Afro-Brazilian Foundation Chief Rejects Slavery and Racism Claims

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – A group from the Brazilian Black Movement stormed the Fundação Palmares (Palmares Foundation) building in Brasilia on Friday protesting against the appointment of Sérgio Nacimento de Camargo as the institution’s new president. The entity is responsible for promoting the African matrix culture in Brazil.

“How are we going to accept, as a black social movement, that the president of an entity that is required to register the more than 5,000 quilombos (communities made up of ancestors of African slaves) we have today in Brazil, denies the history of slavery?” questioned Waldicéia de Moraes Teixeira, of the Alliance of Negros and Evangelical Negros of Brazil, at the entrance to a group of reporters.

Camargo, appointed on Wednesday by Culture Secretary, Roberto Alvim, defines himself as a ‘right-wing black, contrary to victimization and against the political correct’.

“Taking office will be a great honor and a challenge at the same time! Major and necessary changes will be implemented at the Palmares Foundation. I am grateful to God for this opportunity. My role at the head of the Foundation will be guided by the values ​​and principles that elected and lead the Bolsonaro government,” he wrote on his social media account.

The announcement of Camargo’s appointment sent shockwaves through the Afro-Brazilian community. The new official’s recent declarations about slavery, Afro-Brazilians, and black culture has produced a surge of criticism on the Internet.

According to Camargo, Brazil has ‘Nutella racism’ (meaning not pure) and that ‘real racism exists in the US’.

“The blacks here complain because they are stupid and misinformed by the left,” he stated adding, “Real racism exists in the United States.”

The right-wing activist, and a supporter of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, is a fierce critic of leftist policies.

“Brazil will have a conservative right-wing black movement. We are many! And we have always existed!” he stated.

According to him it is not the current conservative government that promotes racism but the earlier, left-wing administrations. “The left (wing) is the greatest racist; it sees blacks as a sub-species of bandits; incapable and radicals reduced to rabid animals,” he spurted out days before being appointed to the office.

“The left is to the black race the same as the parasite to its host. Getting rid of the left is vital to blacks and their future,” he added.

Camargo has advocated for the end of the Black Awareness Day holiday, celebrated in many parts of Brazil on November 20th. In his opinion the holiday was instituted ‘for the service of the progressive ideological agenda’.

“Black Awareness Day is a disgrace and needs to be relentlessly fought until it loses the little relevance it has and disappears from the calendar. It is a political holiday, instituted by the left to propagate historical revenge, racial resentment, and the degrading progressive agenda,” he says.

According to him the holiday “causes incalculable losses to the country’s economy in the name of a false black hero (Zombie of Palmares, who helped enslaved blacks).”

He has also said that slavery was “terrible, but beneficial to descendants, since blacks have better lives in Brazil than in Africa” and is against the current quotas established for Afro-Brazilians at universities.

The new president of the Palmares Foundation has also criticized Afro-Brazilian actors, musicians and personalities who fight for black rights, stating that many ‘are fair-skinned but they say they are black to make a political statement and portray themselves as victims’.

According to Camargo, he is “ashamed and disgusted by the black militants. They think they are revolutionaries, but they are nothing more than slaves of the left (wing)”.

He went as far as to criticize US black philosopher and activist, Angela Davis, who came to Sao Paulo in late October for a conference, calling her ‘ugly’ and an ‘American communist terrorist’.

Sergio Camargo’s appointment to head Palmares Foundation was not only criticized by black activists, it even bothered his brother, cultural producer and musician, Wadico Camargo.

“I’m ashamed to be this slave captain’s brother,” says Wadico Camargo, an activist of the black movement, and founder of the group ‘A Rede do Samba’.

Wadico Camargo announced that noting he has started a petition for the dismissal of his brother.

The appointment of Sergio Camargo is part of a transformation in the Department of Culture, started days after Roberto Alvim took over the office. Since the beginning of November, Alvim has changed the command of eight departments, including the main secretariats subordinated to the Culture Ministry, such as Audiovisual, and Promotion and Incentive, in addition to the Palmares Foundation. More dismissals are expected in the near future.

Alvim, who was previously appointed by Bolsonaro as president of Funarte (National Arts Foundation), in July, has called on those “who align with conservative values” to join him to “create a machine of cultural warfare.”

“It is a fight similar to the crusades. Like the Christian warriors of the past, we are fighting for our Judeo-Christian civilization, and against its destruction by progressive forces,” he told local media in July during an interview.

According to a press release by the department, Camargo will work “to free blacks from the mentality that ideologically enslaves them, generating dependence on quotas and social assistance policies”.

President Jair Bolsonaro said on Friday (November 29) that culture in Brazil must serve the ‘majority of the population’.

“The secretary [of Culture] is Roberto Alvim. I gave him ‘carte blanche’. Our culture has to be in agreement with the majority of the Brazilian population, not just the minority,” Bolsonaro told journalists when questioned about Camargo’s appointment.