Barred at the supermarket exit, searched at a bank branch, chased simply for running down the street. This is the story of many men and women in Brazil who attract suspicious eyes on a daily basis, wherever they go. These are people seen as suspicious not for their attitudes, but because they are who they are – or rather, because they have the color they are.
“The innocent category in Brazil is a category conceived in racial terms, it is always a racialized category”, says Dina Alves, a lawyer and researcher in social sciences.
No first episode of season two from the Entre Vozes podcast, Luciana Barreto presents stories of those whose lives were profoundly affected by being identified as a suspect. One of them is the influencer and rapper Jota Jr., who found himself surrounded by police officers in the middle of a race for an app when the driver suspected it was a robbery.
For 24-year-old musician Luiz Justino, this very well-planned “confusion” ended up in an unfair prison, from which he was only released when the orchestra he was participating in went to the penitentiary entrance to protest for his freedom. “There, they really saw that I was a musician. I was black, slum dweller, but I was a musician. He wasn’t a thief, he wasn’t there to steal anyone but people’s hearts.”
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(* Posted by Diego Toledo)
Reference: CNN Brasil
