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Abstract
How might we understand the current political formations that emerged from the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the parliamentary coup in Brazil? Despite the U.S. disavowal for human rights violations in foreign policies, the victory of explicitly anti-black, anti-female, anti-gay, anti-poor forces in both democracies seems to be part of the vociferous restructuring of global racial capitalism, apartheid enforced by law and police violence. The more conventional analysis is that the Brazilian coup and Trump's election represent a threat to electoral democracy. Within this perspective, the protests generated by the outcomes of electoral politics in the United States and Brazil aimed to counter the reproduction of white supremacy and racial capital. We propose an alternative reading: the political conflicts that emerged in the aftermath of both events illustrate democracy's strength and its fulfilling promise to maintain racial domination and the political grammar that authorizes its reproduction. If we consider the continuum of racial violence—from slavery to democracy—that permeated the human rights–oriented Obama and Rousseff administrations, why would we unquestionably accept that liberal democracy is the pathway to racial integration and to control anti-black violence and police terror in Brazil and the United States?
Acknowledgment
This article is dedicated to the ancestral and revolutionary abolitionist black mothers Marielle Franco (1979–2018) and Erica Garner (1990–2017).
Notes
1 Quotation taken from documentary video 2018 pilot by Rita Moreira Videos, “Caminhada Lésbica por Marielle,” August 9, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OTHoAT4TEw (accessed September 10, 2018).
2 See Joy James, “The Womb of Western Theory,” Carceral Notebooks 12, no. 1 (2016): 253–96.
3 Shaun King, “The Assassination of Human Rights Activist Marielle Franco Was a Huge Loss for Brazil—and the World,” The Intercept, March 16, 2018.
4 The October 2018 election of Brazil President-elect Jair Bolsonaro—known as the “Trump of the Tropics”—singles the rise of another authoritarian figure hostile to liberal democracy and avidly opposed to the rights of blacks, women, LGBTQ communities and intent on establishing “law and order” through restrictions or abolishment of abortion, affirmative action and civil rights, and secularism. See Nathan Gardels, “Brazil: The Latest Domino to Fall,” The Washington Post, November 2, 2018 (accessed November 5, 2018).
5 Dan Baum, “Legalize It All: How To Win the War on Drugs,” Harper’s Magazine, April 2016.
6 Correio Braziliense, “Obama fala sobre a crise politica no Brasil,” March 3, 2016, http://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/app/noticia/mundo/2016/03/23/interna_mundo,523831/obama-fala-sobre-a-crise-politica-do-brasil-durante-visita-a-argentina.shtml (accessed November 10, 2016).
7 White House, “The White House Press Release,” September 22, 2016, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/22/readout-vice-president-bidens-meeting-president-michel-temer-brazil (accessed November 10, 2016).
8 Tathagatan Ravindran and Charles R. Hale, “Rethinking the Left in the Wake of the Global ‘Trumpian’ Backlash,” Development and Change 48, no. 4 (2017): 834–44.
9 Charles R. Hale, Pamela Calla, and Leith Mullings, “Race Matters in Dangerous Times: A Network of Scholar-Activists Assesses Changing Racial Formations across the Americas—And Mobilizes against Renewed Racist Backlash,” NACLA Report on the Americas 49, no. 1 (2017): 86. Scholars argue that the current “shift” in hemispheric racial projects reflect an adjustment in post–World War II racial governance. See Howard Winant, The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 83.
10 João Costa Vargas, “Black Dis-identification: The 2013 protests, Rolezinhos, and Racial Antagonism in Post-Lula Brazil,” Critical Sociology 42, no. 5 (2013): 551–65.
11 Joy James, The New Abolitionists: (Neo) Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005); Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection (New York: Oxford UP, 1997); Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001).
12 Rachel Glickhouse, “Roundup: U.S.-Brazil Deals Forged during Rousseff's Washington Visit,” July 1, 2015, http://www.as-coa.org/articles/roundup-us-brazil-deals-forged-during-rousseffs-washington-visit (accessed November 10, 2016).
13 American Air Force Press Release, “Palleta Visits Brazil’s War Superior College,” April 25, 2012, http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=116089 (accessed January 10, 2014).
14 Alvite Ningthouja, “FIFA World Cup 2014: A Gateway to Israel-Brazil Defence Ties,” March 12, 2014, http://isssp.in/tag/israel-brazil-military-cooperation/ (accessed November 12, 2014); Marina Pomela, Defense Sector in Brazil, http://thebrazilbusiness.com/article/defense-sector-in-brazil (accessed November 15, 2016).
