{"id":38619,"date":"2017-10-02T09:59:16","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T12:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=38619"},"modified":"2017-10-03T09:14:22","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T12:14:22","slug":"racism-keeps-getting-worse-all-in-the-name-of-defending-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=38619","title":{"rendered":"Racism Keeps Getting Worse, All in the Name of Defending Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The scene was Rio de Janeiro, the month was July and Black July<\/a> was underway\u2014an event that held meetings across the city to discuss racism in its different forms. Meanwhile, in the space of less than thirty minutes I experienced two scenes in downtown Rio<\/a> that left me perplexed. Both scenes boiled down to a common goal: protecting capital.<\/p>\n

The first scene was in front of the Cinel\u00e2ndia<\/a> Starbucks, near the metro exit. I was standing there, looking at my phone, and getting organized for a meeting I had later on Rua M\u00e9xico, when an elderly black man, homeless<\/a> and with a visible problem with his leg came up and asked me for some money to buy lunch. He was having trouble speaking and was almost falling on top of me, though that didn\u2019t bother me at all. For ideological reasons I always give to homeless people when they ask me for money\u2014more on this later. I had hardly got my hands on my wallet when the Starbucks security guard approached me to say that the old man couldn\u2019t come into the store. I was doubly surprised by this episode because, as well as having no intention of taking the old man for one of their expensive coffees, no one had actually said anything to this security guard about us. And, of course, if we had wanted to go into the store, we would have done so<\/a>! There\u2019s no law that could have stopped us.<\/p>\n

I politely told the security guard that the store was a rat hole and that the old man deserved much better. I checked that the old man was okay and then left for my meeting.<\/p>\n

I still had a bit of time to kill so I decided to wait at Nisa Caf\u00e9, which is on Rua M\u00e9xico in front of the US Consulate. While I was waiting, two young black boys came up to me and asked me to buy them a snack. But the security in these places is intense, especially if you\u2019re black. They need to protect at any cost the image of their establishments from the presence of black people. The boys hadn\u2019t even finished their sentence before two security guards came to kick them out<\/a>. At this point I was still angry about the scene with the elderly man so I got even more annoyed with this same old situation. When I said loudly that I was going to pay for some food for the boys, the security guards backed off.<\/p>\n

I talked to the boys while they waited for their food. I spoke loudly. I wanted the security guards to hear what I was saying. I wanted the guards to know that the boys had the right to be there! Even so, the boys weren\u2019t feeling comfortable in the caf\u00e9, thinking it quite elegant when really it was nothing special. When you have modest references regarding the places that you\u2019re allowed to go to, any appearance of elegance hits you hard. And the security guards needed to maintain this appearance, exactly by not giving them the right to be there.<\/p>\n

While talking to the boys I discovered that they were friends and that they were going to go back to Caxias<\/a> (in Rio\u2019s metropolitan area) at the end of the day. Downtown Rio was a big world for them; it was where they would have better chances of making a bit of money. They both kept their eyes low and when they glanced at the security guards they looked scared. They whispered to each other about the guards and the possible aggression they could face from them. Possibilities that were based on their personal experiences of the city\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It was hard not to think that this same logic resulted in the Candel\u00e1ria massacre<\/a>. It was fear of young street kids<\/a> that motivated the massacre that took place while they were sleeping. At the time, some people celebrated the massacre. They said that the kids had committed petty crimes and that they were dirtying the image of the area and disrupting business. We justify a lot in the name of business. We shouldn\u2019t be surprised that the \u201cLapa, Centro and M\u00e9ier Presente<\/a>\u201d programs (regular police patrols aimed to increase security in those neighborhoods) are sponsored by Fecom\u00e9rcio<\/a>, a business federation with a big interest in keeping profits high and black people far away. No surprise that the same federation is also behind the Disque Den\u00fancia, a crime reporting program.<\/p>\n

These two episodes are nothing new. They are the fruits of an old project called \u201cthe Marvelous City,\u201d a project that involves forced removals from favelas<\/a> and the extermination of the black population<\/a>. In recent years another name emerged\u2014\u201cthe Olympic City<\/a>\u201d\u2014but the policies are the same. This process started during the Pan-American Games<\/a>, with massacres<\/a>, evictions<\/a> and clean-ups. The difference is that now businesses are with the government and participating actively in the city creation project.<\/p>\n

We are entering into a new phase in Rio with the army on the streets<\/a> and local newspapers choosing to cover crime in a new section called \u201cWar in Rio.\u201d<\/a> This is a war to protect those who already have protection and those who don\u2019t suffer threats. It\u2019s not the Rio citizens who are being protected. It\u2019s the Olympics investments that are being protected. The war in Rio isn\u2019t against drugs, it\u2019s against poor people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to my friends who organized Black July, any society in which street kids are seen to be \u201cdisrupting business\u201d is a failed society. And I agree.<\/p>\n

Do you remember how I said earlier that for ideological reasons I always give money to homeless people when they ask? I don\u2019t do this just because I believe what they tell me. I do it because I want to show them that a beggar is not merely an obstruction that deserves to be dealt with by security guards or waiters. We help to justify the actions of those security guards and waiters because we treat beggars as obstructions that get in the way of our vibe. We\u2019re reinforcing in another sense what\u2019s already going on in public policy in Rio: security projects<\/a> don\u2019t protect people\u2014they protect the circulation, albeit restricted, of capital. The \u201cLapa Presente\u201d program had sponsorship from Fecom\u00e9rcio. The UPP program received a large investment<\/a> from the EBX Group, chaired by tycoon Eike Batista.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not fool ourselves. The attitudes that exclude black people from circulating freely and obstruct their empowerment by blocking their access to the city, reflect and justify private investments in massacres and security projects that hurt people and protect capital.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thain\u00e3 de Medeiros<\/a> is a museologist and journalist, born in Complexo da Penha. He has lived in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o for four years. He\u2019s part of Coletivo Papo Reto<\/a>, a media collective that uses audiovisual material as a way of disputing narratives about favelas.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas The scene was Rio de Janeiro, the month was July and Black July was underway\u2014an event that held meetings across the city to discuss racism in its different forms. Meanwhile, in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":38622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1328,1331,328,336],"tags":[1162,2468,168,1606,1396,694,516,203,2466,1781,558,1189,520],"writer":[1936],"translator":[1401],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-by-community-contributors","9":"category-opinion-2","10":"category-understanding-rio","11":"category-violations","12":"tag-army-occupation","13":"tag-candelaria-massacre","14":"tag-centro","15":"tag-coletivo-papo-reto","16":"tag-criminalization-of-poverty","17":"tag-duque-de-caxias","18":"tag-homeless","19":"tag-inequality","20":"tag-julho-negro","21":"tag-opinion-2","22":"tag-prejudice","23":"tag-racism","24":"tag-solidarity","25":"writer-thaina-de-medeiros","26":"translator-sarah-jacobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38619"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=38619"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=38619"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=38619"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=38619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}