On November 20, Brazilians — particularly black Brazilians — celebrate and remember liberator Zumbi dos Palmares, the Brazilian warrior who fought for the freedom of slaves in Brazil, Telesur reports.
Dos Palmares died in 1695, but he has gone down in history for his unwavering bravery in the battle for liberty and because his fight led to the creation of one of the Americas' first free states.
This year, the anniversary of dos Palmares' death was even more special: it fell on a newer holiday, Black Consciousness Day.
Black Consciousness Day is celebrated to draw attention to the struggles of black Brazilians, who make up roughly half of Brazil's population, and also to honor the cultural heritage and traditions of Brazil's black population.
The day was marked by parades, street festivals and special events.
The celebratory atmosphere was tempered, however, by acknowledgement of the troubles black Brazilians face.
Those troubles recently received international attention, The Rio Times reports. The United Nations has launched a new campaign in Brazil called Vidas Negras (Black Lives) modeled on the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I reaffirm the commitment of the United Nations team in Brazil to eliminate racism and racial discrimination. The Vidas Negras campaign is a call to action,” United Nations representative Niky Fabiancic said when the campaign launched.
"It is unacceptable that the fact of being black puts young people at risk of being killed,” Fabiancic added.
Vidas Negras hopes to put an end to the epidemic of violence against Brazil's black population.
A 2017 report, Atlas of Violence, published by Institute of Applied Economic Research, Ipea and the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, found that for every 100 men killed in Brazil, 71 are Black.
"Young and black males continue to be murdered each year as if they were in a war situation," the study noted.
Researchers have also found that a young, black man is killed every 23 minutes in Brazil.
Black Brazilians are also an economically disenfranchised group, Newsweek reports.
Nearly 70 percent of the richest 10 percent of Brazilians are white. 74 percent of the poorest 10 percent of Brazilians are black.
A Locomotiva study found that black Brazilian men with college degrees earn 29 percent less than their white counterparts; black women with college degrees earn 27 percent less than white women.
The Latin American Herald Tribune reports that the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE) found that 63 percent of Brazil's 13 million unemployed people are black. And according to the Globe and Mail, black Brazilians often find their employment opportunities limited to service industry jobs because of their skin color.
In his celebration of Black Consciousness Day, the Herald Tribune reports that Brazilian singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil took to social media to lament the “prejudice” that pervades his country as well as the “inequality specific to blacks.”
Nevertheless, Gil had hope for the future, writing, “Things have gotten better … there’s more cordiality, understanding, interracial interaction … in Brazilian society than in others.”
