a lot of
notes and questions,
but I'll be very brief so I
can hand it to the audience.
I'll make three questions
directed to the talks in order,
but you can all
answer as you please.
So first, [SPEAKING PORTUGUESE].
Elizabeth,
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]..
Not just in this cycle, but
in the previous presidential
cycle.
So that's the question-- and
I think for somebody who works
on cities, like myself, [? a ?]
starting point is always
[? extends ?] to its spatial
segregation works very
differently here in Brazil--
in Brazil and the US, right?
In Brazil, very dramatic
among the rich--
if you look at racial
dot maps of Leblon,
it's basically
just white people--
but not in lower income
neighborhoods, very different
[INAUDIBLE].
So I would love to hear
your insights on that.
One of the discourses-- and this
connects to something Marlon
was saying--
that struck me from
one of your images
was the language of
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
in making a pitch for the
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]..
We see this again with
the [SPEAKING PORTUGUESE],,
and this appeal to
entrepreneurship
that, in Brazil's case, the
right has been very effective
at, and the left have been very
reluctant to play ball with.
And this is a critique
that [INAUDIBLE] in Brazil
has articulated, I
think persuasively.
Celso, my question is
about your dilemma.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
To which extent can you
do both to the same time?
How can you go into the center
and form broader coalitions
and still keep with the
left and the resistance
against Bolsonaro?
What would be the agendas
that are capable of creating
these coalitions?
Coming from this context
of a perfect storm
and heterogeneous
alliances, what
are the opportunities
we have here?
Many of which are very familiar
[INAUDIBLE] [? estates, ?]
[? right? ?] The financial
market, neo-Pentecostal groups,
all that.
So we can think about everything
being a part of the dilemma.
And Marlon, I'm very
convinced by what you said.
Your analysis of the inflection
points from [INAUDIBLE] action
against [? Marina, ?]
the [INAUDIBLE]
not accepting the results.
But to which extent are these
all familiar happenings, right?
If not only in Brazil, but
in a global perspective?
Nothing there is
relatively new, so--
what is the--
I think that there is a
variable that is new in Brazil
that we still can't
understand with precision.
Even the scale of it,
which is the touching
point of technology, right?
You end your talk
with [? memes, ?] and
we know that that's
one of the variables
on the ascension of Bolsonaro
in the last election cycle.
[INAUDIBLE] [? myself ?] to
which [? extent ?] are we
in risk of undermining,
of misunderstanding,
the networks as the tool
for the conservatives,
and just not thinking about it.
So are these the same
conservative speeches,
or the same
conservative narratives,
or are they actually new?
We know that some of the
narratives are the same.
But with this new variable--
not only as a [INAUDIBLE] for
radicalization, the religion
not only as
radicalization, but a space
of creating new political
subjects that we still
don't completely understand.
Because we laugh
at the things we
think are stupid that
they say, but it's
been very effective, right?
So we know that there are
certain interests that
are creating this whole
narrative, this new aesthetic.
So everything is pointing
towards this new strategy
and interests--
the interest of the capital--
using this new media to play
individuals against the state,
right?
It hasn't to do
with capitalism--
it has to do with the state.
It's easier to think about the
administration as culpable,
which is also familiar to--
it's similar to the
North American politics,
but the [INAUDIBLE]
are unknown, and we
need to understand
what's [INAUDIBLE]..
So those are my questions.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
--response.
I think that-- so thank
you for your questions.
Really, in a lot of
[? ways-- ?] Hello?
Is that better?
In a lot of ways, your
question gets to something
that I was
intentionally avoiding
in my presentation, which
was making these comparisons.
There were so many ways in which
I felt like I was coming back
to see what I think is actually
pretty relevant now in terms
of our political leadership and
also mobilization around issues
related to inequality.
And so the question
that you asked [? was ?]
specifically about culture wars,
and what that might look like.
In your comparison point--
you mentioned this briefly-- you
said it would look differently
in part because of the level
of segregation in the United
States, and what
that might mean.
I think that this is really
an interesting question,
and so I want to respond
to this based on what
I've been hearing online.
I've really been taking more
seriously these online sites
and these places where
folks who typically
aren't included in research
are articulating their ideas.
And what we find--
one of the things
I was talking about
is the power of these
online interfaces
to be a space where folks
can [INAUDIBLE] [? debate ?]
issues.
But one of the difficulties that
black Brazilians are talking
about in particular
is what it means
to be part of these
broader circles
that are racially diverse,
because it means--
because being anti-racist
is being interpreted
as being anti-white, right?
And in a way, in some ways,
because of the ways that
peer groups and friendship
groups work in the United
States, if that were the
response of white folks
in the United States, that would
actually have a lower impact
on people of color,
because of how
friendship circles function.
But because friendship circles
are more interracial in Brazil,
there's this
interesting hesitation
on some people's
part to participate
in anti-racist, for
example, movements,
out of fear of being
cast as being anti-white.
