Luciano Ramos, Daniel Costa Lima, Elvia Cristina, Humberto Baltar, Ismael Dos Anjos, Tamis Nogueira, Viviana Santiago

 

About this report
Daniel Costa Lima and Luciano Ramos

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As Colombian Mara Viveros Vigoya writes, it is necessary to “undermine the idea of ​​an abstract, universal and disembodied masculinity” (2018, p. 24), and one of the ways to do this is by drawing attention to the fact that “colonized men they were never the ones who defined ideal masculinity” (Vincent Joly, 2011. In: Vigoya, 2018).¹ Henrique Restier follows a similar path when stating that the “claim to universality and neutrality produced by male whiteness lends it an unparalleled normative power , making it taken as a measure of (almost) all things.”² Among these things, there is certainly paternity, since it is necessary to recognize that it was not colonized men, much less non-white men from colonized countries, like Brazil, which defined and continue to define what “ideal fatherhood” is. This report represents an unprecedented effort to bring Black fathers and Black fatherhood to the forefront of discussion. This report exists because black fathers exist and resist.
According to the latest census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics/IBGE (2015), 55.8% of the Brazilian population declares themselves as “black” (46.5% as brown and 9.3% as black) and 43, 1% as “white”, however, when we look at indicators such as income and employment, education, health, violence and political representation, we quickly see the imbalance and inequality between whites and blacks in our country.

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In short, what these indicators show is that being black basically impacts all aspects of the lives of brown and black people in Brazil. So, why shouldn't it also impact the experience of fatherhood (and motherhood) of the black Brazilian population? This seemingly obvious question needs to be asked so that we can better understand this scenario and outline strategies that guarantee the largest portion of Brazil's population the rights described in our Federal Constitution and other legal provisions, such as the Child and Adolescent Statute. 

The dialogue between professor Henrique and his son Pedro, in the book “The reverse of skin”, by Jeferson Tenório, gives us the magnitude of the scope of skin color in a white world:

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You always said that black people had to fight, because the white world
had taken almost everything from us and that thinking was what we had left.
It is necessary to preserve the inside out, you told me. Preserve what
no one sees. Because it doesn't take long for skin color to permeate our
body and determine our way of being in the world. And no matter how much your
life is measured by color, no matter how much your attitudes and ways of living
are under this domain, you, in some way, have to preserve
something that doesn't fit into that, you know? Because between muscles, organs and
veins there is a place of your own, isolated and unique. And that's where
the affections are. And it is these affections that keep us alive. (p. 55)³

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As Silvio Almeida (2019) states, “In a world in which race defines life and death, not taking it as an element of analysis of major contemporary issues demonstrates a lack of commitment to science and resolving the world’s greatest ills.” ” (2019, p. 57). 4

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1 VIGOYA, Mara Viveros (2018). The colors of masculinity: Intersectional experiences
and practices of power in Our America. Wild Papers.

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2 RESTIER, Henrique (2018) Why am I proud to be a black man?
Available at: http://www.justificando.com/2018/01/19/por-quetenho-
pride-de-ser-um-homem-negro

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3 TENÓRIO, Jeferson (2020). The opposite to the skin. Company of Letters.

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4 ALMEIDA, Silvio Luiz de (2020). Institutional Racism. São Paulo: Sueli Carneiro;
Jandaíra Publisher.