Emanuelle K F Oliveira-Monte
Associate Professor of Luso-Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian Literature
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Center for Latin American Studies Affiliated Faculty
Vanderbilt University
Professor Oliveira-Monte’s research interests include Afro-Brazilian literature, race relations, race in comparative perspective, the Afro-Diasporic experience, the relationship between politics and literature, literature of human rights, as well as Brazilian Cinema and Popular Culture. Her manuscript Writing Identity: The Politics of Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Literature (Purdue UP, 2007) examines the intricate connections between literary production and political action by focusing on the politics of the Brazilian black movement and the literature of a São Paulo-based group of Afro-Brazilian writers, the Quilombhoje. She is currently working on a second book manuscript entitled The Color of Crime: Representations of Race and Delinquency In Contemporary Brazilian Literature and Cinema. This study investigates how the diverse representations of Afro-Brazilians in contemporary literature and cinema inform the dichotomy race and violence in Brazilian society. She has also published several articles in professional journals and anthologies and translated Carolina Maria de Jesus’ Diário de Bitita (M.E. Sharpe, 1998).
Professor Oliveira-Monte serves the profession through committees in several professional associations, including the Brazilian Studies Association (2004-2008), the Brazilian section of the Latin American Studies Association (currently serving as Treasurer), and the Luso-Brazilian section of the Modern Language Association (2010-present). She is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Afro-Hispanic Review, Chasqui, and Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World. In 2011, she was Guest-Editor (together with Isis Costa McElroy) of a special issue of the Afro-Hispanic Review on the Afro-Brazilian Diaspora.
According to the Mapa da Violência Brasil 2013 [Map of Violence Brazil 2013], for every three people killed by gun violence in Brazil, two are young males ranging from 15 to 29 years old. Nevertheless, violence is not only gender-marked, but also race-marked: homicide rates among black male population in Brazil are 88.4 percent greater than the white male population. According to sociologist Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, the main coordinator of the research, this “culture of violence” is responsible for the genocide of black youth in Brazil, as “the profile of the most affected by violence are low income young blacks” (“Mapa da violência 2013”). The study shows that the Brazilian state and society are negligent of the problem, as most of the violence happens in urban marginal spaces, such the favelas and periferias. The problem of violence among black youth is only addressed when violence erupts in mainstream society, provoking extreme reactions that frequently demand more social repression policies. Police violence and an inefficient judicial system seal the fate of black youth in Brazil: in a society that emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation, Afro-Brazilians find little or no hope for a brighter future.
In this paper, I study two important documentaries, Maria Augusta Ramos’ Justiça and Juízo, which show the problems of a judicial system that is inadequate to deal with the problem of social and economical, as well as racial, inequalities in Brazil society. Through the documentaries, I examine how this system helps to perpetuate disparities and criminalize the marginalized. My goal with the paper is to place the abovementioned issues at the core of the human rights’ agenda in Brazil.
