I went to understand what racism is in Brazil, says Guinean victim of racism at Zara

When Luís Fernandes Júnior, 28, arrived in Brazil eight years ago from Guinea-Bissau, he knew that he was migrating against the will of his family, who feared the scenes of violence they watched on TV Record’s “Cidade Alerta” program, whose signal arrives in the country on the west coast of Africa.

Still, he was happy to be one of the first students at the newly opened Campus dos Malês, at the University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (Unilab), in São Francisco do Conde (BA). There, he graduated in pedagogy and is now a graduate student.

In the last week of December, after buying a backpack at a Zara store in Shopping da Bahia, Luís was accused of theft by a security guard, who took him out of the bathroom and demanded that he return the item. He claims that this was the first time he experienced discrimination. “I came to understand racism in Brazil.”

Luís adds to the figure of about 7,400 Guineans who migrated to Brazil in the last two decades, according to a survey by the Observatory of International Migration. Behind only Portugal and Angola, Guinea-Bissau is the third Portuguese-speaking nation with the highest volume of migrations to the country in the period.

In response to a request for an interview, Zara Brasil sent a note in which it says it carried out an investigation and fired an employee for violating the company’s protocols, without giving further details.

The company has already been involved in other cases of discrimination. In Fortaleza, the police found that a brand store warned employees through a code announced over loudspeakers that there was someone suspicious in the store, which included black people.

Luís’ defense asks the graduate student for R$ 1 million in compensation for the psychosocial damage caused by the approach and asks that Zara adopt compensatory measures in the company’s policy. Lawyer Thiago Thobias, from Educafro, describes the request as a civilizing indemnity, not only for his client, but for society. “Zara has done this repeatedly.”

AT leaf Luís told his story, the reasons for studying in Brazil and what he felt when he was the target of racism.

I arrived in Brazil in May 2014. Before, I had a big problem in the family — I have nine brothers, from different mothers. They greatly objected to my coming. We watched “Cidade Alerta”, saw the problem of trafficking, of minors with weapons in their hands, so most of them had a very pejorative view of Brazil.

I believe that this is also an influence of colonization, when there were Eurocentrism policies. For them, Europe, or the West more generally, seems like the only possible place to live. But there is no place in the world that does not have problems and, in Brazil, public policies seemed to me to be more democratic, even though we live in a different situation with the current government. [de Jair Bolsonaro].

I said “I will, I will choose my destiny”. Shortly before, I had a trip to Portugal with my father, who would undergo treatment. But he passed away while I was waiting for the visa to come out. That’s when I heard a colleague talk about scholarships in Brazil, I applied and did well. I sold a piece of land that my father left to buy a ticket, trusting that tomorrow I would have a better life to buy a bigger piece of land.

Reading the university’s pedagogical project, I really liked it, because they were the issues that I always defended. My whole upbringing had a philosophy based on ancestry, but not in the sense of blood, but of looking at the other as if you were yourself.

My last name, before Fernandes, was Mankua Kassakey. But my family was one of those assimilated during Portuguese colonization. My grandparents, in order to continue with their land, had to be baptized by the Catholic Church and change their name. Until recently, I tried to put it in the document, but it is a process that needs to be done in Guinea-Bissau and it also requires resources.

I came to understand racism in Brazil. I had never experienced this. In Guinea-Bissau, discrimination is more a matter of the economic privileges of some citizens who have inherited power from the Portuguese or those who speak Portuguese with a Portuguese accent and are seen as more intelligent.

I am a person who has the patience to explain things and I am also very reserved. I leave college and come home. I think that’s why I hadn’t been a victim of racism yet. I just watched and listened. At the time of the approach, I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. In the education of my parents and grandparents, I learned that we are all human, skin color does not matter.

From the experience of people who died as a result, I didn’t even try to put my hand in my pocket to show the receipt for the backpack, because the security guard could shoot claiming that I was armed. The way he approached me was inhumane. Taking someone out of the bathroom, a private space, to accuse them of something they didn’t do. It was defamation, slander, not to mention xenophobia and racism.

I believe that, if he were a white man, he would not have the slightest courage to face this person so much. Security said it had nothing to do with racism, but I don’t believe it.

When I told my older sister, it was a shock — in our context, when our mother dies, the older sister or a very close aunt can replace her. She was one of the only ones who agreed with my trip in 2014. She said, “Gee, even poor people, we’ve never been through anything like this, no one has ever called us a thief, and now you’re going through it alone.”

I believe that no person who leaves their country for another goes with the intention of staying. There is no greater value than family. But time is what will define it. You build new friendships, meet people. I’m staying here, in Brazil, and from time to time I can visit my family.

But what happened had an impact that still makes me reflect. I have constant headaches. I keep thinking: is it worth continuing this struggle to study, learn more and form a family? What would become of my son tomorrow? Why put a person in the world who can suffer? Give her education, fight for her dignity and one day come to a system that thinks the good person has a certain color?