Thelma Assis releases book and claims to be a ‘black woman who ran away from statistics’

“A historic season like this couldn’t end without a historic win. So the BBB 20 can only be yours. It has to be yours, Thelma. This is the best possible ending for this season. he deserves and what he has always deserved. It will shine.”

This was how the presenter Tiago Leifert referred to the physician Thelma Assis, 36, when she was crowned champion of the 2020 edition of Big Brother Brasil (Globo). And it is based on this speech that she begins to trace the happiest, most difficult and remarkable moments of her trajectory in the book “Querer, Poder, Vencer”, which will be launched this Monday (8).

In the work, published by Editora Planeta and with prefaces by actress Taís Araújo and presenter Manoel Soares, Thelma shares an intimate report on facing obstacles such as racism, machismo and adoption after three years of life.

“People got to know me through the BBB and in the work we do it as if it were a retrospective. From the speech of the final, I’ve been interweaving several moments of my life, remembering reality attitudes with my personality according to my trajectory over these 36 years”, he says Is it over there.

This path permeates her childhood, her mishaps, her access to the university where she graduated in medicine and even her 12-year union with her husband, Denis Santos.

“It’s the story of a peripheral black woman in an unequal society facing obstacles and running away from statistics. What I want is that more and more black and peripheral women empower themselves so that we occupy the spaces we deserve”, says the doctor .

Writing a book was among Thelma’s dreams. However, in his mind, that wish would only come true later. But it was after a conversation with the presenter and friend Manoel Soares that she changed her mind and felt motivated to debut in literature. The project took a year from inception to launch, which takes place in her birthday month—she will turn 37 on the 18th.

The choice for the November release date is also due to Black Consciousness Day, celebrated on the 20th. Racism is discussed a lot in the 248 pages, and Thelma recalls moments when she suffered from racial prejudice. Born in the neighborhood of Limão, in the northern part of the city of São Paulo, she says that since childhood she has had to live with this.

“Racism most of the time is what I call recreational racism, that of everyday life. At the time we don’t realize it, but later we brood. When it happened, I kept thinking about why we didn’t fight. Until I understood myself as a black woman in structurally racist country,” he explains.

Thelminha reveals that, despite her dream of becoming a writer, the process of revisiting her memories was painful. But it was necessary so that he could value his life story.

“Sometimes, when we achieve something, we ask ourselves, ‘do we deserve it?’ And having the opportunity to do the book was like self-analysis. We can never stay in the comfort zone. We have to look for ways to make a difference in society. I feel immortalized through the book.”

Thelma’s idea is to inspire a lot of people to think anti-racist and anti-macho with her words. “The self-confidence I always had, which enabled me not to give up. What we have is a lot of discouragement along the way. There were several nights when I cried and the next day I had to rebuild myself”, he recalls.

“I carried the resilience of if the window is stuck I try to find a tool to open it. There were so many people who said I couldn’t do medicine, or who said I had no chance of winning the BBB. Whenever they tried to underestimate me, I transformed it. in motivation”, concludes the doctor and now a writer.