So that's an interesting
debate, but it
even beyond that, the
comparisons-- you asked
to what extent might it be
fair to make comparisons
between the culture wars
that we see in the United
States and the culture
wars that we see in Brazil,
I think we have to be
really careful about that.
I think it's reasonable
to be able to talk
about similarities,
but I certainly
wouldn't go to the
extent of suggesting
that they are identical,
because there's
so many different nuances that
I think make them distinctive.
I think that Brazil's
long history of--
Brazil's history of
the dictatorship,
I think that the fact that even
discourses around inequality
are still relatively new.
I think, as you
mentioned, the sense
that folks have
freedom to debate
issues in a different way.
I think all of those things play
a part in the ways that young
people in particular are
engaging in these ideas,
and what these culture
wars-- if we call them that--
look like on the ground.
I don't know if I would
actually call them culture wars.
There's a whole debate to be
had about what that even means,
and how that ends up being
mobilized to discourage
conversations of difference.
But that's a different
conversation-- so
thank you for your question.
[INAUDIBLE]
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
We have to reconcile militant
activism with the possibility
of relating to the center--
so that we can have the broadest
reach possible in defending
democracy.
It's very hard to do this.
I'm not underestimating the
difficulty of doing this,
but it's necessary.
The first thing we
have to do is accept
that, in the fight
for democracy,
there's going to
be people who have
very, very different opinions--
and I think that
it's necessary for us
to know how to focus
our energies on fighting
the other side, who are the
real threat to democracy.
So there is-- we can't
expect for people to--
have the same opinions
about Bolsonaro, somebody
who is from the Landless
Workers' movement,
compared to somebody
from the middle class.
There's going to be a lot
of variation with the thing,
and that's fine-- we have
to learn to live with this.
But one thing that creates
difficulties in this process
is that a lot of
people from the center
right that are opposing
Bolsonaro from their field--
they're saying that the
radicalization that he
is defending is just as bad as
that that happens on the left.
That's a shame,
but I don't think--
it's something that
we can't overcome.
We need to be able to talk
to these people still.
An important part
of the process will
be the center right
regaining its power in there,
in its own field.
And so I think--
that our focus should
not be attacking that.
We don't have to accept
everything they say.
We have the right
to disagree, but I
think that it's necessary
for us to control
the tone of these
conversations and the intensity
of the discussions, the debates,
that we have, the fights even,
with those who are
different from us
within the democratic field.
Because it's only in
that way that we'll
be able to preserve democracy.
We have to have a lot of
goodwill for those who give up
their support of Bolsonaro.
And we've seen a
little bit of this--
we've seen the left rejecting
these people, saying-- no, no.
You chose Bolsonaro.
You can't take that back.
No, we need to reach
out to these people
and regain their
support and friendship.
And so those who support
Bolsonaro and then
decide not to, they're
people that we can talk with.
Of course-- we're going
to have disagreements
because they voted for
Bolsonaro for some reason,
but we need to be
able to talk to them,
and do that in a civil manner.
You know that-- if not, then
these people will continue
to talk bad about
the left, and we
need to try and reconcile that
and learn to live with it.
There's going to be a lot of
discord within this movement
to defend democracy,
which happened
in the last dictatorship.
There was a lot of discussion
within the opposition.
So we'll have to
develop strategies
to maintain a dialogue with
people that are very different.
And you know there's going to be
a lot of debates, discussions,
fights--
I mean, already within the left,
there are fights every day,
so of course there
are going to be fights
if we expand the group to
include the center right.
[INAUDIBLE] thanks very
much for your question.
Can you hear me?
It's very interesting
that there are
people that compare the
question of social media
and technology, and--
we've gone through this with
the radio and television.
There's already been
technological advances.
But I see a
difference this time,
because the advances in the
past worked with the idea
that there was somebody
on the other side
that you were talking to.
Now [? with ?] social
media, the difference
is that there is no
intermediary figure.
We think about four main news
networks from North America
control essentially all
social media in the world.
Then it's a very
different question.
And so for good or
for ill, then people
can manipulate this
control, and people
think the internet
gives them the liberty
to say whatever they want
with no consequences,
and to be questioned less.
Which before, using the
radio and television,
there was a little bit
more willingness to listen.
We miss those old
attitudes by editors,
by writers, because
at least they had--
of course there were exceptions,
but for the most part--
and also talking about the what
it's called the brown press--
those were from the minorities.
But in any case, there
was not very much, not as
much of a discourse of hate,
and now this is everywhere.
It's multiplying
exponentially with the tools
that people have access
to now, and expressing
their political
mentality in that way.
And so I see this blindness
and this lack of objectivity.
People think it's fun--
we're going to
destroy the state.
But it might turn back on them.
It might backfire on them.
