How Brazil’s anti-racism agency became part of the problem

Despite an unprecedented global pandemic that has reshaped life as we have grown used to, voices echoing from all corners of the world calling for social justice and the end of systemic racism have filled streets, government buildings, and social media networks alike with equally unprecedented force. 

Following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in the U.S. — adding to the growing tally of 250 black people killed by the American police in 2019 — the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has renewed nationwide debates over the need for institutional and public policy change to address police brutality and other forms of institutionalized racism. 

In Brazil, the BLM movement — under the Portuguese name “Vidas Negras Importam” — also took to the streets under anti-racism and pro-democracy banners. Yet, the movement was mostly sidelined, failing to receive broader public support on the national stage amid myriad health, economic and political crises.

In fact, the latest headlines involving racism in Brazil did not stem from civil society dialogues advancing the BLM cause, rather the topic reached the national spotlight after the president of the Palmares Cultural Foundation Sérgio Camargo referred to the Brazilian Black Rights Movement as “bloody scum” on June 2. 

The Palmares Foundation is a government organization set up to promote and protect black culture and heritage in Brazil, and unsurprisingly Mr. Camargo’s comments were received with vehement criticism from society-at-large. 

However, given his track record, Mr. Camargo’s remarks hardly come as a surprise. A self-entitled “right-wing black activist,” he has a long history of controversial quotes denying racism in Brazil and abhorring the country’s black movement. In the past, Mr. Camargo has vowed to end Brazil’s annual Black Consciousness Day and has referred to slavery in Brazil as “a lucrative business for both Africans, who enslaved [others], as well as Europeans who dealt slaves [into Brazil].”

“Everything Sérgio Camargo says is contrary to the position of the Palmares Foundation. He attacked the black movement, saying it was ‘bloody scum.’ He, as a black person himself, denies the black movement and the very pillars upon which the Palmares Foundation was built,” says Maria Machado, a history professor at the University of São Paulo specialized in the social history of slavery and race in Latin America, speaking to The Brazilian Report. “[Sérgio Camargo as the Palmares Foundation president] is truly a paradoxical situation.” 

An...