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The creation of The Intercept, and then the Intercept Brasil, was motivated by a core purpose: to provide crucial journalism and commentary that, for whatever reasons, is not being adequately provided to the public. We are especially thrilled to announce the arrival of Ana Maria Gonçalves as our new columnist because her work so powerfully advances that objective.
What makes Gonçalves’s journalism particularly valuable for The Intercept is that it simultaneously examines the unique political and cultural manifestations of race in Brazil while also illuminating the most relevant debates that are unfolding today in the U.S. We will, for that reason, publish her columns in both English and Portuguese. Gonçalves was a writer-in-residence and taught classes at Tulane, Stanford, and Middlebury, and has developed expertise in the role of race in the politics and culture of both countries.
The role of race in Brazil is fascinating and relevant both in the ways it is unique to Brazil and the ways it is universal. Brazil was the last country in the Western world to abolish slavery (1888), and — just as in the U.S. — that historic sin continues to shape institutions and identities in ways society would rather not acknowledge.
Elite Brazilian circles are virtually obsessive about denying that the country has a problem with racism at all, even as the undeniable evidence of it is ubiquitous. The head of the news division for Globo TV, Ali Kamel, literally wrote a book titled “Não somos racistas” (We are not racists), devoted to denying the problem, and it was widely (and predictably) celebrated by Brazil’s oligarchical media. Such a denial was particularly ironic coming from that crowd given the stunning and shameful dearth of diversity those very same media outlets feature.
Gonçalves became a leading voice criticizing this mentality generally and Kamel specifically. One of the many dangers of having a country in which a tiny handful of families control all the large media outlets, and having one outlet in particular (Globo) so indescribably dominant, is that it becomes very difficult to maintain a career in journalism if you criticize those outlets and their top executives.
But one of the primary goals of The Intercept Brasil is to provide a platform to critical voices like Gonçalves to freely critique and report on the nation’s most powerful institutions without fear of recrimination. We are very excited to see what she produces and quite confident that it will be provocative, illuminating for both our English- and Portuguese-speaking readers, and exactly the type of journalism we were created to produce.
If anyone truly does not understand why race is a Huge deal, please watch this 2 minute video of a comedian Aamer Rahman give an incredibly succinct, informative, and funny refutation of anyone who says we should ignore how historical racism impacts everyone today: https://youtu.be/dw_mRaIHb-M
Excellent! I look forward to her presentations.
And alongside the historic sin of slavery, the Doctrine of Discovery is a foundational one in European colonialism that must be explicitly exposed & rejected for the racism it represents. While the Standing Rock #NoDAPL Water Protectors are finally getting some media coverage for the abuses of power being committed by the state of North Dakota and its Pipeline police, too little is said about the Constitutional standing of US Senate ratified Treaties which are supposedly “the supreme law of the land” — historic racist denials notwithstanding. The Treaty is being forced thru Native burial grounds, sacred sites and all on UNCEDED Treaty land. Environmental racism and racism against Indigenous people are colliding along the Missouri River and the corporate media is doing a very poor job of covering the historic context in which this is taking place.
Thank you for this hire, those who are uncomfortable with race issues hold far too much sway in the media & politics. I hope you will also hire someone with expertise to cover Indigenous issues in North & South America, Australia, and the world. Too often, Indigenous people are the first to have their issues, issues of climate, and sustainable relationships with the Earth denied or erased in the MSM.
What is the function of a “columnist on race”?
To agitate of course!
I’m looking for a reasoned response from an Intercept-minded commenter.
Obviously to promote race.
Race is like sticking your arm into a wood chipper. No one is going to come to this conclusion without an unrelenting amount of social pressure and lack of common sense.
This is the social pressure part.
Now I will keep an open mind to the idea that she might be here to ridicule people who believe in race–but I am not in any way hopeful.
Why do people promote race? To control others peoples behavior and exploit them. And because deep down inside we would really rather have awesome sex with other people instead of hating and killing each other–so people that want division and exploitation have to work extra hard to keep us wanting to kill instead of fuck.
Race is a huge part of that. And it’s so obvious.
Race is morally bankrupt. Literally a horrible thing to believe and promote. The sickness and psychopathy underlying this belief is among the worst that humans have to offer.
Race is logically and scientifically bankrupt. Race makes scientology sound smart.
Race breeds dishonesty and ignorance. Race is so stupid from a logic and science point of view that the vast majority of people who promote race don’t even believe in it. Their endless preaching not only promotes ignorance and stupidity, but by necessity, lying.
One key foundation of morality is the idea of education over exploitation.
Promoting race is the personification of exploitation over education.
Ignorant racist demagogues peddling identity politics is exactly what the left is missing.
Good choice
Welcome Ana Maria Goncalves
i am a social capitalist
i believe that God demands life support as a guaranteed entitlement for all human beings for food to eat and land to sleep.
The current currency systems of loan-to-own by the moneychangers that print the paper is not according to God’s will and it must be replaced by one that does.
also, i am quite concerned about overshoot day. It needs to be solved and there is a solution, but it’s complicated.
and if you really want to solve racial problems, understand that racial differences are inborn to humans at birth – visual differences. Attitudes are different – they are learned. IF you want to change that, without force, in a competitive operating environment, it must be accomplished by incentive. This could be done by providing tax credits for inter-racial couples.
Interessante. Como uma pessoa que ensinou na Universidade de Stanford, Tulane e Middlebury nao faz parte da elite? Sera que no Brazil voce nao encontraria algum jornalista negro que nunca tenha deixado o pais e conheca a situacao do negro tao bem ou meljor que ela?
NAo lhe parece que esta chegada a hora de trazer as vozes do povom e daqueles que nao tem nemhuma correlacao com os EEUU e a versao estadunidense de focalizar a historia do negro dentro do estado Brasileiro? Afinal de contas a historia do Brasil tem que ser contada por brasileiros fora da geopolitica estadunidense. Nem tusdo que os gringos fazem, dizem ou ensinam e verdadeiro e real. A matrix existe. Nao necessitamos sair do pais para poder receber reconhecimento intelectual.
Welcome, Ana-Maria.
So many Intercept articles about Brasil, but very few of them in English. The new member of your team sounds interesting; would that she came with a translator so more of us could understand what is going on in her country and follow events there. What about translating all of the Portuguese articles into English?
Congratulations to The Intercept Brasil and welcome Maria Gonçalves! The U.S. perpetually ignores the slavery and genocide that built it, as well as its institutionalized results, and I look forward to reading her articles about Brazil.
Apologies to Ana for somehow losing that part of her name in my comment.
“The U.S. perpetually ignores the slavery and genocide that built it, as well as its institutionalized results”
Have you been living under ground for the past few years??
Looking forward to reading her work.
Welcome to The Intercept and good luck!
Brazil will never supersede slavery, the oligarchy is convinced blacks are, on the whole, genetically (or due to some other mysterious and insuperable reason, some tertium quid) incapable of thinking in a manner that allows for their own autonomous governance and the sovereign governance of the nation, that their analytical capabilities are irreparably suppressed, by nature and/or culture, and that dilution of “whiteness” in Brazil would spell everlasting doom for a country already “overburdened” by the negative force and curse of slavery’s most terrible consequence: the irremovable and excessive presence of African-descended humans in a land that might have been a veritable utopia and cornucopia for “whites” but instead has become synonymous with sunken and derailed dystopian futurities.
I’m looking forward to reading her work. Thanks. And, as a side note, are you disappointed not to be named as a fake news outlet like Black Agenda Report and other truth-tellers by the most recent accendent crop of corporate shills and propagandists?