People are using social
media [INAUDIBLE]
use social media to
oppose various groups,
and to criticize the people
that are in power now.
The center right, as they were
supporting the impeachment,
they were essentially giving
themselves a death sentence,
but they didn't realize
that, and people
were thinking that
Bolsonaro's is
going to have a liberal agenda?
How in the world
did they think that?
Come on.
There's so much blindness.
So it's not just a desire to
make money in the short term.
People want to
get bonuses, and--
it's not just--
well, I guess people
are focused on the short term.
They're not they're not
concerned with the long term
future of corporations,
of governments,
they're just focused on the
now, of making money now.
Which is happening
in Europe as well,
although not quite as quickly.
So without a doubt, we
have to understand this--
this process is happening.
We have a lot of difficulty in
interpreting what's going on,
because it's very nuanced.
But for sure, this
phenomenon is these bubbles.
What I think is that we
have to start working on--
and I think it's something
for the judiciary--
we have to work on
the responsibility
and accountability
of these platforms,
because they have to
be held accountable.
This capacity to be
able to, in an instant,
be influencing millions of
people, tens of millions
of people the world
the world over,
they need to be held
accountable for what they're
doing, because they're
the vehicles for all
these kinds of messages.
And so we need to bring these
topics up in the political
arena, and they're not just
means of communication--
they're means of
communicating points of view,
and messages that will support--
the states that are
in power right now,
and the groups
that are in power.
And so this is a big
challenge, but it's
a necessary path that
we tread, and maybe one
of the possible
agendas for those who
are trying to defend democracy.
I've seen a bunch
of hands up already.
Let's do questions
three by three.
So let's start over there--
[INAUDIBLE]
All right, going to--
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
Congratulations, Celso.
Congratulations, Elizabeth.
Congratulations, Marlon.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
Congratulations for your talks.
I'm going to be very
objective in my questions.
Elizabeth, I want to know
if, in your research,
you observed different
levels of assimilation
to the
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE] based
on the color of the skin
of the filhas de criacao.
I ask this because I come from a
class where girls were adopted,
and I noticed that the
lighter-skinned girls
were adopted and more
embraced by the families.
And when the darker-skinned
girls were adopted,
they ended up being not as
embraced by the families.
I want to see if you
noticed any of that.
Celso, you talked
about corruption
being utilized as something
that would explain
the downfall of the system.
So you [? set ?] to the question
of [SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]..
I ask because I'm from
a party that manipulated
the discourse a lot
against my will,
but I wanted to ask about the
role of this left parties.
And already with Marlon,
I want to ask both of you
this question of saying
the left without observing
the plurality of
the left itself.
Celso, how can Bolsonaro
bank in the will
to change for the
population if he'd
been in power for 30 years?
And what is the criticism
that the press can make out
of their role in this,
or the role in creating
a [SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
anti-Workers' Party?
So what is the
self-criticism the press has
to do about itself,
since it's always asking
for self-criticism of the left?
And Marlon, Eduardo
Cunha, as a figure
of the lower clergy, right?
And the rising of
the lower clergy--
what's the role of the lower
clergy in the economic failure
of Dilma?
And lastly, why did
both of you ignore
Lula's arrest in your talk?
What is the role of Lula
arrest in this scenario?
And talking about
Lula's arrest, and
the anti-Republican behavior
of the judicial system,
why did the Supreme
Court completely
ignore the massive campaign of
fake news through social media?
Completely ignore, allowing
it to negatively impact
the elections, allowing
for Bolsonaro to win--
and now behaving like
this, this overreaction
in censoring social media for
criticisms against the Supreme
Court itself?
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
Morning.
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to
hear all of you.
Very elucidating.
My question's about the
question of the left.
I'm glad [? you ?] already
brought this issue up
from my point of
view, and I agree
with what we said
yesterday, with what
[INAUDIBLE] said yesterday.
In fact, we need to broaden
our field, our structure,
our dialogue in the
name of democracy.
And we need to self-criticize
the left, right?
Unfortunately, we talk a
lot about the self-criticism
of the Labor Party, but
I think it's interesting
that we talk about
the self-criticism
of the whole left.
When we talk about feminism,
we talk about feminisms,
so we should be
talking about lefts.
The Brazilian left
is very fragmented.
I'm going to talk about-- on the
point of view of the testimony
my own experience, because I
think it talks about something.
So I was part of a party of
the socialists Liberty Pac
party for a long time,
and I had to move
into the Workers, the Labor
Party, when I moved to Rio.
So I know a lot of that
party, and I have--
I am very clear
in saying that it
is a very moralist party
in the worst sense,
just like the Workers' Party,
with the aggravating fact
that it's against the
[? Labor's ?] Parties.
[? Marielle ?] was the only
person who ever asked me why I
left the [? Labor's ?]
Party, right?
And I said that it's because
it's a party of white men,
of old colonials.
