Manuel Querino is known as the father of Afro-Brazilian history. Many countries have a history of seeing Africans and their descendants as savages, animals, and a sort of blight that will damage societies and cultures. This damaging and erroneous ideology persists in modern times.
Querino posited that Africans had a "civilizing" effect. For context, his comments were made in response to the government-funded program of bringing immigrants to Brazil to civilize the country by breeding out "Africaness." He pushed back against the idea that those who came from Africa were incapable of "sophisticated" work by highlighting the many customs, traditions, artistry, and overall navigation of society of African people and their descendants. While he was a champion of Afro-Brazilian identiy and significance, he remains largely obscure in history.
Querino's belief that Africans are central to the identity of Brazil contrasts sharply with the ideas of Gilberto Freyre regarding race in the country.
Freyre felt that Brazil was a mixed, "racist-free" nation. Querino spoke in great detail about the contributions of Africans, the richness of their culture, and the positive aspects of African identity. Freyre spoke of Africans as essentially palatable, and that they could easily be absorbed into the prevailing European culture wherever they found themselves; even on the continent of Africa itself.
I need to pause for a moment to allow this rhetoric to land.
Freyre believed that Africans were very capable of being assimilated, and celebrated this assimilation as a triumph in Brazil while criticizing the United States for its segregationist practices.
There is no appreciation of the culture or identity of Africans. No celebration of the innovation and industrious nature of the people. No awe at the fact that they survived the horrors visited upon them. No, the real wonder of Africans is at the ease in which things can be stripped away in order to make the transition into European culture more seamless. What I found most distasteful is the notion that Blacks and whites find ease in these transitions because of miscegenation.
Africans and their descendants who were brought to the new world rarely had a say in who they had sex with.
Sex does not negate racism, ideals of supremacy, or elevate social standing.
Making the choice to have sex with a Black person does not mean you regard the race highly. Genitals have never erased attitudes. The satisfying of urges by those in power using the bodies of those who are powerless is not an indication of acceptance. In truth, it is a continuous solidification of the unbalanced power structure. Freyre's assertions play to a wider audience in diminishing the importance of Africans when compared to Querino. This willingness to reduce our race to sexual salves for Europeans seems to be more acceptable in defining our station, and could explain why Freyre is more widely known and celebrated than Querino.
The idea of Blacks in Brazil being seen as important figures in the identity of the country flies in the face of everything American. In fact, if one were to present the same sentiment with the US in place of Brazil, they'd be called un-American, radical, or even a terrorist. The irony that the US as we know it today would not exist if not for the labor of slaves, while Blacks in general are castigated as lazy, criminals, and not getting over things that happened "when no one alive today was born/talking about racism is the real racism" is not lost on most Black people. We are never seen as important, or culturally significant to this country until we stop doing something.
When we no longer worked for free, it was a problem. Former slaver owners demanded and received compensation for their lost productivity. When we decide to stay at home instead of working menial jobs, it is a problem. Laws were passed requiring Blacks to work because white women couldn't cope with the demands of raising their own children and cleaning their own homes during the Jim Crow era.
We're Black and representative of negativity when we're existing. We're American (and not Black) when we win an Olympic gold medal, or make significant innovations, or discoveries. No matter what category we're placed in, we're never truly regarded as indelible to the fabric of this nation. No, we're the errant threads that must be constantly snipped, plucked, and tucked away, but if removed, the entire tapestry unravels.
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