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Brazzil Online Magazine
July 2006
Analysis

Black Brazilian Youth Confront Diaspora Intellectuals

II CIAD conference in Bahia

An emotional speech from a young audience member, articulating with great passion the frustrations, skepticism and fears of Black youth in Brazil, galvanized Brazilian Black youth attending a panel discussion that had to that point been highlighted by the hip-hop Black Baptist delivery of remarks by noted African-American author, activist and intellectual Michael Eric Dyson.

Phillip Wagner

Michael Eric Dyson's contribution had registered the only standing ovation among the distinguished panel members, which included renown Afro-Brazilian Black movement architect Joćo Jorge Rodrigues of Grupo Cultural Olodum, Brazilian singer and composer Toni Garrido, Helder Malauene of the Foundation for Community Development in Mozambique and Denise Campbell from the Canadian Committee of National Action for the Condition of Women.

The panel topic, focusing on "New Cultural Expressions" in Africa and the Diaspora drew an extraordinarily young audience relative to other presentations at the conference. The interplay and exchange among panelists and between panelists and the audience was open and direct, if generally respectful.

Revolutionary Rhetoric Ignites Dialogue

Joćo Jorge (photo to the left) echoed the Black anger reflected in his highly regarded contribution to the 1990s text "Black Brazil; Culture, Identity and Social Mobilization," edited by Larry Crook and Randal Johnson, suggesting that if dramatic progress would not soon be realized "the streets should run red with blood from revolution." But the young music composer and singer Garrido, though clearly awed to be sharing the panel with Rodrigues, argued that violence was not the answer.

Garrido (photo below right, facing Campbell), noting that he was adopted, offered the floor to his white brother to explain a philosophy to which he also subscribes. The explanation was delayed however, when the protest of an audience member - apparently unaware that Ricardo Garrido had also been invited to participate on the panel and deferred in order to avoid giving voice to "too many Garrido's" - interrupted the proceedings.

The elder brother, Ricardo, later offered his explanation: "We now know that all humans originated from Africa," he said. "The fact that some members of our species migrated to other locations and climates, which produced variations in physical appearance including differences in skin color, hair and so forth cannot change that. If blood is spilled in the streets," he noted, "African blood will be spilled" regardless of the color of the skin of those who bleed since we all have our origins in the African continent.

While articulating the overwhelming challenges facing Black youth in her own country, Jamaican-born Campbell, who describes herself as "Senegalese at heart," asserted that "energy is coming from young people ... it just needs to be supported."

Dyson later complemented these words, chiding the elder generation for always failing to recognize that "part of the journey toward self-love" - which he cited as essential to the advance of Black unity - "is the permission we give our children to experiment with their identities."

Dyson Set the Stage for Youth Confronting Power

Dyson spoke eloquently to, and was well-received by, the young Black Brazilian audience about the "tragic rejection of the best tradition of the struggle for freedom" in the African Diaspora, including Brazil, which is "the fact of African people losing limbs laboring for the 'bling bling,' the gold and diamonds" extracted from African mines. His references to and recital of hip-hop lyrics, infused with the passion of his Black Baptist roots seemed to liberate the energy of a previously sedate audience.

It was within the frame of the energy generated by Dyson's delivery that a young Brazilian woman named Sueli, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties, rose to challenge the conference organizers and panelists to explain the justification of their expenditures on the conference absent direct investment in the Black youth of Brazil. "How much of this money is going to our Black youth?" she petitioned.

A spellbound auditorium listened as Sueli protested the social depravity of disproportionately incarcerating Black Brazilian males and demanded to know what opportunities - what jobs - will be realized by Black youth in Brazil as a result of the convocation.

Photo: One of a number of Black youth voicing concerns and frustrations at a II CIAD panel discussion taking place in historic Pelouriho in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Salvador, Brazil's first capital, was the major disembarkation point for African slaves in Brazil.

When Sueli completed her address to the panel the room erupted in a roar of applause that lasted for some minutes. Other young Black Brazilians preceded and followed Sueli, expressing similar frustrations. Black Brazilian youth at CIAD II in Bahia have served notice that more than words must come from international assemblies celebrating the African Diaspora.

About the author: Phillip Wagner is a longtime contributor to Brazzil Magazine, the founder of Rhythm of Hope in Brazil at http://www.rhythmofhope.org and currently an Assistant Instructor in the Department of African-American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University, where he is pursuing a second post-graduate degree. Phillip has extensive Brazil related personal web-pages at http://www.iei.net/~pwagner/brazilhome.htm and can be reached via email at pwagner@iei.net.