BRAZIL: Black Lives Matter

In November, a  wave of protests was sparked by the killing of a Black man, Beto Freitas, by private security guards working for a branch of the Carrefour supermarket in the city of Porto Alegre. Video footage of the lethal beating, which took place just ahead of Brazil’s Black Awareness Day, was widely circulated. Anger at the killing was further fuelled by a statement by Brazil’s vice president that the killing nothing to do with race, because, as he expressed it, ‘there is no racism in Brazil; that is something that they are trying to import from elsewhere.’ People protested outside the supermarket where the killing had taken place and in cities including Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, where thousands marched.