Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 399

No, soccer is not invading America. It’s been here all along

Despite these types of troll-y click-bait articles being a dime a dozen each and every World Cup cycle, Jeff Winkler’s piece in the Guardian, “‘Soccer’ is a virus invading America,” deserves special condemnation for how off the mark it is despite its boilerplate ‘ironic not ironic’ facade.

This is the kind of trope, built largely on out of date and uniformed class and race-based assumptions, which not only omits and obfuscates the narratives of millions of soccer fans in the United States, but also mischaracterizes the composition of the country more largely.

Seemingly gaining his soccer expertise from a visit to two bars in Austin, TX and a close reading of the New York Times Style Section, Winkler’s missive lambasts the “privileged, cultured followers who’d rather tweet their team’s score than cheer ‘em on” in the US while pining for the violence, passion, and “bloodlust of the disenfranchised masses.”

Perhaps the most cringe-worthy element in his piece is the awkward conflation of culture with privilege and whiteness, as if all three uniformly went together.

Rather than the country’s fans having a problem, maybe Winkler just needs to get out more?

While I haven’t witnessed the fantasy “bloodlust” and violence Winkler hopes for (but would then be the first one to write an op-ed against) in the last two weeks watching matches alongside World Cup fans from a variety backgrounds all over New York City, I have seen incredible passion, support, camaraderie, and emotional ranges.

Indeed, my experiences are exactly the opposite of Winkler’s conclusions on fandom in the United States.  And while New York City is unique in its diversity and amount of foreign born residents, this kind of support is not unique to the city.

Critically, Winkler also doesn’t grasp the key point that many die hard, intergenerational soccer fans in the US support other counties beyond the US National team.

Photographer Douglas Zimmerman has been traveling around the US during the World Cup shooting the diversity of the country’s fan culture and further illustrating this. He has showcased Korea and Mexico fans in LA, Bosnia fans in St. Louis, and Chile fans in Denver, among others.

For the USA-Germany match tomorrow there will be a massive viewing party in the middle of downtown Detroit at noon on a work day; in a workers’ city that is 83% black and also has substantial Arab and Mexican communities. You can bet that the faces in the crowd will reflect this, rather than being the “urban, wine-sipping bourgeoisie …of supposedly Euro-centric civility” fans that he mischaracterizes as the sport’s sole passive supporters in the United States.

Brenda Fassie: a revolution without harmony

In 2002 when it debuted, I went to see ‘Amandla: a Revolution in Four-Part Harmony,’ American Lee Hirsch’s film about the role of music in the anti-apartheid struggle. Uplifting and solemn at the same time, I admit, I cried. But I also doubted that the music in the film was the only, or even most interesting, music going on.

Brenda Fassie, MaBrrr, in fact, sizzled in 1980 and 1990s, at the very height of the United Democratic Front‘s pitched battles with the apartheid state. She broke records with the sales of her albums, scandalized audiences and society with her embrace of drugs, alcohol, and a variety of lovers (male and female). Her catch-me-if-you-can game with the media made her a tabloid favorite. This Guardian obit reflects some of that from afar. A life-sized sculpture of her and giant murals proclaim her outsized significance to South Africans: Brenda Fassie still matters. Brenda Fassie is heritage.

Bongani Madondo’s edited volume, I’m Not Your Weekend Special: Portraits on the Life+Style & Politics of Brenda Fassie (Picador Africa, 2014) is an homage to Fassie with contributions from eighteen different contributors: some journalists, some famed literary critics, some former lovers. Madondo warns that in no sense is this collection “definitive” rather it is partial, full of cant and love: “Some stories have to retain their secrets to keep their vitality. Brenda the person and ‘The Brenda Fassie’ story, perhaps like her music, is the ultimate, contested fantasy tale.”

Like Brenda Fassie, intimacies blister convention in this book. Tholang Tseka’s “Every Breath I Take: Loving & Living with Brenda in Her Last Days,” recounts Fassie’s death by overdose, her fragile self, and their love laced around it.

