By SIMONY DOS ANJOS*
Together with Marielle, I died
I died yesterday! Many people died yesterday! In fact, every day thousands die! To be exact, every 23 minutes a young black man dies.
Maternal mortality among black women is higher than among white women. Homicides of black women grew by 22% between 2005 and 2015. A black woman is twice as likely to die as a victim of homicide today in Brazil.
Lesbocide (characterized by homicide or suicide of lesbian women, as a result of their sexuality) has been growing in the country. Marielle was a mother, black, lesbian, peripheral. She brought together so many intersections of social oppression that she was, in fact, the spokesperson for all of us, for all of us.
It wasn't by chance that she was a spokesperson, she became a representative, elected with 46.502 votes. She became a representative by building a beautiful career of empathy, dedication to others and denouncement against our executioners. She is the typical figure that meritocracy exalts: “look there she did it, stop crying for handouts".
In fact, she succeeded and, in no time, she stopped screaming for public policies for the historical reparation of what was the enslavement of black people in our country.
She broke with the hostile cords that surrounded her, and what happened to her? Mataram!
No! This is not by chance. For hundreds of years our flesh has been marked by the whip, misery and death.
They kidnapped us from our mother Africa, tore us from our land of Kings and Queens and forced us to produce wealth for rotten people. So rotten, it disgusts us.
Even with so much violence, so much inequality and lack of respect, we stayed alive, oh, how we stayed alive. They couldn't erase us, even with eugenic whitening policies. They criminalized our capoeira, our samba, our food, our beauty. But we're here, we're still here.
Marielle came from a strong and fighting people, she followed in the footsteps of her ancestry, she screamed, she loved, she protected. Fighting against police violence in the peripheries, against violence against women (lesbian, trans, cis, black, bi), against corruption schemes that are promoting a genocide of the black population!
She died, I died a little too, and every word written here was bathed in blood.
Blood that our ancestors spilled when they were enslaved; blood of children killed on the outskirts; blood of my people, of our people. However, there is hope, the blood of the black people is like a good seed, the one that bears 100 fruits for a seed.
We are so angry to see it spilled, that we move. Anger moves the world, more than fear paralyzes.
Yesterday, I died, but I rose again.
I was resurrected along with thousands of sisters in the streets shouting: Marielle, present! And indeed it is, today, and always will be.
There will always be a Marielle to scream, we will always scream. The biggest threat is not fear of death, it's the repulsion to live this life that they want to impose on us! For that, we say not! No to the genocide of the black population! For over 400 years we've turned our pain into a fight and they're not going to stop us now!
Sis Marielle, present!
* Simony of Angels is a Master's student in Education at USP.