And [INAUDIBLE] was
not one of these men.
[? Marielle ?] knew of that.
[? Marielle ?] was very
betrayed inside the party,
and the operations, the power
play inside the Social Liberty
Party is cruel.
In the [? Labor's ?] Party, I
went as a very renowned person.
I was a victim of attacks
from the extreme right,
but also from the Social
and Liberty Party,
there was a huge
campaign against me.
Today, I ask for a
self-criticism of the Social
and Liberty Party because
my relationship with them
is not personal.
I do not-- friends with them,
but I will still support them
for governments, because
they are still in the left,
and I'm trying for
the unity of the left.
I only became a candidate
for the government of Rio
because [? Bissau ?] rejected
the support of the Workers'
Party.
So it's a party that still
lives from the old power plays,
right?
Why am I talking
about [? Bissau? ?]
Because all the other parties,
[INAUDIBLE] the Communist
Party, the Workers'
and Unity Party,
they are all the same, right?
The Labor Party is gigantic.
I left the [? Bissau ?]
for the [INAUDIBLE]..
Beyond because I
didn't want to--
support people who defended Car
Wash, I wanted a left that--
is looking for
results, so I just
wanted to share this
with you because I'm
looking to think about
this moralist trap
that the left falls into, right?
Because the Labor Party
is one of the [? less ?]
corrupt parties--
it's not the most
corrupt party--
and I think we need
to talk about that,
because we need to unite
our left and those who fight
for democracy, and unite with
the center right [? of ?]
[? the ?] [? case, ?] but to
try to rescue our country.
Sorry about my
excess, but thank you.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
I particularly would like
to declare that I would like
a self-criticism of--
the left pact.
I had a question--
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
--in the United
States, stretching
into Argentina to Spain and
all parts of the world, and now
the teachers' strikes
that you're seeing here,
but also in Poland as an
attack on neoliberalisms,
attack on care, and the strain
that it's putting on that.
And my question for
you is, as someone
who's interested in
social reproduction
theory and Marxist
feminism, a charge I often
hear from maybe more
orthodox Marxists is,
we need to be focusing on the
pressure points of capital,
on where surplus
value is extracted
in the productivist
sector, and so I'm
wondering if you could
speak a little bit
about the limitations, but also
the opportunities of organizing
around the sphere of care,
specific ally in Brazil.
Want to take one more?
I think we'll
[INAUDIBLE] let them--
OK.
[INAUDIBLE]
[INAUDIBLE]
So to answer the
first question--
thank you for your question
about filhas de criacao.
Essentially, your--
can you all hear me OK?
Hello?
OK.
So essentially your
question was, to
what extent does race shape
how well incorporated a filha
de criacao can be
in their family?
And that's an
interesting question
because overwhelmingly, the
women in my study identify
as [SPEAKING PORTUGUESE] but--
there were two women
who identify as white,
and it was interesting
to hear them
talk about their experiences,
because what the first one said
is, she actually mentioned--
she said it was actually
easier to hide her
because she was white, and
she looked like her family.
But that didn't mean
that they treated her
better-- so she said when they
went out, it was just easier.
People never questioned--
so if she was,
let's say hit in
public, nobody was
thinking that she was
a filha de criacao,
so it was easier for
her to hide and easier
to be exploited because of that.
The other thing is
that visibility--
so being black in a white
family, for example--
made the white, wealthier
families really cognizant
of how they presented
the black child.
So some of the
respondents talked
about how their families
would dress them up
a little bit better
when they went out just
to avoid any assumption that
they were being mistreated.
So the visibility of having
a black filha de criacao
was important.
Other ways that this mattered
was that there are actually
different expectations.
So again, the white
filhas de criacao
were actually the ones
to point this out,
and I was actually
surprised by this--
they would talk about how
their responsibilities were
different, and they assumed it
was because they were white,
so they would compare
themselves to the other filhas
de criacao in these families.
So something that
people don't realize
is that oftentimes,
these families
have more than one filha
de criacao in the family--
so they have
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]..
So that oftentimes there
are several people,
and so many of them talked
about the relationship
that they had to the others, and
we're able to comment on that.
OK.
I'm going to answer
this last question,
and then I probably
should head out,
because I can hear
the baby crying.
Your question was
about global care work,
and I really appreciate
your question.
And so last year,
I was actually--
so in this presentation,
I was wary about making
the comparisons, but I think,
as it relates to care work,
I think that this
is really important.
In fact, a couple
of years ago, I
presented on a global care
work conference that was really
about these questions
of leveraging what's
happening at an
international level
to be able to address
these concerns.
But I also like the second
part of your question, which
is about the limitations
of organizing around
these fears of care,
because what what's
interesting about this is that
these conversations are still
multi-level, so you have
women who might be organizing
around spheres of
care, but yet they're
still depending on the care
work of women of color,
even while they're organizing
around spheres of care.
