Photo of journalist, writer, and co-founder of the Kilomba Collective, Marry Ferreira. Photo courtesy of Marry Ferreira.

By Jaimee A. Swift

A transcript of Black Women Radicals’ dialogue with Black Brazilian feminist, journalist, and co-founder of the Kilomba Collective, the first Black Brazilian women’s collective in the United States.

On Friday, June 26th, Black Women Radicals hosted an Instagram Live conversation on “Centering Black Brazilian Feminisms” with Marry Ferreira, a journalist, activist, and co-founder of Kilomba Collective, the first Black Brazilian women’s collective in the United States.

In this conversation, we discussed the importance of interrogating Black Brazilian feminisms and radical leadership; why Black feminists need to have an internationalist lens in regards to understanding state and structural violence in Brazil; why Black Brazilian trans women’s leadership must be recognized; and more. You can watch our conversation here.

Below is the transcript of our conversation with Marry Ferreira. The transcript has been edited for both length and clarity. You can also find suggested texts by Marry Ferreira on Black Brazilian Feminisms at the end of the transcript.

About The Kilomba Collective

Jaimee Swift (JS): “I am super excited to be speaking with Marry Ferreira of the Kilomba Collective. Marry is a radical Black feminist, journalist, and co-founder of the Kilomba Collective, which is the first collective of Black Brazilian women in the United States. If that is not amazing, I don’t know what is! This is going to be super, super exciting.”

“This conversation is near and dear to my heart because when I was in undergrad, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. I am the first one in my family to study abroad. I never thought I would ever study abroad because I couldn’t afford it. But when I went to Salvador da Bahia, I was really shocked [Laughs] for many reasons because I was shocked to see how many Black people were there. I learned so much about the history, the religiosity, and the culture: Candomblé, Umbanda, and all these other cultural, political, and historical markers to the point where I now have a host family there. Like I said, it was an amazing experience. However, I also realize how white supremacist history and white revisionist patriarchal capitalist and heteronormative history will try to wipe out the fact that there are Black people and a rich Black history in Brazil.”

“I also believe Marry Ferreira is in the same line or lineage of so many other Black Brazilian women feminists that I admire like Érica Malunghino, Maria Felipa de Oliveira, Leci Brandão, Thereza Santos, Maria Beatriz Nascimento, Lélia Gonzalez, Alane Reis, and Naiara Leite. So, let's get started! Hey!”

Marry Ferreira (MF): “Hey! It is so nice to meet you finally!”

JS: “I know! I am so excited to speak with you!”

MF: “It is an honor. I am a journalist and I usually am behind the scenes. When I have a chance to talk with someone who is leading an organization like you––like Black Women Radicals––I am honored! Thank you for inviting Kilomba Collective, thank you for inviting me, and I am looking forward to a great conversation!”

JS: “This is so great. It is so amazing that we are able to talk to one another, to meet you, and for the audience to know the amazing work you do because I think it is so important to look to Brazil and learn about the amazing work that Black women are doing there. Do you mind telling the audience more about the work you and why the Kilomba Collective? Where does that name derive from?”

MF: “I feel you and I agree with you. I think during these times, there is nothing more powerful than to have an opportunity to get together to share our stories, experiences, histories, and resistances. When we have the chance to share what is working and our resistances, it is very powerful. But Kilomba––the Kilomba Collective with a “k” and an “a” at the end––is a reference to the quilombos in Brazil. It is really a place of resistance, community, and memory of Black people in Brazil. In Portuguese, quilombo is with a “q” and “o”, so we have this different adaptation for the word with “k” and an “a”. It is really a connection with our resistances and strategies. We created the Kilomba Collective in November 2019. The organization is really new and it was created between the five of us––myself, Ana Paula Barreto, Flavia Barbosa, Elis Clementino, and Fernanda Dias. I want to use this space to honor them, the work that they have done, and the work all of us have done with Kilomba and as a community. They are really my family here––my Black Brazilian family in a land that is not my own. I really get emotional because I’m an immigrant. Immigrants know what it is like to be in a land that is not your own. Sometimes you don’t have a support system; you are not a part of the culture; and you don’t speak the language. So the moment I found them and many other Black Brazilians here, I felt like I had someone.”

