{"id":23091,"date":"2015-07-15T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=23091"},"modified":"2016-06-12T18:58:08","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T21:58:08","slug":"fed-up-a-rant-from-the-favela-to-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=23091","title":{"rendered":"Fed Up! A Message from the Favela to the World, by Alem\u00e3o’s Raull Santiago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The original text was published in Portuguese by community reporter and activist\u00a0Raull Santiago<\/a>,\u00a0on his Facebook page<\/a> following the\u00a0announcement that the UPP<\/a> police will set up armored police stations from which they can shoot out, like tanks<\/a>, in his community, and amidst the national debate<\/a> on lowering the age of criminal responsibility. Raull is an organizer of the\u00a0Coletivo Papo Reto<\/a> media collective in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>\u00a0and was recently made a favela-based correspondent for Brazil’s national news program\u00a0Globo News<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m fed up with the ?#@*&%!\u00a0chit-chat that goes on about what is a \u201cfavela<\/a>,\u201d while in the real favela, theory and practice is to survive.<\/p>\n

Fed up with hearing\u00a0empty speeches and seeing another reality, of reading or watching news that doesn\u2019t even tell 10% of the truth.<\/p>\n

Fed up with seeing, in the territory where I was raised, the invisible castle of drug trafficking swaying but still firm, while reinforced concrete walls, armored, rise and turn my place into a barracks, police quarters, who knows, in the name of public security that includes everyone, except those of us who are within this ring of containment of the popular\u00a0classes.<\/p>\n

Fed up seeing my friends and young people I know in alleyways, up to their teeth with weapons\u00a0of all calibers, surviving there in the darkness, waiting for the next situation that will put their life at risk, arrest their body or remove\u00a0their chance at survival\u00a0once and for all. Who am I in this world to say something about the choices of others, but whenever possible, I tell them\u00a0that there are other paths<\/a> and I conclude with one: God protects you, brother. Although many times I catch myself thinking what is the role of God in this place and the lives of the people here.<\/p>\n

Fed up with lies, in a society that does not have enough schools for everyone, education for everyone, healthcare for everyone and principally JOBS for everyone, while the [politicians’] speeches say otherwise.<\/p>\n

Fed up with seeing a bunch of uninformed pansies\u00a0asking for a reduction<\/a>\u00a0in the age of criminal responsibility<\/a>\u00a0without knowing anything\u00a0about the reality that goes on\u00a0beyond anything anyone hears. A cruel reality that funnels, that judges, that condemns and executes in diverse\u00a0ways youth\u00a0from the periphery, the favela, the ghetto, the agglomeration<\/a>, the quilombo<\/a>, with the excuse of a stupid\u00a0war on\u00a0drugs<\/a>, which masks the extermination of those who have been labeled of lesser value<\/a>. Those who can die, who are the numbers that increase the statistics and also the pain, longing, tears, and destroy\u00a0life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s messed\u00a0up to look around and see the majority applaud progress that does not exist, while I see a huge step back.<\/p>\n

It’s all\u00a0messed up, the hotplate\u00a0is too hot and the sea is not for fish.<\/p>\n

You know how it is, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that my neighborhood makes me pay if I stay on the defensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

My commitment to myself is not to deceive myself and never to lose the capacity to deeply\u00a0observe what\u00a0I live.<\/p>\n

The favela is us, and that says a lot.<\/p>\n

The favela does not fear the City, but the City fears the favela. It has always been this way, the big house fearful of slave quarters<\/a> full of people who, in its opinion, are inferior<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I am fed up with seeing the blood of the poor spill for nothing. The favela does not have a stray bullet<\/a>. We are killing ourselves<\/a>. Let us take our finger off the trigger, look through the sight and notice in front of us a mirror: we are aiming at ourselves, brothers, and that\u2019s what they want, to see us \u201cpoor, locked-up, or dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

But no, we’re going to change this!<\/p>\n

The people have the strength and the favela are the people who make this city work!<\/p>\n

To fight is necessary and the plantation owner is afraid because he understands the strength of the quilombo!<\/p>\n

Today I was walking through an alley and I saw a bro\u00a0in this situation\u2026\u00a0Should I say it\u2019s his fault? No way! The family is poor, humble, and survives\u2026 But in advertisements they\u2019re saying that he will only be somebody with the right expensive clothes, the right shoes, the right watch, the right car\u2026\u00a0In the meantime his mother and father are at work in the shop, in construction, at\u00a0the madame’s house watching her children while her\u00a0own child\u00a0is\u00a0here.<\/p>\n

To throw the blame on him and say he has a choice, looking from my comfortable position is easy.\u00a0But he is there in the alley now and whether he’ll live through another day is uncertain.<\/p>\n

But I also know, this doesn\u2019t matter to you, right? It’s not your problem. Keep fooling yourself!<\/p>\n

See Raull Santiago and the media collective Papo Reto, recently profiled in The New York Times Magazine<\/a><\/em> and also in\u00a0Fusion<\/a>, which produced this video:<\/h3>\n