Writer and literary critic Njabulo Ndebele’s famed “Rediscovery of the Ordinary” called for writers to redirect their efforts from the spectacle of apartheid violence to everyday life. While several pieces in this collection show the political interventions of Fassie’s work in “Black President” and the album “Too Late for Mama” (here‘s the single) and her relationship to Winnie Madikizela Mandela, her power sprung from her everydayness. This was popular music, often dismissed as ‘bubble gum.’

Fassie troubled middle class pieties as much as apartheid boundaries. Ndebele argues, in “Still Thinking of MaBrrr,” that Fassie “brought the experience of freedom very close” because she disrupted the divide between private and public with “her verbal ungovernability.” That had wide ranging social and cultural implications, like turning apartheid stadiums into boisterous cultural sites at her concerts, others have yet to be fully realized.

Brenda Fassie was a woman who stepped out of line, talked out of turn, wore the pants, pulled up her skirt, loved women and men … Oops. In 1997 Charl Bignaut paraphrased music critic Gwen Ansell’s take on Fassie’s roller coaster ride with the music industry: “she’s a woman they couldn’t control; a woman who makes her own rules.”

Sean and I happened upon this famous photo of Brenda Fassie at a DA exhibition of Nelson Mandela in Cape Town City Hall in July 2013, in which the DA attempts to lay claim to Madiba.

Were they trying to capture and tame the legacy of this Langa talent at the same time? Because in her lifetime, she surely would have said to the DA what she once said to Blignaut (author of “In Bed with Brenda: a White Moffie Falls for a Black Vixen” in the volume) when he went to interview her: “ ‘I don’t know your paper, but anyway, today you work for me. If I feel like it.’”

Artist Mohau Modisakeng: Probing Subliminal Violence

Those who are playing football there now are walking over dead bodies. Their euphoria and the deaths that occurred there during the hostel violence of the 1990s is a dichotomy that, even as the artist stands in his studio today, is too great to comprehend. He was a boy of about seven then, wandering around, as young children his age do, when he saw dead bodies on the ground on a football ground.

This is an attempt at paraphrasing a memory from Mohau Modisakeng’s childhood. It does not make the memory any less real. My only sin is that I have made the memory exist today as opposed to the past. At the nucleus of Mohau Modisakeng’s young career in the arts is the obsession to inhabit the contours of colonial and post-colonial history, deciphering its serpentine nuances, drawing out its violence, moulding them into aesthetically pleasing objects and prophesying the present and the future. The way in which he moulds the violence into sculptures, photographs and video has an almost romantic connotation to it.

“The work doesn’t start off with an attempt to portray violence. The work responds elementarily to the history of the black body within the (South) African context, which in most cases cannot be removed from the violence of the apartheid era and the early 90s. I think the work becomes mesmerizing because although we might recognise history as our past, the body is indifferent to social changes so it remembers,” Mohau explains.

It is not only violence that Mohau’s work concerns itself with, unlike performance artists who bash themselves about to no purpose at all, he understands the importance and effects of it. In 2013, at an exhibition titled Inzilo (mourning), Mohau commented that South Africa is a country caught in a state of mourning. It is caught between trying to remember, forget and move on.

‘Ditaola’, his debut solo exhibition, closed on the 12 of June 2014 at Brundyn+ Gonsalves after attracting visitors almost every other day. Explaining the name of the exhibition, Mohau says, “Ditaola is a Setswana/Sesotho name given to divination bones. The practice of throwing bones is an integral part of various indigenous African spiritual traditions. The bones work hand in hand with the mysterious realm of dreams and visions.”