15 Patricia Mello, “Paramilitares americanos treinam policia brasileira para a copa,” Folha de S. Paulo, April 10, 2014, http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2014/04/1443261-paramilitares-americanos-treinam-policiais-brasileiros-para-a-copa.shtml(accessed May 12, 2014).
16 Moon-Kie Jung, “Constituting the US Empire-State and White Supremacy: The Early Years,” in State of White Supremacy: Racism, Governance, and the United States, edited by Moon-Kie Jung, Joao Costa Vargas, and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 1–26; Faye Harrison, “Global Apartheid, Foreign Policy, and Human Rights.” Souls 4, no. 3 (2002): 46–68; Joy James, “Introduction,” in Warfare in the American Homeland: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy, edited by Joy James (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007); Christen A. Smith, “Strange Fruit: Brazil, Necropolitics, and the Transnational Resonance of Torture and Death,” Souls 15, no. 3 (2013): 177–98.
17 Smith, “Strange Fruit”; Lesley Gill, The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).
18 Lesley Gill, The School of the Americas. See also School of Americas Watch, “The Impact of the SOA on Colombia,” January 8, 2013, http://www.soaw.org/about-the-soawhinsec/colombia/3470-the-impact-of-the-soa-in-colombia (access April 10, 2016).
19 Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública (Sao Paulo, 2017); Human Rights Watch, Lethal Force: Police Violence and Public Security in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (Executive Summary, Washington, DC, 2009).
20 Bob Barry and Jones Coulter, “Hundreds of Police Killings Are Uncounted in Federal States,” The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/hundreds-of-police-killings-are-uncounted-in-federal-statistics-1417577504 (accessed May 10, 2015).
21 Jamiles Lartey, “The Uncounted,” The Guardian, June 9, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries (accessed December 10, 2016).
22 International Amnesty, Bringing Human Rights Home: Chicago and Illinois, Torture and other Ill-Treatment (Executive Report, Washington, DC, 2014).
23 The Guardian, “The Disappeared,” February 2, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site (accessed January 10, 2015).
24 Otwin Marenin, “Police Training for democracy,” Police Practice and Research 5, no. 2 (2004): 107–23; Paul Chevigny, Edge of the Knife: Police Violence in the Americas (New York: New Press, 1995); Robert J. Kane and Michael D. White, Jammed Up: Bad Cops, Police Misconduct, and the New York City Police Department (New York: NYU Press, 2012).
25 Steven Martinot and Jared Sexton, “The Avant-Garde of White Supremacy,” Social Identities 9, no. 2(2003), 169–81; Jaime Amparo Alves. The Anti-Black City: Police Terror and the Struggle for Black Urban Life in Brazil (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2018).
26 See governor’s speech at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im2YKABgMNo (accessed February 12, 2016).
27 Raquel Luciana de Souza, “Ethnographic Notes from a War Zone: Surviving and Resisting,” LASA Forum 17, no. 2 (2017): 34–36.
28 Correio da Bahia, “Chacina com 12 mortos no Cabula foi planejada por PMs como vingança,” May 18, 2015, https://www.correio24horas.com.br/noticia/nid/chacina-com-12-mortos-no-cabula-foi-planejada-por-pms-como-vinganca/ (accessed July 2, 2015).
29 Correio da Bahia, “Familiares de mortos no Cabula fazem novo protesto contra ação da PM,” February 11, 2015, http://www.correio24horas.com.br/detalhe/noticia/familiares-de-mortos-no-cabula-fazem-novo-protesto-contra-acao-da-pm/?cHash=f5356da0bfafdaaa656366bd5e53931e (accessed September 16, 2015).
30 Phillip Bump, “How Ferguson Happened,” August 18, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/08/18/how-ferguson-happened/ (accessed October 10, 2014).
31 Department of Justice, “Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department,” March 14, 2015, http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf (accessed April 14, 2015).
32 Ibid.
33 See Judith Butler, “Endangered/Endangering: Schematic Racism and White Paranoia,” in Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising, edited by Robert Gooding-Williams (New York: Rutledge, 1993), 15.
34 For the “pacification” program and its racialized outcomes, see João H Costa Vargas, “Taking Back the Land: Police Operations and Sport Megaevents in Rio de Janeiro,” Souls 15, no. 4 (2013): 275–303.
35 Aluisio Freire, “Cabral Defende Aborto Contra Violência no Rio,” Portal G1 Online, April 15, 2014; for a discussion on the criminalization of black women’s reproductive rights in the United States see Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Vintage Books, 1999).