“Internationally, when speaking about the quilombos, most people know about Quilombo dos Palmares, which was created around the sixteenth century. This was a place where Black people––who were kidnapped from Africa and brought to Brazil––were creating spaces of their own and where they shared their memories, their cultures, and their resistance. They created self-sustainable communities with their own economies and with their own ways of life. They could speak the languages of their communities in Africa that they were not allowed to speak in Brazil because of slavery. There are many scholars and activists in the community that define quilombo as something that goes beyond geographical areas. Quilombos really represent the resistance strategies that Black people have and their experiences about our common trajectory that may not be directly related to geographic space. That is really what our collective is about––it is about geographic space and why we think it is important and what it means to us. It is a space where we can connect with other Black movements in the Diaspora or Black women in the U.S.––which is what we are doing now as we talk about our experiences as Black women from different countries. It is a space of really learning and the affection of Black Brazilians and their multiple identities and how we connect with our ancestrality and our history. For example, when we talk about quilombos, most people think of Zumbi dos Palmares, but there are so many Black women that led the quilombos and led their communities like Dandara dos Palmares. She was a warrior. She had so much knowledge about culture and how to take care of people. She actually trained a part of the army in the quilombos. She had that knowledge: the same knowledge that Black women who are leading communities in Brazil have.”

“Quilombos really represent the resistance strategies that Black people have and their experiences about our common trajectory that may not be directly related to geographic space. That is really what our collective is about––it is about geographic space and why we think it is important and what it means to us.”

“And most people don’t know, but in the U.S. there is actually a large Brazilian community. One of the largest Brazilian communities outside of Brazil is in the U.S. There are like 1.2 million of us here. I personally don’t know how many Black people are here because the data is limited. However, when we look at these spaces––academic or not––where people are talking about Brazil, they are usually white. They talk about the experience of Black people; they are talking about the experience of the favelas; they are talking about Black culture; and they are not Black.”

[Both laugh]

MF: “I went to an online event and there were white people talking about the Black experience in Brazil! And it was an online event! There is no excuse for you to not contact a Black person in Brazil because you don’t have to pay their ticket and you don’t have to pay any expenses in terms of accommodation and travel expenses, right? And Kilomba is here. We are here and we are going to tell our stories of resistance. We are going to work with each other to humanize our people and to build this counter-narrative that centralizes the rights of Black people in Brazil.”

JS: Just for y’all to have started Kilomba Collective in November 2019––that is so amazing. Everything you were speaking on is so on point. I just saw somebody on Twitter and I forgot their Twitter handle, but they were complaining about how so many white people are speaking on the Black Latinx experience and the Afro-Caribbean experience. You can’t do that. And I even think of myself, as a Black American, I also have to check my privilege. When I go to Brazil, I am usually the only Black person on the plane. I also check my privilege especially because in Salvador, there are no historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). I go to Howard University. I recognize how I am able to go back and forth between Brazil and the U.S., whereas many Black Brazilians cannot do the same. I think it is important for people to step back and let those people who are from those specific countries speak. We must recognize that this is their lane. There are a lot of U.S.-based Black feminists who study and conduct research on Black women’s leadership in Brazil. However, it is more important to listen to what Black Brazilian women have to say, and for us not to impose our Black U.S. based feminisms onto other countries and onto other Black women. When we do that, to me, that is another form of imperialism and colonialism as well. So, thank you for saying that.”

“Also, thank you for talking about the quilombos because when I went to Salvador for the first time, they told me about Zumbi dos Palmares, but when I started asking about the women leaders, they were like, “Uhhhhh…”

[Both laugh]

Collage of Black Brazilian feminists, activists, scholars, leaders, and organizers. Top row: Marry Ferreira, Érica Malunghino, Lélia Gonzalez. Bottom row: Maria Beatriz Nascimento, Marielle Franco, and Teresa de Benguela.

MF: “And there are so many! Dandara dos Palmares, Teresa de Benguela, and even others that are from our own time. Sueli Carneiro just turned 70 this week. She is an amazing activist and Black intellectual from Brazil that has inspired me in so many ways. She says that one of the big strategies of racism is to make us invisible as knowledge producers and to not let us tell our own stories. Every time I am doing my work as a journalist and I hear someone say, “Oh, but there are no Black people on TV” but to me what I hear is about intentionality. Many journalists who write these articles don’t know who the Black professionals are in the field––it is really all intentional.”

