This Tuesday (25), black Brazilian women and women from the diaspora organized a march in Brasilia for “reparation and living well”. Representatives from 37 countries come together to reposition historical struggles and reaffirm the role of these women in the global community with the goal of achieving and protecting our liberation and independence.
We are a heterogeneous group: girls, teens, young men, adults, seniors, cis and straight, lesbians, transsexuals, transsexuals, GLBT people in all their diversity, quilombolas, black women of the woods and waters, slum dwellers and suburbanites, stilt houses, the homeless, the homeless.
We are domestic workers, independent professionals, prostitutes/sex workers, artists, rural and forest extractors, oyster pickers, fisherwomen, riparians, entrepreneurs, chefs, intellectuals, social media, artisans, recyclables pickers, ialorixas, evangelists, pastoral workers, students, communicators, parliamentarians, teachers, managers and many more.
With this pluralism, we walk in the name of Dandara, Aqualton, Teresa de Benguela, María Filipa, Lilia González, Beatriz Nascimento, Luisa Bairos and all our ancestors – who left us a political legacy to claim what is rightfully ours, but which was violently seized by slavery-based colonialism.
Throughout the process of building the Global March of Black Women, thematic documents and statements (in the areas of economics, climate justice, education, health, among others) were produced with the aim of producing an analysis of the national situation that was able to provide an x-ray picture of our position in Brazilian society and a list of proposals and indicators.
The legacy left by the above-mentioned references pushes us to expand the achievements obtained, and to adopt “reparation and decent living” as a category that supports the conception and implementation of a global project that is beneficial for all.
Adopting “reparation” as the backbone of the Global March of Black Women means promoting a consistent dialogue with the Brazilian state that highlights that historical events, such as slavery, reinforce deep inequalities that persist to this day. The absence of support and compensation policies for black residents in the post-abolition era exacerbated inequality.
Historical reparation concerns a set of symbolic, political, and material actions that redress persistent injustices in the present. Therefore, the wealth redistribution agenda and systemic initiatives to compensate for injustices are dear to us.
Likewise, from “living well” emerges a new socio-political law in which justice, equity and well-being are non-negotiable values. Inspired by the ancient concepts that underpin the term (we also drink from the source of the Andean peoples), we embrace renewed ways of managing collectivity and individualism, nature and culture, guided by a utopian perspective on the meaning of life.
The combination of the two terms – “reparation and good living” – is intended to point to the inextricable relationship between the two, because we will only achieve good living if there are concrete reparations that restore our humanity and our role in public life. In this sense, and without exaggeration, the International Women’s March is bursting with spring dew at a moment characterized by a leaden winter scenario, which is intended to be permanent.
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