The Inner City and the Favela: Transnational Black Politics

1 Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatísticas (IBGE); Marcelo Baumann Burgos, `Dos parques proletários ao favela-bairro: as políticas públicas do Rio de Janeiro', in Alba Zaluar and Marcos Alvito (eds), Um Século de Favela (Rio de Janeiro, Editora Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 1999).

2 In the Brazilian context, I understand `black' to mean race, not colour. Using ethnographic work in one of Rio's favelas, Robin Sheriff makes the argument that while, for many of the inhabitants of such poor communities, there are many terms to describe one's appearance (for example, moreno, pardo, mulato, jambo), there are only two true racial categories: black and white. See his Dreaming Equality: colour, race, and racism in urban Brazil (New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 2001), p. 45.

3 See Thomas H. Holloway, Polícia no Rio de Janeiro: repressão e resistência numa cidade do sećulo XIX (Rio de Janeiro, Editora Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 1997) and Jorge da Silva, Violência e Racismo no Rio de Janeiro (Niterói, Editora da Universidade Federal Fluminense, 1998).

4 Information for this paragraph is derived from Burgos, op. cit., pp. 28—31. Another singular aspect of the Favela Workers' Coalition was that it included mostly people of African descent. The his/herstories of the importance of black consciousness in workers' organisations — or among favela workers — are yet to be recorded. I would like to suggest, however, that the contemporary favela organisations I analyse here are attempting to develop the sense of belonging to the favela in conjunction with an explicit, positive reaffirmation of blackness.

5 See Alba Zaluar, A Máquina e a Revolta (São Paulo, Brasiliense, 1985), p. 66; Maisa Mendonça and Medea Benjamin, Benedita (Rio de Janeiro, Mauad, 1997), p. 53; see also Janice Perlman, O Mito da Marginalidade (Rio de Janeiro, Paz e Terra, 1977).

6 For the classic study on the manipulation of clientelistic relationships among Rio's poor, see Zaluar, op. cit.; see also Mendonça and Benjamin, op. cit., p. 54.

see also Garry Webb, Dark Alliance: the CIA, the Contras, and the crack cocaine explosion ( New York, Seven Stories Press , 1999).

8 William I. Robinson provides an insightful analysis of the impact of neo-liberal globalisation policies and their connection with the increase in inequality, polarisation, impoverishment and police brutality in Latin American countries, including Brazil, in `Latin America and global capitalism', Race & Class (Vol. 40, nos 2/3, 1998/1999), pp. 111-131.

9 See Alba Zaluar, Condomínio do Diabo (Rio de Janeiro, Editora Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 1994).

10 In Jacarezinho, for example, it is estimated that those involved in the drug trade do not exceed 100 people. As Jacarezinho has a population of over 150,000, the proportion of those involved with drugs is 0.07 per cent.

11 For an analysis of the political motivations behind Operaćão Rio, see Luis Eduardo Soares, Violência e Política no Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, ISER, 1996).

12 Human Rights Watch/Americas, Police Brutality in Urban Brazil ( New York, HRW , 1997), p. 33.

13 For further description and analysis of CAPA and CSGT, see João H. Costa Vargas, Blacks in the City of Angels' Dust (Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, San Diego, 1999).

14 CAPA report, 1989—93, undated.

15 Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power: the politics of liberation in America ( New York, Random House , 1967), p. xi.

16 In 1979, after discovering that CAPA had been infiltrated by police agents, its members, together with those of other progressive organisations that had also detected and documented the presence of spies in their headquarters, sued the Los Angeles Police Commission for violation of their constitutional rights to assembly, to privacy and to association. In 1983, the 131 plaintiffs, juridically assisted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), accepted a $1.8 million settlement. The plaintiffs also imposed a list of nine resolutions upon the city bureaucracy and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). It was agreed that the California Supreme Court would have jurisdiction over the settlement agreement and thus regulate and be a guarantor against future spying. In 1986, after being beaten by Pasadena police officers and losing the sight of an eye, Zinzun won a $1.2 million lawsuit against the city. In July 1994, Zinzun was awarded $512,500 after a dispute with the LAPD's second-in-command, Assistant Chief Robert L. Vernon. While Zinzun was campaigning for the Pasadena Board of City Directors in 1989, Vernon had accused Zinzun of terrorist acts. For an analysis of various lawsuits waged by CAPA members against the LAPD, see Vargas, op cit., chapter 6.