JS: “Yes. It is so funny you mention who is on television and media representation because my first introduction to Brazil was Giselle Bündchen, the German-Brazilian model, because that is how they portray Brazil to us. So when I went to Brazil for the first time and I saw Black people who looked like they could be on Broad and Cecil B. Moore in Philadelphia, I was just blown away that this history was wiped away. It is a constant checking and undoing; a constant re-learning all the time. There are so many Black women in Brazil who are leading the way. There are so many people who I am inspired by. We should have Black Brazilian feminisms and radical leadership as a part of our Black feminist political canon. It should be a part of our praxis to learn about different Black feminisms around the world. In your opinion, why do you think it is important to interrogate Black Brazilian feminisms and Black women’s leadership in Brazil?”

“We are here and we are going to tell our stories of resistance. We are going to work with each other to humanize our people and to build this counter-narrative that centralizes the rights of Black people in Brazil.”

Artwork of quilomba leader, Tereza de Benguela. Photo retrieved from Brasil de Fato.

Interrogating Black Brazilian Feminisms and Radical Leadership

MF: “I think it is to get to know our own history as Black people in the Diaspora. It is really important to have these conversations that we are having now and to share our experiences and to know what Black women are doing in their own countries because the system that is trying to kill us is the same. They just change the strategies based on cultural and historical contexts. When we understand that our fight against racism and our fight against this system is global, we start to intentionally center each other's stories. Once we start to interrogate Black Brazilian feminisms and feminisms from Colombia, Haiti, and elsewhere, we can achieve true Black liberation. Black women’s leadership in Brazil is really powerful but what you see is what the mainstream media tries to tell us. But when you really interrogate our lives, you see our joy, our music, and our culture because Black Brazilians are 50 percent of the country. So the Brazilian culture is Black culture. It is impossible not to say that. All the things that we hear about Brazil––about samba, about Carnival, or feijoada, or anything you can think about it, it is Black culture. It is Black people who invented that.”

“Throughout the years, Black people have developed so many different strategies in the Diaspora. The fact that we are alive and that we are here to talk about this is proof of that, right? It is a resistance that comes from, to me from Dandara, from Teresa de Benguela, from Lélia Gonzalez, Jurema Werneck to Érica Malunghino, Linkier, Ludmilla, Sojourner Truth, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, and the many Black women from here and there who are paving the way for us. When we interrogate Black Brazilian feminisms, we are really able to amplify resistance in an organized way and we can see that it is not only one form of resistance––that Black women are resisting and getting organized across the Diaspora in so many different ways and we can learn from each other. We can spend and create networks of affection, of solidarity, of economic solidarity. Now in terms of COVID-19––especially when you are talking about the U.S., because we know how much the dollar has and imperialism’s value in other countries––we should be intentional with our money.”

“When we interrogate Black Brazilian feminisms, we are really able to amplify resistance in an organized way and we can see that it is not only one form of resistance––that Black women are resisting and getting organized across the Diaspora in so many different ways and we can learn from each other.”

“I can really highlight the work of Sueli Carneiro and Lélia Gonzalez because they are two Black scholars, activists, and writers who are a part of our history. One is a philosopher and the other one was a sociologist. They are in defense of the Black movement in Brazil––with their intellectual productions, with their mobilization, with solidarity, and with their discourse on intersectionality. When Angela Davis went to Brazil, she said that everyone should know the work of Lélia Gonzalez because Lélia is one of the first Black women who wrote on the discourse of democracy in Brazil. We can’t talk about democracy in a country where 54 percent of its population is Black if we do not center Black people and if we do not center Black trans women. We have to remember that Brazil is one of the countries that kills the most LGBTQ+ people in the world. We cannot forget their names. I can mention Marielle Franco as a global example of a Black woman who fought for the rights of her people in politics. I can mention Valdecir Nascimento and Naiara Leite from ODARA–Instituto da Mulher Negra (Black Women's Institute). They are really near and dear in my heart and they defend Black women in Salvador da Bahia. Odara is an organization that is centering the legacy and memory of our ancestors and the fight for the empowerment of Black people. Conceição Evaristo is a writer. Her work is really marked by her experience as a Black woman in Brazil––what she calls “escrevivência”––which is a mixture of escrita (writing) and vivência (life experience). It is really beautiful. She writes with her heart. I think one of her books is in English, Ponciá Vicencio. She talks about this younger Black woman that explored the creativity, the love, and the violence of the ancestors. It is wonderful and it is worth it.”

