BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS DAY: AN ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL STRUGGLE
On November 20, Brazil celebrates “National Black Awareness Day”, with the aim of raising awareness of racial issues and promoting and valuing Afro culture in the country. From 2024, the date will become a national holiday. In practice, however, it takes much more than a simple holiday - especially when social and environmental agendas intersect.
Brazil's historical economic and social development was the result of a process of slavery and marginalization of the country's black community. Even today, the black population faces the consequences of this process: racism, less access to opportunities, lower wages and, of course, greater vulnerability to the impacts of environmental degradation.
Environmental racism is the term used to describe the inequality and disproportionality with which environmental degradation affects minorities, especially ethnic minorities. First coined in the 1980s, this term highlights the extent to which environmental and social issues converge and are interdependent.
Setting a date to raise awareness, reduce prejudice and strengthen the culture of a section of the population is necessary and important, but it is equally or more important to guarantee their safety (food, water, physical and psychological) in the face of environmental degradation.
As long as there are people on the margins of society, vulnerable and without access to minimum conditions of dignity, environmental issues will remain secondary, although they remain urgent.
I close with a provocation, a phrase from Brazilian activist Chico Mendes: Ecology without class struggle is gardening.
By Ana Letícia Ferro
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