Mohau not only moulds the history of South Africa into artwork but often he probes his own personal history too. The work was personal, like his earliest work, in which he had made an okapi about his brother who had been stabbed to death. The exhibition featured giant sculptures made of white material, which symbolised the bones and Victorian like sculptures, which symbolised colonial history. Ditaola, says Mohau, is both personal and political. The personal is the artist attempting to interpret his mother’s dreams. His mother is a prophet. When Mohau was a youth in Johannesburg, he would quietly sit, acutely listening, muting every sound around him, and only hearing his mother’s voice, whilst she explained her dreams to him, drowning him deeper and deeper into the spiritual world. “They way she told her visions to me, she compelled me to make art from them” Mohau said.

Listening to Mohau speak about his art, one is drawn, not only into his thinking process but also into his personality. He is not, like most artists pretend to be, obscure or aloof, or even trying to be. His work emanates from a deeper place within him. Somewhere where he exposes his own vulnerability and a place, in which he attempts to, though his art, make sense of the universe. Looking at the sculptures as they sit within the gallery, in their massive presence, the large sized photographs against the wall and the video installation loop, there is a sacred feeling that one shares with them, a feeling that is hard to explain to someone else without exposing one’s own personal stories that have been hidden in the depth of their being for many years.

“To a significant extent my work as always been cathartic to myself and surprisingly the audience has also engaged with the work along those terms.”

Mohau Modisakeng was born in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1987, and now lives and works between the city of his birth and Cape Town. In 2011, he was awarded the SASOL New Signatures Award. His work has been exhibited widely, including at VOLTA NY; Saatchi Gallery, London; Dak’Art, the 2012 Dakar Biennial; Focus 11, Basel; and Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town.

Earlier in his career as a student at Michaelis School of Fine Arts in Cape Town, he trained and worked predominantly in sculpture. As a student and still now, he prefers large scale work because they allow him to work without constraints. His sculptures at the Ditaola exhibition were evidence of that view. They were as massive as they demanded to be, a process that appears to have gotten beyond his control, and one he cannot himself begin to understand beyond that he prefers them to be like that.

In a striking series of three photographs, a white dove with white dust hanging around it sits on top of an AK 47. First, the dove sat still. Second, the dove was taking off. And third, the dove had taken off. Mohau, the artist, is staring past the dove into emptiness. A country on the brink of freedom, owing its arrival there on a string of violence, whilst its citizens watch helplessly, without active participation in the process, is what I got from it.

From the Ditaola exhibition and his earlier ones, Mohau Modisakeng, not only is becoming a brave artist that probes the obvious that has been ignored but he also probes what mostly is subliminal in today’s society. To feel Mohau work, one has to be tuned with something greater themselves. It is commendable that he channels this through personal stories and uses his own body in the process. In his artwork, he offers us, in our different ways, small and large, an opportunity to face our past, interrogate it and deal with it.

The American Ending

There can be a logic to loss, but often it feels arbitrary. The ground beneath the losing party is unsteady, uncertain. To go by a number of recent pieces, American sports journalism wishes to fix football and steady the ground of loss. There is a longing for happy endings: an ending that is happy for the winner, but also less painful for the loser. Football, as it is now, the story goes, is unfair: it has rules, but too many exceptions to those rules.

It is easy to see what could be gained if football became more fair. Video replay could guarantee the accuracy of every call. Added time could be precise to the second. Penalty kicks could be given only for clear denials of scoring chances. Pitches could be made smaller to guarantee more goals and reward the enterprise of teams. These suggestions have all been made, in seriousness, by American sports writers in the past few weeks.

But what might be lost in this micro-managed new world? What if football, like a peak predator, is already perfectly adapted to its environment? Or, if not perfectly adapted, at least evolving at a rate congruent with its enormous audience’s needs? So: no. Let’s not rid the game of its vital strengths: the sense that anything is possible, the joy in getting away with an unlikely victory, the perverse joy in having been robbed (the intensity of a loser’s feelings, an intensity that, as in life, convinces you that you lost through no fault of your own, that you lost because arbitrary forces were involved). Few native speakers of this game would wish to lose the organic narrative that emerges out of its randomness, the way a good novel might gather seemingly unrelated facts and incidents into an emotional peak. If football’s “flaws” were as intolerable as American writers would have us believe, it would neither be the world’s biggest sport nor one of its biggest forms of cultural expression.

