In the public debate on important issues, it is necessary to know how to separate the polemicists from the polemicists. The first category is formed by the brave, who sincerely defend their arguments even against common sense, against the current. The second are those who create ripples where none exists, precisely to pretend they are going against the current.
At this moment when fake news reigns, polemicists are even more comfortable with shuffling academic citations and putting them at the service of conclusions they have already formed in advance. If their theories do not apply to the Brazilian reality, they will look for events in any other corner of the planet to serve as an example. A gambiarra here, another there, and go ahead.
Some time ago, the creators of controversies chose identity proposals as their target. Obviously, no idea should be shielded from contestation, as long as it is done with honesty and respect. And it is true that the discussion about identity is often held in a summary, truculent, simplistic way – nothing that cannot be resolved by the debate itself. Most of the time, the discussion is held at a high level.
The polemicists, however, are like Chacrinha: they did not come to explain, but to confuse. To that end, they even create labels for non-existent realities.
The newest example is “identitarian neo-racism”. A stilted name for the cascade of reverse racism.
According to its creator, we are under the threat of “black supremacism”
Laziness in rebutting this type of argument designed to place its author at the center of a false polemic is quickly overcome when one imagines the harm it can produce if it is popularized.
Quickly, it might be useful to make a few reminders to the unwary. Here are examples of black supremacy in Brazil today:
– According to the IBGE, among the poorest 10% in Brazil, 75% are black.
– By the same source, blacks also have supremacy in informal jobs – 47%, against 34% of whites.
– Black and brown population is also the majority among those who do not have access to sewage: 42.8% against 26.5%.
– Black supremacism, which was already large in the prison population, grew by 15%. In 2005, 58.4% of the prisoners in the country were black or brown; in 2019 this percentage rose to 66.7%.
– The theorist can also use another statistic: according to the NGO Justiça Global, among the children killed as a result of police actions in Rio’s favelas, 75% are black.
It would be possible to go on with an extensive list of items to exemplify black supremacy in these tragic circumstances in which whites have always been safe.
Now, when with great difficulty society moves to achieve a few victories (like most black students in public universities), ballroom animators appear to give arguments to the reactionaries.
One of the great concerns of this theorist is the widespread hatred against whites. As if the part of the population oppressed and violated for so many centuries needed some propaganda for that.
In fact, the Brazilian black movement is even too peaceful.
White that I am, I use my speaking position to say that reactions like that of the American producer HL Thompson, who knocked out a German tourist in a luxury hotel in Rio after being attacked with racist insults, are nothing more than self-defense.
But the polemicist can rest easy. In Brazil, racists and those who collaborate to maintain the oppression of the black population still suffer very little from the consequences of their actions.