“All of these Black feminisms are really important to myself as a Black woman, as an activist, and now as a Black immigrant in the U.S. Some of them are now our ancestors, and some of them with me all the time. I really ask their permission and their blessings to mention their names and share the little bit that I know about their work and their history. The truth is, there are so many Black women fighting for their communities; creating sustainability; and leading movements in their communities where they know that intentionally the State doesn’t do anything. It is by political choice that the State doesn’t come to these communities to give them their basic human needs and to secure the human rights of Black people. But Black women are there. Black women are leading their communities and fighting and making sure that we have what we deserve––not what we need––but what we deserve as Black people. And I say that not in a romanticized way of saying, ‘Oh, Black women are there and they are strong.’ I am uplifting the work they do but at the same time, we all should hold the government accountable––the State accountable––to do the work that they should do.”

Photo of activist and politician, Érica Malunghino. She made history by being the first transgender woman to be elected seat to the São Paulo legislature in its over 180 years of existence. Photo Credit: BemTV/Wikimedia Commons.

JS: “I just want to emphasize what you said: Black women are dying because they are fighting for our basic rights. I love how you said this isn’t something to be romanticized. People are putting their lives on the line. We know that the Brazilian State has taken the lives of a lot of Black human rights defenders as well as in Colombia, and other parts of the world. It is sad but we must recognize that this is not a game: that being an activist is not a gimmick. These women are living in dire situations and their communities are in dire need and they are literally sacrificing everything. In having this conversation, I am thinking about what Marielle Franco and Maria Beatriz Nascimento went through and how Beatriz Nascimento died from intervening for a friend who was contending with intimate partner violence. Even with Marielle Franco, unfortunately and fortunately, her assassination was able to gain global recognition. However, there are so many other women and gender non-conforming folks whose names we will never know. I really appreciate you saying that.”

“In going into the next part of our discussion, we will talk about Black Lives Matter in the U.S. and Vidas Negras Importam in Brazil. I think in the U.S. there is a tendency to focus only on what is going on in the U.S., in regards to Black people but I think it is important that we also have an internationalist lens. With all the uprisings around the world in regards to ending state violence, why is it important to keep our eyes on what is going on in Brazil? And also keep our eyes on Black women, who like you said, are working to combat injustices that are committed by the State and structurally in society?”

Vidas Negras Importam: A Black Feminist Lens on Black Lives Matter and Ending State Violence in Brazil

MF: “When we look at Brazil––and when I say this I am thinking of how non-Brazilian people look at Brazil––when you look at Black Brazilians and what is happening, it is a way to look at our people and understand the history of Afro-people in other countries and in the Diaspora. Because the police that kill Black people here in the U.S., are killing us in Brazil, too. There are different forms of state violence that are not just through the police. People are being killed by police brutality and they are being killed because of the discourse from the media that is marginalizing us in our communities and criminalizing our movements and our culture. People are being killed because of unequal access to healthcare. In the U.S., we see the high rates of maternal mortality among Black women. We see the unequal access to education. We see so many Black women being killed by the police in Brazil but people don’t say their names but they are there. Now, in times of COVID-19, we see cases of Miguel Otávio, where his mother had to go to work because she was a housekeeper. Because the woman she was working for did not take care of Miguel, he fell from the ninth floor from a building. Those are forms of state violence, too, because if that woman had received any kind of support from the State during this pandemic that is impacting the whole world, she wouldn’t have had to go to work. She would be with her son.”

“Before COVID-19 was here, we were experiencing many types of violence–– violence that is sponsored by the State and that is really important to say. So when we look at Brazil, when we talk about Black liberation, and when we talk about Black Lives Matter, we cannot forget the country that has the second largest Black population in the world. My ancestors may have been brought to a different country but all of us come from the same continent. That is the truth. If we say Black Lives Matter, we have to say all Black Lives Matter. How can I fight for true liberation if I do not care about my sisters in the Diaspora? About my Black trans sisters in Brazil? My sisters here in the United States? For example in Brazil, in April the police killed 43 percent more people than in April last year––and we are in the middle of a pandemic! Why are those police operations happening in the favelas? The question is why are they happening in the first place and the second is why are they happening during a pandemic? Like why? The government did not state any plan to support Black Brazilians during the pandemic in the favela but they had a plan to continue to kill us because there are police operations there.”

