Social media in Brazil burns through a new cause célèbre on more or less a daily basis, but one controversy from last week spoke directly to the heart of the country’s persistent and mounting social and financial inequalities.
In a column for newspaper O Globo, entitled “Rio de Janeiro is still beautiful,” publicist Washington Olivetto told the story of his son’s recent vacation to Brazil’s second-largest city, during which Mr. Olivetto sought to “undo the terrible image” the country suffers from abroad.
Indeed, Rio de Janeiro has never stopped being “beautiful” for the wealthy. Mr. Olivetto pompously described his son’s jaunts to the city’s most expensive restaurants, sightseeing with celebrities, and being looked after by his nanny who “became part of the family.”
Unsurprisingly, the column was poorly received. Social media users pointed out the text’s glaring hypocrisy, noting that the cost of a basic basket of food necessities in Brazil now exceeds the minimum wage and that prices of staples such as milk and coffee have increased by almost 100 percent in the last year.
In Brazil, the economic degeneration caused by the Covid pandemic, high food inflation, and the lack of public policies to reduce inequality have created a...
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