We do not know if you're black or white. But what we can say is that, if you live in Brazil, it defines your life. 2 MINUTES TO UNDERSTAND RACIAL INEQUALITY IN BRAZIL The black population makes up more than half of Brazilians.
In theory, it means that social indicators should be proportional to the black and the white population. But in practice this is far from happening. Education is a good example of this.
The chance of a black person being illiterate is five times greater than that of a white person. At the other extreme, only one in four black people have college education. The impact of this only increases when we think outside the classroom.
70% of people living in extreme poverty in our country are black. People with lighter skin, in fact, represent 80% of the richest Brazilians. This is reflected directly in our quality of life.
While 70% of whites own a washing machine at home, more than half the households headed by a black person do not have the appliance. The same goes for the internet. More than 50% of blacks do not have any type of network access.
This proportion also appears in questions even more essential for human life. Nearly 40% of blacks living in urban areas do not have piped sewage. And 70% of people who depend on the Public Health System are black.
The color of your skin also determines your life span. In the past 10 years, the murders of white women have fallen, while that of black women have only increased. And death is not only feminine.
Adding the genders, every 12 minutes, a black person is murdered in Brazil. They are also the ones who die most in police operations. And they occupy the majority of the Brazilian prison population.
It may be difficult for the black community to change this, considering that they are barely represented in the judiciary or in the legislative, much less in the executive system. This social gap is not new. Historically, Brazil is outdated in racial representation.
We were the last Western country to ban slavery. Brazil is a racist country. And who's saying that, it's not us, it's the UN.
And this problem involves not only our political spheres but also our daily lives. It is up to us to debate the subject, and denounce the prejudices, after all, our life cannot be defined by just a set of lines.
