LETTER FROM RIO
" Vamos? ! Let's go ! " Bubbling with impatience, Well Rodrigues leads his little troop towards the tram. On this resplendent Saturday at the start of summer, there are a dozen curious, mostly foreign, to follow this cheerful 26-year-old carioca guide in a green t-shirt for a tourist trip in Rio de Janeiro. But beware, at the end of the line, there is no beach or Sugar Loaf. Today's destination: "Little Africa", just north of the city center, in search of the black roots of the "wonderful city".
The employee of the tourism company Rio by Foot guides visitors to the slabs of the Unesco-listed Valongo quay, where 900,000 slaves were forcibly landed (out of the 4 million deported to Brazil), continuing with the old, disastrous "ebony" market of the Largo da Prainha to the Pedra do Sal square, the official birthplace of samba.
All under the watchful eye of the country's great "Afro" figures, sculpted or painted on the wall: the insurgent slave Zumbi, the ballerina Mercedes Baptista and, of course, Marielle Franco, Rio's municipal councilor, murdered in 2018.
Ambient racism
"Samba and resistance": this is the name of the circuit. "We have a political message", bears Well, himself mixed race. Combining historical details and political commentary, the latter recalls that Brazil was the "Last country to abolish slavery" in 1888, denounces the prevailing racism and the attitude of the public authorities, incapable of maintaining the precious Quai de Valongo, which is deteriorating visibly. "We want to show how Afro-Brazilian culture is treated, insists guide. These towers are sometimes tense. Sometimes people express their disagreements and even leave the circuit. "
But with Jair Bolsonaro in power, no question of giving up. The far-right president wants to end the advances of the past 20 years, driven by Lula and Dilma Rousseff. The two heads of state had appointed black personalities to important posts (such as the magistrate Joaquim Barbosa at the head of the Supreme Court), decreed a Day of black conscience (November 20), regularized dozens of "Quilombos" (traditional communities populated by descendants of slaves) … They had above all, instituted "racial quotas" in education, thus allowing a massive entry of blacks into university.