So you have these
contradictions that, many times,
these women aren't necessarily
willing to confront
in their struggles.
And so one of the limitations
that I immediately see
is that one.
But beyond that, I think that
it is important, particularly
in Brazil, to question
this area of care work,
because it has been so
racialized and gendered,
and because we
see the same types
of ideological
commitments about--
or ideological
positions-- as it relates
to who should be
doing the care work,
and we see that extended
into people's treatment
in other sectors of
society, particularly
as it relates to black women.
So the inability to see
black women beyond the work--
the care-- that they
give to other folks
is an important issue
to be addressed.
So in that sense, I think
that it's important,
but I think that, when
we think about care
work on the global scale, there
are several different questions
that would make me--
hesitant to support
some aspects of what
we're seeing in terms
of mobilizing around
spheres of care work,
if that makes sense.
So it makes sense in some
ways, but in other ways
it can end up
reifying inequalities
if the folks involved
aren't willing to confront
their own privileges
while they organize.
That make sense?
Excuse me.
You?
Yeah.
Maybe.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
--and the necessity for the
left to criticize themselves
in the question of the
Car Wash operation.
So the Brazilian
left is very diverse.
They're different parties, and
different parties on the left
have different problems.
So I've already been
accused of not having--
not encouraging the leftists
to criticize itself,
and this is a personal problem.
I was-- I am a member of the
Worker's Party for a long time,
and I feel a responsibility
to improve that party.
I would never want to
do that for the right.
I do not accept this work of
helping the right question
[? itself. ?]
I don't want to
civilize Bolsonaro.
So find-- go look
for somebody who's
more comfortable
than I am to do that,
but I would never do that.
And the other thing that I
think is that the question
of self-criticism is
that it's not to do--
it's not something we should
do to try to appease and please
people outside.
It's something we should do to
help the left to work better,
to function better.
And so if we do--
criticize ourselves about the
corruption of the Workers'
Party, we can ask ourselves
the way in which coalitions
were made.
And I'm certain that it
was necessary to make
this coalition to do these
alliances, with Petrobras,
with other parties--
and everyone
knew this was going on.
I think we need to do
this, not to satisfy
the people on the right--
because they're never
going to be satisfied
with the way we operate.
But we need to do this so
that, in the next election,
we can into the government
and the Petrobras.
We need to always realize that
the scandals of Petrobras, they
made life difficult for those
who are defending Petrobras,
and for those who are
defending state-run companies.
The left basically, when they
let people take everything
from Petrobras, they
were shooting themselves
in the foot, right?
Petrobras has been
an important--
has played an
important role in the--
left's discourse,
so it's obvious
that the Workers' Party
is not the only one
responsible for corruption
in Brazil, but they need--
there's an urgent need
for self-criticism.
I'm not the only one who's going
to be able to facilitate this--
I don't know everything
that needs to be done.
So when I think
about reorganizing
the Workers' Party, I talk about
that because I think it's--
I know that party, and I know
it's possible to reorganize.
But I don't think the same thing
about the other left parties--
right party, excuse me--
and so I don't see this
as my task, as my job.
So OK-- Car Wash Operation.
There's a
controversial question,
but if on the one
hand you actually
are unable to talk about
corruption and the problem,
and you're unable
to focus exclusively
on corruption as happened
in the last election.
What might happen
is that if you talk
about Marina's party,
the environmentalist
party, the Green Party--
this kind of discourse
would probably
lead the party to dissolve,
ideologically and politically.
That kind of discourse and
self-analysis didn't stick,
and she was not
supported, Marina wasn't.
So on the other hand,
we also have to--
if we go to the election, and
the only thing that we have
to say about corruption is
that the Car Wash people,
they committed abuses
of power-- and they did,
but if that's the
only thing we say,
and then we only say
that to the judiciary,
when [INAUDIBLE]
beyond its bounds--
which they did-- we're
always going to lose.
What we can say is that
those who are corrupt
need to go to prison.
We need to admit that there
were people in our parties
that committed abuses, and
that need to go to prison.
We need to distance ourselves
from those kinds of people.
Some people-- we can't
prove what they did,
but they've been
denounced, and some people
are in jail without there
having been proof of anything.
That's a problem, people
need to be tried fairly.
But on the other
hand, there are people
that we have proof
that they were corrupt,
and that they did
illegal things,
and so they need to be held
responsible for those things.
When the treasurer
went to prison,
the Congress was
singing his name
and calling him the
defender of the people.
And so if we campaign
with people in our party
who are corrupt, it's going
to be a hard battle for us.
So if we're sending those
kind of people to the front
without their being able to say
they're honest, without they're
being able to say
they're not corrupt,
then that's a problem--
it's a huge mistake.
So we can't get rid of the
discourse about corruption.
