I am the mother of a six-year-old boy,
called João Vicente,
and of a girl of two years and seven months,
called Maria Antonia.
And the question I listen to the most, the question I’m asked the most is:
“What’s the difference between raising a boy and raising a girl?”
And my answer, she is always very immediate,
it is always the same:
I always say that I see no difference between raising boys and girls.
I am creating two individuals; therefore, each one has its characteristic.
This answer, though always the same, is a lie.
I see the difference between raising boys and girls.
Gender is an issue,
because when I got pregnant from my son,
I was very, very relieved,
to know that in my belly there was a man,
because I was sure he would be free
of situations experienced by us, women.
Theoretically, he’s free, right?
Wrong.
Wrong because my son, he is a black boy,
and freedom is not a right that he will be able to enjoy.
If he walks the streets barefoot, shirtless,
dirty, leaving football lesson,
he runs the risk of being appointed as an offender,
even at six years of age.
When he becomes a teenager,
he will not have the freedom to go to his school,
get a ride, take a bus, with your backpack,
with his cap or with his hood,
with his adolescent gait,
without running the risk of carrying out a violent assault by the police,
when being mistaken for a bandit.
Because, in Brazil,
the color of my son is the color that causes people to change sidewalks,
hide their purses and shield their cars.
His life will not be more difficult than my daughter’s.
With Maria Antonia, I get caught thinking all the time.
how much we women are created to please,
how much they silence us,
and how much they disqualify us the whole time.
When I think about the risk she runs,
simply because she was born a woman and a black woman,
I’m completely terrified.
And my dread, he has a reason.
Observing the map of violence in Brazil –
this map was 2015, it’s the last one we have –
the numbers are very alarming,
but we have some very few wins,
but I wanted to highlight one.
The number of femicide against white women, he fell.
It fell 9.8%.
It’s very little for what we want for our white sisters, but it fell.
Already the number of femicide against black women
increased by 54.8%.
Is it not for me to be terrified?
I need to say more?
Need.
I have to say that despite my fear, despite my fear,
despite these alarming numbers,
I dare not lose hope.
and I work all the time
a way for me to raise my children here, in Brazil, in my country.
I keep thinking about how to raise sweet children in such an acid country;
how to raise children who believe
that plurality and diversity are riches,
in a country that is so plural, so diverse and so unequal.
How not to play on them an experience, experience
and even a hurt that is mine?
But also, how not to allow
that they face the world naively,
so that they are not run over by the racism that exists in the structure of our country?
I watched a movie called “The 13th Amendment,” a documentary.
He talks about the American prison system,
and the speech of a man, of a white man,
caught my attention.
He said:
“I am the result of a choice made by my ancestors.
Blacks are fruit
of a lack of choice of their ancestors.
I, white man, am I to blame for these choices?
Are contemporary blacks to blame for these choices?
No, none of us are to blame,
but it was an inheritance that we received,
So we have to take responsibility
to deal with this inheritance, of which we are fruit. “
I kept thinking about what this guy said
and I said, “Guys, what’s he talking about?”
This “inheritance” that this guy is talking about,
she has a name,
and it is called “our society”.
Thus, social inequality,
inequality between genders and racism
they are problems of all of us.
And it’s not just a gender problem, no,
because even the sexual condition matters a lot in that country.
Brazil is the most homosexual killing country in the world.
My children, they are still children,
I do not know what their sexual condition will be,
but what I want for my children is what I want for every child,
be white, black, indigenous, heterosexual, homosexual, gay, trans:
I want them to grow free,
full of love,
courage, to be powerful children.
And I also have a dream.
I have a dream of seeing rich working to end poverty,
to see men putting themselves in the shoes of women,
to see white women understanding that there is an abyss
among white women and black women.
I have the dream of …
see heterosexual children accepting homosexual and trans children,
of seeing heterosexual women accepting lesbian women,
and all of us, let us be very attentive
to guarantee the rights of the Indians.
And, I wanted here today to make an invitation,
an invitation for us to help each other,
to help each other to have, in fact, the same possibilities,
because before the law, we are all equal, but in practice we are not.
And that’s not a problem.
Differences are not a problem as long as they do not cause inequality.
For this to happen,
I have the feeling that we have to start looking at each other,
with humanity,
with affection.
It’s an exercise.
Looking at others with affection is an exercise,
and understand that the other is, yes, an extension of people.
Look, if we want to walk quietly through the streets,
day and night;
if we want to stay in our homes without an affront to know
how or whether our children will reach their destination;
if we want to turn on the television, and not watch a flood of blood;
if we want to walk with our cars open, with the windows open,
do not want to be aware of how much will be a car shield;
we’re going to have to improve people’s lives.
It’s the only way.
And one chance of that is to look at the other with affection, with attention.
And there, the question is right:
How can we improve people’s lives?
I’m not the government, I’m not a company …
because a serious government, we know what he should do
to end inequality.
He must invest in public policies,
in affirmative actions,
in inclusive educational policies …
A company can reassess its staff
and make diversity a real pillar of that company.
But what about civil society?
What can civil society do?
Well, we are civil society,
and this has been the question of my life:
“How can I improve people’s lives?”
And I keep thinking that maybe we have
which transform our thoughts,
our lines,
in action,
and understand that individual actions,
they directly impact the collective,
and the collective is us,
we are our society.
Small actions, they are valuable
and they are capable of changing the world.
And where does the world begin, if not in ourselves?
Thanks.
(Applause)
Thanks.
(Applause)
”
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