36 Faye Harrison, “Global Apartheid, Foreign Policy, and Human Rights,” Souls 4, no. 3 (2002): 46–68. For the place of black women within the racial regimes of U.S. and Brazilian security, see, respectively, Hazel Carby, “Policing the Black Woman's Body in an Urban Context,” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 4 (1992): 738–55 and Luciane de Oliveira Rocha, “Black Mothers’ Experiences of Violence in Rio de Janeiro,” Cultural Dynamics 24, no. 2 (2012): 59–73.
37 This sexualized/raced/gendered dynamics of security manifests in global south cities’ use as militarized sites. Soldiers and contractors from the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan self-medicate post-traumatic disorder through sex tourism in Brazil and Latin America. See Sara Miller Llana, “El escándalo del Servicio Secreto arroja luz sobre el turismo sexual en América Latina,” The Christian Science Monitor, April 12, 2012, https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2012/0417/Secret-Service-scandal-sheds-light-on-sex-tourism-in-Latin-America (accessed May 10, 2015).
38 Kimberle Crenshaw and Andrea Ritchie, #Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, African American Policy Forum, February 5, 2015, http://www.aapf.org/sayhernamereport/ (accessed May 10, 2015).
39 Kelly Hayes, “Protesters Demand Justice for Sandra Bland,” Truth-Out, July 29, 2015, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32130-say-her-name-protesters-in-chicago-demand-justice-for-sandra-bland (accessed Dec 10, 2016).
40 InterAmerican Commission of Human Rights, “CIDH apresenta caso sobre o Brasil à Corte IDH,” May 7, 2015, http://www.oas.org/pt/cidh/prensa/notas/2015/069.asp (accessed June 12, 2015).
41 Crenshaw and Ritchie, #Say Her Name.
42 Ibid. U.S. black women account for approximately 20% of the unarmed victims of police killings; percentages of police shootings/killings of blacks is 94% male to 6% female. In New York City, black and Latina women accounted for 80.9% of all women stopped by the New York Police Department in a given year.
43 Sérgio Carrara and Adriana Vianna, “‘Tá lá o corpo estendido no chão…’: A violência letal contra travestis no município do Rio de Janeiro,” Physis: Revista de Saúde Coletiva 16 (2006): 233–49.
44 Debora Silva, City University of New York-Staten Island, May 2016.
45 Joy James, “The Womb of Western Theory,” Carceral Notebooks 12, no. 1 (2016): 253–96.
46 Thandara Santos, “Somos Todas Cláudia,” Blog da Marcha Mundial das Mulheres, https://marchamulheres.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/somos-todas-claudia/ (accessed November 19, 2015).
47 Rita Moreira Videos, “Caminhada Lesbica por Marielle.”
48 Aretha Franklin, “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” January 13–14, 1972, with James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir.
49 Joy James, The New Abolitionists, xvii.
50 See Charles Preston, “Mother on a Mission Caption: Dorothy Holmes Celebrates the Life of Her Slain Son through Activism,” Chicago Defender, May 10, 2018, https://chicagodefender.com/2018/05/10/mother-on-a-mission-caption-dorothy-holmes-celebrates-the-life-of-her-slain-son-through-activism-and-community-engagement-mother-on-a-mission-by-charles-preston-defender-contributing-writer-ever/ (accessed September 30, 2018); and Brittany Reyes, “Devastated Mother Looks for Answers, Has ‘Zero Percent Confidence’ in CPD Finding Killer of Courtney Copeland,” Homicide Watch Chicago, April 18, 2016, http://chicago.homicidewatch.org/2016/04/18/devastated-mother-looks-for-answers-has-zero-percent-confidence-in-cpd-finding-killer-of-courtney-copeland/ (accessed September 30, 2018).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Joy James
Joy James is the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor at Williams College. As a radical abolitionist and scholar, she has edited anthologies on political imprisonment, including: The New Abolitionists; Imprisoned Intellectuals; Warfare in the American Homeland; and The Angela Y. Davis Reader. James is the author of Resisting State Violence and Seeking the “Beloved Community.” She is completing a work on the “captive maternal” and democracy.
Jaime Amparo Alves
Jaime Amparo Alves is the author of The Anti-Black City: Police Terror and Black Urban Life in Brazil (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2018). He is an Afro-Brazilian activist, journalist, and social anthropologist. Currently, he is an affiliate researcher at the Centro de Estudios Afrodiasporicos/Universidad Icesi, in Colombia.