Can't be the only
item on our agenda,
but we also need to
denounce the abuses of power
and embezzlement.
The Car Wash operation
has been going poorly.
The judges and the
investigators have
begun politicizing
this investigation,
and that's a problem,
because they're clearly
swimming in deep waters.
Their proximity to Bolsonaro
has been a disaster for them,
for those who are fighting
corruption in Brazil.
The sectors who are--
areas who are really
excited about the
Car Wash Operation
are now distancing
themselves, because they
don't want to be next to
Bolsonaro-- they don't want
to meet in proximity with him.
Everybody knows that those who
support Bolsonaro and the Car
Wash are opportunist people.
They're trying to get rid of
the political class in Brazil--
which-- from Bolsonaro's
perspective is great,
because they don't
want people who
are from the
establishment in power.
I think we need to know
how to balance and navigate
between these two extremes--
we need to, not
use anti-corruption
as our only agenda item, but
we also need to address it.
We need to come to terms with
how much money was embezzled
and stolen by politicians.
Because if we only say that
the judiciary overstepped
its bounds in the
investigation, then we're
not going to convince anyone.
I'm going to try and see--
try to be very objective.
When I talk about the left,
I'm talking about a category,
right?
Just like when I talk
about the elite of Brazil--
which consists of a
category and subcategories,
so I recognize that there's a
lot of variety and difference
among the left, but it's
just a rhetorical term
that we used to be able to give
a presentation in 20 minutes,
and communicate
our main arguments.
So we recognize that these are
not monolithic categories--
that there is a lot of variety--
but in 20 minutes, we have to--
sum things up.
This isn't macro analysis.
We're looking at things
at a very surface level
because we're trying to--
my analysis is just to try and
create a context for people
to--
as a kind of "take advantage
of David Bowie's crystal ball
to predict the
future," so forgive me
for using simplistic
terminology.
So Lula-- I didn't
talk about that,
or the stabbing of Bolsonaro.
I think those are two essential
aspects of the narrative,
but it was just in
the interest of time
that I cut those two slides.
I could have inserted
them, but both episodes
are fundamental for explaining
the results that we have now.
I think you're right--
the criticism is relevant.
It was just a question of time.
Eduardo Cunha-- represents not
only the low clergy, but also
the ascension, the rise,
of organized crime.
And [SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
is one example.
So I'm unable to look at
Bolsonaro without remembering
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE],, and
so that's another problem
we have to deal with.
He is more than
just a low clergy--
he was the synthesis of
how Dilma was on the ropes,
and how the Workers' Party
was unable to navigate
that political
situation, and they were
in an unsustainable situation.
It was unsustainable, his
candidacy in that moment,
because it was on
this path, and so
seeing the disaster
of Eduardo Cunha,
maybe you could explain
this better than I could,
but we are just shocked
at what happened.
That's what I mentioned before--
so to explain the economic
crisis, it's related to the
blockade that the center
right--
it's funny, because the
center right, the PSDB,
they always said that
the Workers' Party
tried to blockade and tried
to block any movement,
any reforms proposed
by the PSDB,
but then they did
the exact same thing.
They blocked any reaction
to the economic crisis
on the part of the PT,
and so the crisis for me
was a lot more
political than economic,
because we could have had the
political means to respond
to it, and we had
the intelligence
to do it because of
politics, because
of the kind of arguments
between different parties--
this was blocked and impeded,
and and has led Brazil
to where it is today.
And so this is very
interesting because it's
been five years since
the second election,
and there's not even
discussion in the press
about the neoliberal model.
Nobody's talking about
the neoliberal model that
was implemented in
2015, and on forward
has only generated more poverty
and difficulty and oppression.
It's crazy-- the
discussion is really
just off in terms of
where it's focusing,
and in terms of our ability
to solve this problem.
So it looks like I haven't seen
any commentator in any article
in five years, five years
since the second term of Dilma,
there's been no
criticism of this system.
I'm also not able
to read everything,
so it's possible that
I missed something.
I used to-- it
sounds like there's
one in this newspaper
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
I used to subscribe to it,
but I don't read it anymore,
just because it just became
a little bit too polarized
for me, because I
lost trust in it.
And after the
electoral campaign,
I subscribed to the
[? Folha ?] journal
again, so that I could
read Celso and others.
It wasn't out of conviction that
it was always right, but just
out of solidarity.
And the question of the
judiciary and fake news,
I can't give you
an answer on that--
this is a really open question.
My reading of it, my very
superficial reading of it--
and maybe it's a little
bit too simplistic,
and I might change my mind
five minutes from now,
but I think that--
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
[? saws-- ?]
they assumed that they
were the best ones
to answer the questions,
because they had all the power
concentrated in their hands.
And so there was--
we need a lot more intelligence,
meaning a lot more careful
observation, to be able to
solve these kind of problems.
We're not going to be able to
solve this problem overnight.
