"Marcha das Mulheres Negras" | Brazil: For reparations and a good life

The Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU, "United Black Movement") was founded in 1978, at the height of the Brazilian military dictatorship. What were the conditions under which this happened?

It was more or less forbidden to talk about racism in Brazil. The military claimed that the "races" coexisted harmoniously. The MNU initially emerged as an anti-discrimination movement. Only after the murder of a young Black man in a police station did the MNU see itself as a place for Black self-organization. A formative experience was that, although all leftists were affected by the dictatorship, Black people were not treated like political prisoners. Therefore, we said very early on that every imprisoned person is a political prisoner. Systematic inequality and the lack of social policy are responsible for the fact that so many Black people are in prison.

State repression – police, judiciary and prisons – has played a central role in the Brazilian Black movement from the beginning?

Absolutely. A large proportion of Brazil's prison population is Black or brown, and that's why the fight over prisons is a central issue in the anti-racist movement. In São Paulo, for example, we founded AMPARAR, a non-governmental organization that organizes friends and relatives of prisoners. The abolitionist demand for prison abolition is very widespread here. There are also numerous groups fighting for different drug policies. Because the criminalization of drugs is the instrument used to incarcerate Black people.

Where does Black feminism stand? You're currently mobilizing for a "Black Women's March" on the capital, Brasilia.

Yes, the Black Women's March for Reparation and a Good Life (March das Mulheres Negras por Reparação e Bem Viver ) aims to bring one million women onto the streets at the end of November. It's the second march of its kind, following the one in 2015. And the issue of police and prisons plays an important role in the march as well. The number of women incarcerated in Brazil has increased sixfold in the last ten years.

In which historical tradition do you see these struggles?

When it was founded in 1978, the MNU was deeply inspired by the anti-colonial African liberation movements and the civil rights movement in the United States. At the same time, most of its founding members came from Marxist groups. They were young people influenced by figures like Malcolm X and the South African anti-apartheid movement. There were two main reasons for the founding of the MNU: the death of a 20-year-old Black man who had been arrested and tortured to death by the police for stealing fruit from the market, and the racist discrimination against a sports team that was banned from the pool at a club. The MNU's central demands have largely remained the same ever since: the fight against the specific oppression of Black women, for equal pay, an end to discrimination against Black people in the media, and international solidarity. I think the MNU also had quite a significant influence on the feminist movement in Brazil, which in the 1970s was primarily represented by white, middle-class women. Their most important demand was the integration of women into the labor market. For Black women, who had always been forced to work for wages, this was, of course, a joke. The MNU played a significant role in making texts by Black feminists like Angela Davis, Lélia Gonzalez, and Luiza Bairros known in the 1980s.

And what about struggles that go back further—that is, the resistance against the plantation economy? In Brazil, there is the tradition of quilombos—resistance villages founded by escaped slaves, some of which still exist today.

The quilombos are a very important point of reference for us. Even according to official figures, there are now 8,000 quilombos in Brazil with a population of more than one million people – across the entire country, from the border with Uruguay in the south to the Amazon in the north. During the almost four centuries of slavery, some quilombos were able to defend themselves with arms for many decades. But that wasn't the only form of resistance. For example, there were abolitionist societies that were founded to buy the freedom of Black people. These very different forms of resistance ensured that two-thirds of Black people were already free when slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888.

In Europe, a liberal anti-racism that emphasizes integration and representation and largely ignores material conditions has gained strength over the past decade. What demands are at the forefront of the Black movement in Brazil?

I believe the most important demand today is for the right to life. State power is so extreme, the everyday threat so great, that it permeates all areas. In this sense, for example, we don't speak of the climate crisis, but of environmental racism, because the poor Black population in the peripheries is much more affected by ecological destruction than the rich. I would say we have a broad understanding of anti-racism: We support quotas in the public and private sectors, but at the same time, we are concerned with public healthcare, education, and housing. An emblematic demand, which is also at the heart of the Women's March in November, is the demand for reparations. There are two main positions on this today: Some have calculated how much compensation each Black person is entitled to as a result of enslavement. But that is not the position of the MNU. We believe that no amount of money can offset the consequences of enslavement and its structural effects. For us, the focus is on holding the states that profited from enslavement accountable. Structural inequality must be changed – internationally between rich countries and Africa, and in the countries of the diaspora, the structural discrimination against Black people must be combated. Therefore, the motto of the Women's March is: for reparations and a good life.