PROGRESS OR PENALTY?

by Ajax D'Alcantara, Salvador da Bahia, BRAZIL

In the beginning of the 70s the clamor for "women's liberation" resounded throughout Brazil, it appreared to be an unpostponable "advance", absolutely necessary for the improvement of the quality of life for all people. The absence of women in the job market could no longer be tolerated regardeless of the activity or the area of human endeavor, giving force to our concepts of modernity. This power of women in business was something that was felt we could not do without.

If this "advance" was good for a large part of the Brazilian population, what about its effect on the untrained and impoverished Black population that makes up the great majority of Blacks Brazilians? This is a question about which we must reflect and about which we will make a brief comment.

Our preliminary understanding is that this so-called advance caused and continues to cause a disastrous effect on the descendents of Blacks in Brazil in the sense that it has served as a destructive element against family conhesion. The call for the "emancipation" of women has hit the Black community in this decade like a bomb that blows up the pillars that support the structure of the family.

Among diverse issues such as education, unemployment , crime, housing, public sanitation, health, family, religion, racial discrimination, prostitution, infant mortality, abortion, teen-age pregnancy, street children, violence, etc, which demonstrate the degree of tragedy that had befallen Black Brazilian people. We comment on the family because we know that it is the keystone of the Black community and the point from which all other problems radiate. Women, who have always been the center around which the family has revolved, and who have always taken responsibility for this fundamental institution, have allowed themselves to be caught in the trap of this so called "advance" as easy prey.

The vast majority of Black Brazilian women have been deprived of a formal education and the tools capable of placing them in positions of equality in modern-day competitive society. These women were used and became a disruptive element in the extended family because they incorporated values that were foreign to Afro-Brazilian society. What did this "advance" or supposed liberation signify for these women? It signified the liberation from all obligations related to submission to any man, be that man a husband, a father, a brother, or even a son, or so they thought . Like disobedient children, they went and did everthing that had wisely been denied them for a long time .

This feminine rebellion was expressed by the wearing of revealing clothes and the transforming of their bodies into objects of consumer comsumption and strong sex appeal. They began drinking acoholic beverages, smoking cigrettes, and having sex with whatever partners interested them, leading to unplanned pregnancies, and increase in sexually transmitted diseases, etc.

On the other side, black and white men found themselves in a comfortable position of having available sex partners while having to take no responsability whatsoever for their role in the family structure, which is the basis of society. Consequently, unwanted children were born as accidents, as a consequence of the sexual relations. The accidents are known today as "children of the street" and they have been killed by extermination groups, or are begging or stealing money, or are prisoners special places for trouble kids.

Who benefits from this chaos? The enterpreneurs, who want to change the nature of their advesaries. It is much easier to to deal with a woman worker who is unprepared for confrontation with her employer for better working conditions and fair salary. They will accept lower salaries that are insufficient for them to maintain themselves and their children. The nuclear family that used to be sustained by the man’s salary has been undone with the advent of women’s "liberation." She enters the work force in place of the husband, earning less and leaving him unemployed and defenseless. Without work, he can not earn status as the head of the family, the place reserved for him in previous generations. The former bread-winner turns dependent, feels demoralized and humiliated by his companion, who is now the head of the household. This leads him to abandon his home and, if he does not find a place as a street vendor, his only options are to break the law by selling drugs, robbing, killing or, more likely, becoming an alcoholic, resulting in the human trash that can be seen in the streets, laying about the sidewalks and begging for change.

The Woman--imagining herself the champion of the family and completely emancipated-- goes out of the her house to work. For poor Black women, this often means janitorial work, the same work they would have been doing at home. The children are deprived of attention because the family generally lives far from the place of employment, and the woman must leave her children while they are still sleeping. She works at least eight hours a day and when she returns home it is almost evening and she has very little contact with the children.

The question is: with who’s rearing the children? Who is responsible for their education oustside of school? Where and with what kind of people are they spending their days? Without having any decent place to go, or good people to be with, surely they are being initiated into the culture of violence. Perhaps they are being sexually abused, not going to school, robbing or begging in the street, sniffing glue, smoking pot or crack and committing petty larceny. The girls might turn to prostitution, risking contracting venereal disesases, AIDS, or becoming mothers at eleven years of age.

These Black women and men have fallen into a trap and it should be considered as such. The Black family, which together could accomplish many things, is now fragmented and can accomplish nothing.

The "advance", the trap, has destroyed much of the base of Black resistence, i. e. the nuclear family. It has blown to bits thousands of (1) "mini-quilombos" in Brazil.

The homes of Black families, although poor, used to forge good people, dignified and honorable people, some who succeeded in rising socially and economically, becoming distinguished figures in many diverse fields. With the destruction of the family, a key pillar in the construct, Black redemption is lost. How can Blacks face the harsh realities of day-to-day existence divided and alone?

(1) quilombos—societies of Africans who ran away from Brazilian plantations where they were slaves and formed their own independent villages in the forest. The most famous of the quilombo leaders was Zumbi, killed in 1695 at war with the Portuguese colonnizers of Brasil.

*The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.