I'm going to stop there.
I think we have time
for two more questions,
objective questions--
and please let's speak lowly
in order not to wake up
[INAUDIBLE].
My name is [INAUDIBLE],, I'm
from [? USP ?] Universidad
[? Sto. ?] Paulo, a state
university in Sao Paulo,
and I'm here at the Africana
studies department as part
of my doctorate.
This is more of a
commentary dialoguing
with table in a general way.
What seems to me is
that there is in Brazil
a perverse confluence between a
certain whiteness, metaphysics,
and the emergency of
authoritarian people in Brazil.
I don't approximate myself from
fascism, because I don't know--
I don't have knowledge
of the concept.
It's curious because the
moment of the emergency
of an authoritarian
speech also conflates
with the cassation,
with the persecution,
of affirmative action that
the PSL, Bolsonaro's party,
has implemented.
So [? where ?] they
go to the Supreme
Court, the judicial
actions, series
of progressive
judicial actions that
have made affirmative action
possible are being attacked.
So we, as black
intellectuals and militants,
we look into this
[? progress ?] [? as ?] element.
But this element
also comes white-lash
that started in 2008 with
this telling of the right
that the affirmative
action is unconstitutional.
In order to talk
about the metaphysic
of whiteness and
authoritarian personalities,
in 1980, Datafolha
did research at a poll
about self-identified
declarations of race
where we had 136 callers.
What is interesting,
the whiteness [? per ?]
[? passes ?] the
research as an element.
So today we have a construction
of black identities
that are more
positive in Brazil,
but this latent
whiteness is no less
eminent in the construction
of politics [? solidarity. ?]
So for instance, the
question of Bolsa Familia--
the face of Bolsa
Familia is black--
it is a black woman.
And black people in Brazil, they
suffer from their visibility.
So walking in the
street, a black man
represents a
perceived homogeneity.
So what they're
doing is therefore
through this racialized
images, they're
trying to play into
this shaky subjectivity.
So in this way, we are
allowed to understand
how Bolsonaro's whiteness is
the main way for him to create
political affections and
solidarities until he appears
with a black man, right?
The moment he appears
with a black man on stage,
we are able to see
how his whiteness is
one of his main
articulating features,
and I conclude by
talking about how
Brazil is a colonial country,
and its colonial past--
we live in a racial capitalist
country, as the boys would say.
What I want to say with that
is that our normative markers,
our identity markers, are
[? per ?] [? passed ?] by race.
They are shaped by race.
Everything is racialized.
And here, it's not necessarily
the color of your skin.
So when there is a dispute
for Brazil's regulation,
it's also a dispute it's also
a dispute of race regulation
and gender regulation,
because there
is no race without gender.
So racism is not a found
element in a colonial society--
it's everywhere.
Morning to all, and
thank you for the table
for your reflections.
I'd like to ask Celso
and Marlon a question.
But before, just
a brief comment--
because this past week,
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE] has
published a text in [? PLE ?]
remembering one of the more
preserved stories in Brazil--
the case of [INAUDIBLE].
And there's two historic
facts in the history
of the Workers' [? parter. ?]
First is this case, and then
the second
is the question of
Belomonte, which
I've been keeping
up with by what
[INAUDIBLE] has been writing.
And this is the
way that the left--
let's forget about the right--
it brings up the question
of, to what extent is
the left in Brazil democratic?
And this is the fundamental
question right now--
because, since
we're constructing,
we're building a
coalition, we need
to think about
this in democratic.
And here I am asking
[? Jean ?] forgive me--
I'm talking about esquerda
as a superficial category.
In the case of
[? Tabatha ?] [INAUDIBLE],,
who did a great speech against
the Ministry of Education,
was immediately attacked by
a lot of people in the left,
and in the Workers'
Party-- say no,
this girl comes from
the impresario sector--
it comes from private sector.
So to what extent are
we really democratic?
And now Celso, you talked
about the necessity of building
this general left front.
One of the things [? left ?]
to the center right
to migrate to Bolsonaro was
an incapacity of the left--
to talk about the public bills,
the public budget and economy--
there wasn't transparency.
So I said--
I remember you saying like
that the [? adagio ?] was not
crazy about talking
about saying we didn't
need a social security reform.
We need a social security
reform, and at one point,
we're going to have
to talk about this.
So my question is, do we
talk about this in the left
today, within the
Workers' Party?
Are [? economists ?]
talking about this?
[CONVERSING IN PORTUGUESE]
I think what's important about
that particularly as it relates
to filhas de
criacao is this idea
that Brazil's colonial legacy, a
legacy of being a slave-ocracy,
is absolutely reflected
in those dynamics.
But what's also interesting
is that that's probably
one of the most obvious ways
that we see this metaphysics
of whiteness working.
