Hello everybody
Today I'm gonna talk about marxism and guitar:
music as an instrument of class struggle
Just kidding!
I'm actually gonna talk about representativeness and political struggle
Our theme today is
representativeness and political struggle
Over recent years, in Brazil and in the world
the concept of representativeness
is widely used in political terminology
and widespread in several social movements
But, what is representativeness?
In a general way, it's understood that
opressed social groups are excluded
from the most important social spaces
such as management and direction positions in companies
political representativeness
prominent roles in the area of culture
and that it's necessary to defend that these positions
should be occupied by minorities
so that they're not always
in the lowest positions of society
The first thing to be said is that in this video
I won't talk about the problem of the representativeness in general
but focus on the anti-racist struggle
Having said that,
the first thing to point out is that racism is a social complex
of domination and exploitation that is the genesis
and structure, until today, of Brazilian capitalism
Among other things, racism produces
a cultural and symbolic idea of inferiority
of everything associated to the black population
So, African religions are considered bad and evil
Phenotipic characteristics of black people,
such as curly hair, a broader nose and pronounced lips,
are considered ugly
Capoeira and samba have already been frowned upon
and so on.
Generally speaking, the idea of representativeness
in the anti-racist struggle states that
to fight  this cultural and symbolic inferiority
it's necessary that black people occupy all the spaces.
So, we need black people
on leading roles of big companies,
hosting the news, in the media,
on the calwalk, in politics,
and so on.
However, this idea has some limitations.
First thing is that
the dimesion of symbolic and cultural inferiority
is the most visible in everyday life.
The understanding of the incidence
and the importance of racism in the relations
of production and power are, on the other hand,
much less visible.
I can give you a concrete example to illustrate our thesis
Avon, as every company in a country of dependant capitalism,
overexploits its employees' workforce.
There's an army of thousand of women,
black and from the outskirts of cities,
who work for Avon without work permits, without salaries,
without labour rights and with minimal protection.
They're called middlewomen
which is a stupid way to gourmetise informality and precarious work.
Well, Avon has several lawsuits on moral harassement
and labour rights violation.
The most famous case is one in which a pregnant woman ended up having a miscarriage
due to excess of extra hours and stress in the workplace
Avon also has lawsuits,
in which it treats as a matter of life or death
not paying its "middlewomen" indemnities for labour accidents
Also, this company has been recently ordered to pay its workers a fine of more than 2 million reais
for violating the most basic labour rights
and according to a claim of Repórter Brasil
Avon is involved with slavery
Yes. That's exactly what you've heard:
slavery.
That, in the modern conception is called labour analogous to slavery.
To sum up: it's a company that is a symbol of precarious,
informal and rightless work
that overexploits thousand of black women from the outskirts,
and that is even involved with labour analogous to slavery.
This is Avon.
This very company has recently launched an ad
where it values black aesthetics.
The ad stars black women,
and one of them is the academic celebrity Djamila Ribeiro.
Avon says the company supports the fight against racism.
Notice this move:
in the realm of production, less visible: overexploitation of workforce,
opressing mainly black women.
In the realm of advertisement and circulation of ideas: the speech of the importance of fighting racism.
Avon is just one example, I can give you many others.
To me is very questionable,
the implicit perspective in the speech of many black movement militants
that if TV stations such as Rede Globo included among its employees
several black hosts, journalists and artists,
it would affect racism in any way.
Even if the whole cast of Rede Globo were black
it would continue to play a fundamental role in legitimising
and reproduction of the genocide of black population, among other forms of racism.
TV stations like Rede Globo, as capitalist groups, have prominent role in this.
Thus, this perspective of representativeness that intends to occupy the existing social positions
in the capitalist society
is the easiest to be assimilated by the bourgeois order.
Actually, it's already been assimilated by the bourgeois order.
I defend that there's already an anti-racism of market
which is a perspective of "fighting racism"
that aims at creating a significant black middle class and even a black bourgeoisie,
even if its defenders are not aware of it,
that won't impact in any way the structure and reproduction of racism.
Does that mean the idea of representativeness is useless?
Not at all!
I defend representativeness has to have a meaning as a black protagonism
in the spaces of resistance and fight
and creation of black cultural references for kids, teenagers and population in general.
How so? It's quite simple.
In the unions, in the social movements,
the political parties,
in formation schools, etc.
It's fundamental to form and promote black political leaders and intelectuals.
It's fundamental that kids and especially teenagers grow up seeing that
the union leader, their city's politician, the intelectual that brings a crowd to their lectures are black
This creates the feeling that black people are not always in the bottom of society.
However, this process of positive black figures
is closely related to resistance and fight.
Just like it's fundamental to create a culture
in which the names of the anti-racist struggle in Brazil and in the world,
such as Zumbi dos Palmares,
Dandara, Teresa de Benguela,
Minervino de Oliveira, Tupac Shakur,
Malcolm X and so many others,
are widely known.
Black people don't have to feel inferior, ugly, with low self-esteem.
They have to feel motivated, brave and willing to fight,
knowing examples of women and men that mirror these values.
It's fundamental, for example, for a kid to know who Malcolm X was, who Minervino de Oliveira was
who Dandara was.
I'd even say that its much more important that people know these names than
Lázaro Ramos or Jay Z.
The idea of representativeness only has a concrete political and revolutionary meaning
when linked to a perspective of radical transformation of economic and political structures,
and when it aims at creating a culture of self-esteem in the black people directly linked to its historic symbols of resistance.
Occupying high positions in the bourgeois order is much easier than
creating this type of culture of resistance and representation.
The bourgeoisie even accepts that one or two managers in their companies are black.
It also accepts black hosts,
black politicians
It's even accepted a black president in the United States.
But it hasn't accepted the existance of a radical, revolutionary organisation
that sets to organise black people towards socialist revolution,
such as the Black Panthers Party in the United States
In this sense, the anti-racism of market,
the liberal idea of representativeness, stuck in the field of culture
not only is not able to fight racism,
but is also fundamental as a tool to strengthen the opression over black people.
As Malcolm X would say: there's no capitalism without racism.
And the fight against capitalism and racism should go together.
Anti-racist struggle has to be revolutionary.
Whether in a socialist, communist or anarchist perspective.
This is the least important. The fundamental thing is not be fooled by the anti-racism of market,
that is nothing but a big trap, a big illusion for black people.
That's it! Hope you've liked today's video.
Don't forget to like it, share it, comment here, subscribe the channel,
send this video to people you know.
See you soon.
As Black Panthers would say: all power to the people!
