The counterproductive racial debate on Big Brother Brazil

Besides being, at least in my humble opinion, a terrible show to watch, Big Brother Brazil has become the most counterproductive instrument for a serious racial debate. And it greatly disappoints me to see some relevant activists with a considerable number of followers on social media using this sensationalist and manipulated entertainment to extract snippets of structural racism and spark discussion on the subject. What I consider a widespread trivialization of something so dear to us Black men and women in this country.

The vast majority who watch this television garbage are not interested in seeing their leisure time transformed into a wall of social issues. Especially when those issues are not of interest to them. This causes the Black participants in the house to suffer rejection from the public, for "getting in the way" and "annoying" the predominantly white audience of the program. This had already happened in the edition where Karol Conká left as the villain and all the Black "brothers" were eliminated in sequence. And it is repeating itself in the current edition, with added mockery from some of the white participants, who exude racism in their behavior, but deny to the death that they are racist.

Although I don't watch the entire show, it's impossible not to see videos of it popping up on my social media timeline. In one of them, I came across a discussion between the Angolan model Tina and another participant named Key. The trouble seemed to stem from some gossip spread by the volleyball player against Tina, which led the model to confront her. In the middle of the argument, the Angolan woman was called a "girl" and demanded respect, stating that she had a name and was the mother of two daughters. Since I found the whole thing overreacting, I did some research to understand the origin of the dispute and discovered that it all started with a conversation between the doctor Fred Nicácio, another Black participant in the house, who was informing Key and two other participants that he was pursuing legal action against them because of a racist act he had suffered, related to his African religious background. The participants said they were afraid of the prayers Fred performed in the house.

Tempers flared, the cynicism of racist whiteness was activated, and bingo. Tina was considered the most unbalanced person in history. Perpetuating the stereotype of angry and aggressive, which racists often attribute to Black women. All this because many Black people still haven't realized, some out of innocence, others out of convenience, that racism is too serious to be debated in the house of racists. All the didacticism employed by the doctor Fred Nicácio in explaining to the other participants what structural racism is and how much it affects the existence of Black people in society was in vain. And he is still being accused of wanting to gain attention by waiting to announce the legal action he took in front of the cameras. Analyzing the public's comments on the imbroglio, I observed that most commenters were siding with the white participants and referring to Tina and Nicácio as "those annoying people" who only play the victim.

Imagine a fundamentalist Christian going to a brothel to enjoy the pleasures offered there, and then starting to preach about morality and how that commercial activity distances him from salvation and brings him closer to hell. That's how I see Black people who agree to participate in Big Brother and then want to raise the racial issue inside the house. The game there is a free-for-all, pure savage capitalism, where one and a half million reais is at stake. We know very well that capitalism and Blackness are on opposite sides when it comes to economic power. Capitalism is white and only exists thanks to the exploitation of the working class, sometimes even enslaved, composed mostly of Black men and women. Since when will a white person competing for one million reais with a Black person worry about the racial issue within that game, if the entire social structure was built to privilege them, regardless of anything and above any situation? Institutional racism dictates that Black people shouldn't even be in the competition, since, even after abolition, we were prevented from attending schools, owning land, being served in commerce, exercising certain professional functions, and other social deprivations aimed at marginalizing us under state policies.

Stop trivializing the cause and giving ammunition to your haters, taking a centuries-old struggle, where many of our ancestors died raising their voices in search of liberation, to the brothel of television entertainment. Stop subjecting the racial cause to the appreciation of an audience that watches the program only to see finger-pointing and shouting. You are taking the racial agenda under the covers and fornicating with it. To the delight of racists who can freely vent their prejudice and indifference to the struggle, under the pretext that this is not the focus of the program. And it isn't. And it is up to the Black men and women who agree to participate in the show to understand that they are entering a large house where everyone is monitored by cameras, but they will be the most socially watched. I was extremely bothered by the mockery of one participant, who was laughing hysterically while the Angolan Tina was discussing the volleyball player. A white man provoking a black woman, calling her childish and out of control. And none of the other participants, not even the black people, warned him about it.

That's why, among other things, I don't fall into the trap of debating racism where it's not appropriate, with people who don't want to listen, and with people who aren't interested in ceasing to reproduce racist thoughts, speech, and behaviors in society. It's a trap, Bino!