Ward Churchill, ` “To disrupt, discredit and destroy”: the FBI's secret war against the Black Panther Party' in Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas (eds), Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party ( New York, Routledge , 2001).

18 Yusuf Jah and Sister Shah'Keyah, Uprising: Crips and Bloods tell the story of America's youth in the crossfire ( New York, Scribner , 1995).

19 Los Angeles Times (17 June 1992), p. B1.

20 CSGT, `Fund for a new L.A.', proposal, December 1994, p. 1.

21 CSGT, `Statement of economic development', undated, p. 3.

22 Ibid. This proposal is an obvious alternative to Rebuild Los Angeles (RLA), a nonprofit corporation that embodied the revitalisation programme launched in May 1992 by Mayor Tom Bradley following that year's rebellion in South Central LA. Even though RLA spoke the language of public-private partnership, the initiative was clearly corporate-minded, dominated by representatives of major companies and closed to public participation. In the end, the market-driven model that structured RLA failed to provide enough adequate jobs. See The Labour/Community Strategy Center, Reconstructing Los Angeles — and U.S. Cities — from the Bottom Up (Los Angeles, 1996).

The urgency of such demands became even clearer as the Rampart scandal erupted. The scandal began when LAPD officer Rafael A. Perez was arrested on 25 August 1998, on suspicion of stealing cocaine from the LAPD headquarters. In September 1999, Perez pleaded guilty to stealing eight pounds of cocaine. He agreed with a confidential plea agreement according to which he was expected to receive a reduced sentence on the drug charges in exchange for identifying other police officers involved in crimes and misconduct. Twenty officers were subsequently relieved of duty, suspended without pay, fired or resigned. See Lou Cannon, `One bad cop', The New York Times Magazine (1 October 2000), p. 32.

Jerome G. Miller, Search and Destroy: African-American males in the criminal justice system ( Cambridge, Cambridge University Press , 1996).

Julia Sudbury `Other Kinds of Dreams': Black women's organizations and the politics of transformation ( London, Routledge , 1998).

see also Sheriff, op. cit.

Luiz Eduardo Soares, Meu Casaco de General: quinhentos dias no front da segurança pública do Rio de Janeiro (São Paulo, Cia das Letras, 2000).

28 It is not only the local military police that is guilty of these practices. On 7 September 2002, Mr Abreu, 34, was arrested by the federal police. Newspaper photographers documented the event. He was taken into custody without any bruises and, twenty-four hours later, was found dead from head injuries in the city morgue. O Dia (11 September 2002).

29 It is intriguing that, although 76 per cent of people polled in Rio and São Paulo believe policemen are active in death squads (Human Rights Watch), there is little if any support for organisations and events that protest police brutality outside the favelas. Perhaps, while there is recognition of the brutality of the police, there is also awareness that this very brutality is a vital support for social and racial hierarchies.

Sabrina Petry, `Morro carioca cria condomínio-favela', Folha de S. Paulo (25 July 2001), p. C1.

31 Ibid.

32 Recent studies have shown that, in spite of myriad Brazilian racial classifications, greater social and economic differences exist between whites and non-whites than between non-whites. Racial solidarity among Afro-Brazilians, therefore, has sociological and historical justifications that run counter to the prevailing myth of the racial democracy. See, for example, Edward Telles, `Ethnic boundaries and political mobilization among African Brazilians: comparisons with the US case', in Michael Hanchard (ed.), Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil ( Durham, NC, Duke University Press , 1999).

33 The work of Cedric Robinson, in this regard, is of vital importance for those of us involved with the theory and praxis of black diasporic politics of transformation. See his Black Marxism: the making of the black radical tradition ( Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press , 2000 [1983])