A slow and silent violence: institutional racism and a Black Activist’s work in São Paulo (1900-1930)

Abstract

This article employs biographical methods and critical fabulation to illustrate the numerous ways racism shaped Black labor experiences in early twentieth century Sa?o Paulo. Focusing on the work of a leading Black Mobilization figure, Frederico Baptista de Souza, it first shows how the Black press was a principal organ for engaging racism in the world of labor. Black journalists chronicled the efforts of diverse groups—ranging from domestic laborers to civil servants—in a time when endeavors to erase Black contributions to society proliferated. Second, by juxtaposing Souza’s public discussions of racial issues with his private work experience we gain a more complete perspective on how racism affected labor. As a security guard for the city’s law school, Souza was responsible for patrolling the school grounds. During this process he daily encountered the remains of Jacinta Maria de Santana, a Black woman whose quasi-mummified body was publicly displayed in a classroom. For nineteen years Souza bore witness while the school’s white pupils and professors humiliated the woman’s mutilated body. The subsequent silence of this personally successful and politically active Black man was by design. The potential reprisals for challenging this wrong were too grave for the young Black laborer and his family. The relative privilege he held as a civil servant would not protect him from the deep-seated racism of Brazilian institutions that would reflexively silence dissent. In sum, Souza’s experiences give us a greater understanding of the dynamics of racism in the realm of labor during his era; they also offer us insights into the long history of silent, institutional racism in post-abolition Brazil.