But I think that this
actually goes back
to the question that was posed
earlier is, even if we were
to eliminate what's happening
with filhas de criacao,
the question isn't just
about isolated cases-- it's
a systemic issue, right?
And I think part of what you're
arguing is that if we think
about whiteness as having
this metaphysical property--
which I love the idea of--
this metaphysical latent and
diffuse property, then it
really means that these
smaller isolated reforms aren't
sufficient, but rather
the entire system
has to be redesigned.
I like that suggestion.
That's easier said than
done, but I think that--
it's an important way to
think about the road ahead.
Thank you.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
[AUDIO OUT]
--in a party.
But I think it's important
to talk about it,
and maybe it's because
it's important--
for these things that come up
and for us to talk about them.
There was an opportunity
for us to show solidarity,
but we were unable to
take advantage of it.
So I was happy to hear there was
the parliamentary front created
in defense of--
Indigenous.
Indigenous peoples.
[INAUDIBLE]
And 200 members of parliament.
So this is a good signal
that theoretically, it's
possible to construct--
because they're not
going to be for everyone,
but maybe in terms
of thematic coalitions, we
could create spaces and groups
for resistance.
I'm not the first person
to talk about this,
but I was reading recently
about this in fact,
that reforming the press is--
Another great opportunity.
So the left could
create an alternative
that could that could
show how things should be,
and not the exclusive
reform, but one
that works with other people.
And so I believe a
lot in the capacity--
my vision is that
we have the capacity
to create fronts of resistance
based on thematic issues,
and I think this is--
we're beginning
to see this work.
We thought it was just kind
of a perfunctory thing,
but it's not.
And the second part is--
yes, that the left's need to
find the path to militants
to activism that's effective,
and because I'm from Sao Paulo,
I see clearly the
time of [INAUDIBLE]
from the [INAUDIBLE] who
I hold in high regard,
but his incapacity to talk
to those in the periphery,
he lost the periphery to
the right in the elections.
And OK-- well, there was the
Car Wash thing that complicated
things--
but he lost more than we
anticipated of that population,
so I think it's possible to
radicalize the discourse that's
socioeconomic, and
in terms of identity,
that we need to radicalize
militancy, but also
be practical in
terms of our actions
in the government, and
the National Congress.
I think that's one way in
which we can rebuild our base
for four years from now.
So three minutes.
OK.
The left-- is it democratic?
I think yeah.
There are cases of people
being undemocratic.
I'm talking about Leninism
without Communism--
there's been talk
of that in the left.
But communism, there
are also the criticisms
that communism
ostensibly disappeared,
but it actually is still
functioning on the left.
I think these are those are--
they may be true,
but they're traces.
They're not the majority.
So I don't think
that's the problem
for the left, the big problem.
The case of [INAUDIBLE]
I'm not even able
to articulate what I think,
because I would go to prison
if I said what I really think.
And for those who
don't know this,
[INAUDIBLE] was a
young congresswoman
who's from Sao Paulo,
and in a debate,
she just tore into the
minister of education
with statistics and
arguments, and it
was an excellent performance.
And the left, instead of
celebrating her victory,
they criticized her and
said that she was just
an extreme leftist.
So I agree with
everything you said.
I embrace everything you said.
But I also-- the question
of the economists.
I think I've talked to
[INAUDIBLE] and others,
and he knows about
these problems,
and there are people
in the Workers' Party
that know about these problems.
That we need to make
changes in the economy,
there needs to be a kind of
investigation, and auditing.
And so I talked to the
minister of education
for Dilma, who
resigned after a time,
and he's been writing
about a lot of things
that I think are really great.
For example, the social
security question--
he's demonstrated a
willingness to talk,
and he's not just discarding
and pushing aside these kinds
of issues that
are being raised--
he's willing to engage
in dialogue about them,
and I think he's
right to do that.
And I think, in this
article you talked about,
the Workers' Party cannot
discard [INAUDIBLE]
because he's good.
The moment in which he
[? campaigned ?] was maybe not
the right moment, but he's
still a good figure for us
to support, and he
can't work on his own,
and so we need to support him.
And I think it's important
to mobilize intellectuals
on the left who have more of
an influence than they think.
I think the Workers' Party
respect the intellectuals
on the left, and
they could have been
more outspoken in terms of
discussing these problems,
and proposing solutions.
I haven't completely lost
hope in this question.
There are people that are
discussing these things,
and leadership--
local leadership in terms of
the Workers' Party, mayors
and those kinds of things,
they've had success.
And there are people
that are talking
about the social
security question,
and trying to trying to
make it more sustainable.
And actually, the state
problems are a lot worse
than the federal
problems in that respect.
So I think it's
possible for people
to address these
problems, but I think
we need to start a discussion,
and start proposing solutions
for the social
security question.
And for Brazil's economy,
and the world economy,
and things that are-- they're
not the center right debate,
but they need to
be talked about.