“How can I fight for true liberation if I do not care about my sisters in the Diaspora? About my Black trans sisters in Brazil? My sisters here in the United States?”

“The Brazilian crisis of police violence cannot be separated from the context of anti-Blackness and the genocide of Black people that is happening in Brazil. We can’t really disconnect this fight against state violence from one context to another. The context may be different and the strategies of the State may be different but our people are still dying. I really don’t think that one of us can be free if none of us are free. That includes all of us in all these spaces and it includes all of us in other countries. I think of João Pedro, who was assassinated inside of his cousin’s home when he was playing with his family; a boy who wasn’t even safe in his home. When the health organization said that we have to stay at home because of the pandemic, João was home and he was killed by the police anyway. So when we hear about João Pedro, Miguel Otávio, Nina Pop, and Breonna Taylor, we can’t forget that. When I see the African-American community thriving, I thrive too. And when I feel like we lost someone, I feel that too because this is what international solidarity means. We can’t just continue to keep going if our people are just dying in other places. And that is what is happening with Marielle Franco. We know we are getting justice for Marielle because the whole world is saying we will not forget that. We got justice for George Floyd because the whole world was saying justice for George Floyd. But what about Claudia da Silva Ferreira? What about so many other Black women that we don’t know?”

“Claudia was a 38-year old woman who left her house just to buy bread for her four kids and she was shot by the police. The police put her in the back of their car and drove her over 300 meters before the car stopped at a red sign. The police that killed Claudia were arrested and then released because they claimed when she was put in the car, she was already dead and we know that she wasn’t. When we look at Brazil we cannot forget all those histories. We have to keep fighting like we are doing for Marielle, like we are doing for George Floyd, like we still have to do for Breonna Taylor. We have to look to Brazil and see what we can learn from there. What is it that can be added to our fight? What are the strategies that we can share? How can we work together? What can we learn from the quilombos? What can we learn from the favela, Paraisópolis, that now during the pandemic, have their own doctors, their own ambulance, and their own first responders? All this is organized and sponsored by the community itself. And they are still distributing more than 1,000 meals per day.”

“We have to look to Brazil and see what we can learn from there. What is it that can be added to our fight? What are the strategies that we can share? How can we work together? What can we learn from the quilombos?”

“This is because the State is not supporting the community. But the people are still moving. Black women are still moving and they are still organizing. There is so much to learn from one another. There is so much to learn from Paraisópolis and from Black journalists in Brazil who are mobilizing their communities. Institutes like Odara and Geledés are centering Black women and are centering intersectionality because that is what we know. There is no way to achieve democracy if we don’t center our people, if we don’t center Black women, if we don’t center Black trans women. And that is what Lélia Gonzalez said a lot. She talks about amefricanidade in an article called “For An Afro-Latin American Feminism”––which is one of my favorites––where she says that we have to center our experience as Black women in the Americas. She says the only way to achieve liberation, to fight for Black women, and to have true Black feminisms is to have anti-imperialism in the colonial perspective of feminism that focuses on our ancestry and more of what we have in common than what we have different in the Americas. Those are ways that we can think about how we can involved in Brazil, and how we can get involved with other Black women and Black movements in the Diaspora.”

JS: “Thank you so much for sharing this! I also meant to ask you: Where in Brazil are you from?”

MF: “Rio! I am from the metropolitan area of Rio. There is something I always say: when someone asks me where I am from and I say Rio, what comes in their mind is Pinterest! Oh, you live by the ocean? Copacabana? No! I definitely don’t live there [Laughs]. There are so many places beyond Rio. I am from the metropolitan area from Rio––from São Gonçalo. I don’t know if there is anyone from São Gonçalo here connected with us but I am from there!”
JS: “Wow! Everyone is probably like: “Oh my gosh––the beach?! You live close to there?” [Laughs]

MF: “It would take almost two hours to get to the beach, so I did not live close to Copacabana at all!” [Laughs]

Photo of activist, anthropologist, and scholar, Lélia Gonzalez. Photo Credit: Cézar Loureiro/Wikimedia Commons.

