{"id":69632,"date":"2022-03-21T10:29:54","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T13:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=69632"},"modified":"2022-03-28T08:53:11","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T11:53:11","slug":"a-colonial-amefrican-wound-dna-provides-clues-of-black-and-indigenous-ancestry-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=69632","title":{"rendered":"A Colonial Amefrican Wound: DNA Tests Provide Clues of Black and Indigenous Ancestry in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This article is the final contribution to our award-winning<\/a>, year-long reporting project, Rooting Anti-Racism in the Favelas: Deconstructing Social Narratives About Racism in Rio de Janeiro<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Having undergone DNA ancestry tests, our Afro-Brazilian team members explored their roots, all the while affirming historical erasure.<\/em><\/p>\n

For the majority of the black Brazilian population, knowledge of your roots is attained solely through oral histories by family members going back two to three generations. In the Black Atlantic diaspora<\/a>, names and records of ancestors are lost when the oldest member of the family dies. Our oldest family members are the guardians of our history. When they die, so does the memory of these roots, of past generations. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Political cartoon by Carlos Latuff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The lack of knowledge about black and indigenous roots in Brazil is not a mere accident. It is the result of centuries of Portuguese colonialism\u2019s historical erasure<\/a>, which ripped people away from their histories, with lasting effects to this day. This erasure was perpetuated over the centuries by structural racism<\/a> with the smoking gun being the destruction of slavery archives<\/a>\u2014the records of the kidnapped and enslaved African population that landed in Brazil\u2014by order of Ruy Barbosa<\/a>, then Minister of Finance of the Republic of Brazil, in 1890.<\/p>\n

In Brazil, unlike in countries colonized by the English, Germans, and Dutch, the colonial strategy was to promote a type of racism through assimilation and denial of the existence of racial conflicts<\/a> by way of miscegenation. From this, the myth of Brazilian racial democracy was built, widely disseminated by the social, and not biological, interpretation that Brazilian race relations were adjusted by correcting the social distance between masters and slaves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A cross-section of the mockup of Brazilian slave ship Vigilante at the Barra Fort Naval Museum, in Salvador, Bahia. Involved in the illegal slave trade, the ship was captured by the British Navy off the African coast in 1822.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This complex set of historical contradictions is one of the reasons that explains the phenomenon of DNA testing in Brazil. In a country that has destroyed its official memory of black and indigenous slavery, the possibility of collecting a small amount of saliva, sending it to a laboratory through the mail, and shortly afterward, receiving an e-mail with a detailed map with the countries of origin of your ancestors, stirs curiosity and pokes the colonial wound of our amefricanidade<\/i> (in English, Amefricanity<\/a>). After all, who do I see when I look in the mirror?<\/p>\n

Amefricanity<\/a> is a term coined by L\u00e9lia Gonzalez<\/a>, one of the most important black female intellectuals in Brazil, to counter terms imposed by racist colonial language. In her view, Amefricanity makes an entire previously invisible descendancy, visible: not only of Africans brought by the slave trade<\/a>, but also of native peoples<\/a> who lived in the Americas long before Columbus.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, for L\u00e9lia Gonzalez recognizing ourselves as Amefricans deconstructs the myth of cordiality and racial democracy. It highlights the exposure of the slave system of miscegenation<\/a> and whitening<\/a>, built from racial and sexual violence against black women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Therefore, seeking this path of return among the Afro-diasporic population, DNA testing has become increasingly popular. One of the factors for this increase in popularity is the recent drop in prices. Now, companies like Genera<\/a> and MeuDNA<\/a> offer the test kit at a relatively accessible price in Brazil. The cost varies from R$199 to R$399 (US$40 to US$79) and payment can even be done in 12 interest-free installments on one’s credit card.<\/p>\n