São Paulo samba school faces backlash over “demonizing” police

Conservative lawmakers lambasted one of São Paulo’s top samba schools this week for portraying police officers as demons, in yet another move that shows the so-called “bullet caucus” is also into identity politics.

Vai-Vai, the most successful samba school in the history of São Paulo’s Carnaval competitions, hit the sambadrome on Saturday night with a parade that paid homage to Brazilian hip-hop.

“In the perfect beat, rap is my voice,” the lyrics say. “There’s hip-hop in my samba”.

Carnaval parades are organized in different sections, each with their own set of unique costumes. One of Vai-Vai’s sections this year had men dressed up as military riot police, holding nightsticks and shields, with their faces painted in red and donning large horns and wings. 

The section was named “Surviving in Hell,” after one of Brazilian hip-hop’s seminal albums, Sobrevivendo no inferno, released in 1997 by Racionais MC’s. The lyrics to Vai-Vai’s samba were named after one of the album’s most famous tracks, a denunciation of police brutality and racism entitled “Capítulo 4, Versículo 3.”

Associations of police officers — and the conservative lawmakers close to them — were quick to react. São Paulo police union Sindpesp issued a statement on Monday claiming that Vai-Vai had treated law enforcement “with scorn” by “demonizing the police.”

Federal lawmaker Capitão Augusto, a retired police officer from São Paulo and a member of the so-called “bullet caucus,” sent a letter to both Governor Tarcísio Nunes and Mayor Ricardo Nunes requesting Vai-Vai to be banned from receiving public funds next year. In the message, he wrote that the parade contributed towards creating “a negative image of security forces, at a time when recognition...