Building Solidarities

JS: “I think we need to change our perceptions of Brazil being a paradise or what Christen A. Smith calls an “Afro-paradise”, especially when you talk about Salvador. I really hate how people will try to anti-politicize Brazil and act as if it is only a tourism location but it is not. It is more than just that. It is where Black people live, think, breathe, do, think, and resist. I know you touched on it a little bit but what are some strategies or ways we can catalyze solidarities with Black women in Brazil?

MF: “Yes, but first I really want to touch on this notion of Brazil being a paradise. It worked for so many years––the white Brazilians tried to build another idea of what Brazil actually is. They tried to make Brazil a country of “racial democracy” where everyone lives in peace. Of course, we don’t have Black people because that is something that they intentionally tried to erase. In the ‘60s they said, ‘Oh, we don’t have Black people’––when we do––there are no inequalities, you see? Everyone lives in peace’ [says sarcastically]. This idea of racial democracy is what Brazil tried to build within itself and they exported this idea as well. This is why so many people have this idea of Brazil being a paradise and they see beautiful pictures of Salvador and of Rio but they do not look at our histories of resistance and they don’t look at our movements of what Black women have done there. For me, now that we are in 2020, there is no excuse for that because there is the internet. You don’t speak Portuguese? That is fine––you can just translate that! [Both laugh] There is a button to translate the whole page! You can actually follow people who do the work. And this goes into what you are saying about strategizing and building solidarity.”

“This is why so many people have this idea of Brazil being a paradise and they see beautiful pictures of Salvador and of Rio but they do not look at our histories of resistance and they don’t look at our movements of what Black women have done there.”

“There are a lot of organizations who do international solidarity work. You can engage with organizations that are in Brazil and many times, they even post their content in English. This is also an opportunity to learn Portuguese. Why not? I can suggest some Black friends who can speak Portuguese to everyone [Laughs].This is the time to learn another language. This is something very important, too. When we speak the language of the country––when we speak Portuguese and Spanish–– we can really connect with both movements. I remember when I was talking to a friend and she said, ‘I have a friend who doesn’t know about Black movements in Latin America.’ And I said ‘She is only searching in English. She can search for that in Spanish. She can search for that in Portuguese. She can learn directly from the people who are doing the organizing.’ This is a way to strategize. Try to break the language barrier. If you cannot afford to pay to learn another language, connect with an organization that does that in their own language. AfroResistance is an organization that I am involved with. They have hosted a series of webinars in the past weeks discussing the global war against Black people and global resistance in Portuguese, English, and Spanish.”

Photo of author Conceição Evaristo speaking at Festival Latinidades in 2013. Photo Credit: Fora do Eixo/Wikimedia Commons.

“There are so many organizations like Kilomba, where we are always translating Portuguese to English. In the case of Miguel Otávio, it was so hard to find in English. We had to translate ourselves. This is another way to boost solidarity. If someone can speak Portuguese and English or if someone can pay for an organization to support their work and for language services, do that. If someone is a journalist and they work for a news organization, they can contact Brazilians about what is happening there––and not just in terms of human rights violations but also their strategies and what is working. What are those people doing? What is the community doing for itself? That is another way, too. Writing about the work on their social media platforms and sharing it and re-posting. There are so many ways to connect with people via the Internet. Get to know the work of Black women and Black feminists who are scholars and amazing intellectuals. Lélia Gonzalez has so much of her work in English. We know there is a book by Conceição Evaristo in English. If you search on YouTube, there are videos of Sueli Carneiro. So, the content is there and the work is there. The way to connect and build solidarity is to really connect with those people and get to know what they are doing. And ask them, ‘How can I support you? Is it through donations?’ Be intentional with your money. You can ask, ‘Do you need help with translations?’ It is important to do this and support the work. And follow Kilomba––we are doing the work, too!”

Marry Ferreira’s Suggested Texts on Black Brazilian Feminisms

You can follow Kilomba Collective on Instagram and Twitter.

Centering Black Brazilian Feminisms: A Conversation with Marry Ferreira