The contrary is true: it’s the messiness, the subjectivity, the imprecision that are the sources of the stories that are told years later: “Oh we would have won that game if not for.” And how precious and irreplaceable such stories are. Rules are needed, and they are applied most times. That’s enough. Too rigid an apparatus of justice would deny football fans of the feelings of justification that come with perceived injustice. You would have lost simply because you were no good, and that’s a far lonelier way to lose.

In the early years of the Danish film industry, different versions of the same film were sometimes made, depending on its export destination. The films sent to Russia were edited to end in tragedy, but a film with a happy conclusion was said to have an American ending.

Cote d’Ivoire vs Greece (in Harlem, NY)

It has been a relatively successful World Cup thus far for Africa, save a disappointing Cameroon. Nigeria, Algeria, and Ghana have all enjoyed crucial victories, edging them closer to a rare berth in the knockout round. Many of the European sides, too, have been carried by their players of African origin.

The Ivory Coast’s golden generation, enjoying their last spell on the international stage, have not gelled as expected. Led by grand statesman, Didier Drogba, and Yaya Toure, a midfield goliath that terrorizes the English game, Les Elephantes were poised to become the first African nation in this World Cup to seal progression to the knockout round with just a draw against an insipid Greece.

But Toure’s championship form for Manchester City has not continued in Brazil, leaving some in New York’s Ivorian community to question where his loyalties lie.

“African players never play the same for their European teams and their national teams,” said Cissé, a 27-year-old livery cab driver, at New Ivoire Restaurant in East Harlem, an intimate venue where loud banter in Pidgin French and the subtle spices of pepe soup create an Abidjan-esque atmosphere. “He loves his club more than his country.”

No one can question Serey Die’s commitment to the Ivorian cause after a tearful moment during the national anthem. That kind of passion has won over even foreign fans. “He goes hard!”, said Yohann Perruchoud, 24, a Swiss national who keenly follows the Ivory Coast.

Many in the packed crowed pinned their hopes on Gervinho, and, of course, Drogba, whose mere presence inspired a decisive turnaround against Japan. The first glimpses of the bearded Ivorian captain evoked a rapturous applause, akin to a royal salute to a man who helped end his country’s civil war.

Little was said of midfield enforcer Cheikh Tiote, his lazy back pass opening the gates for the Greeks to score a vital opening goal. Ivorian pace and power responded, but to no avail. “Joue, Joue!” chanted fans, often in futility as Ivorian attacks lacked verve and imagination.

At half-time, tempers frayed at the restaurant, with fans pointing fingers, raising voices, and attempting a scuffle until calmer heads intervened. The stakes were high against a team almost all Ivorians in attendance were certain could be beaten.

Substitute Wilfried Bony’s introduction inspired confidence, and his low finish from Gervinho’s square pass in the box restored the guarantee of safe passage.

It seemed conclusive, until Ecuadorian referee, Carlos Vera, gifted Greece a penalty in the 92nd minute after Giorgios Samaras appeared to trip on his own foot. 

But even poor officiating, which has haunted this World Cup more than once, did not deflate the orange-clad fans as much as the players’ complacency. “They were lazy,” said Cheikh Cissé, the manager of New Ivoire.

The Greeks, said airport worker Ismael Fofana, recognized the importance of this match, whereas his countrymen did not. “They needed the same thinking,” he added.

African hopes now lie with Nigeria, Ghana, and Algeria, who themselves have difficult ties and group table scenarios to negotiate.

But, on the bright side, no one in New York or Fortaleza got bitten.

Lesego Rampolokeng’s Elegy To Robo The Technician

“Raise your hand up if you’re a hip-hop head” said Lesego Rampolokeng, rallying a house full of poets at a gathering in Melville on a wet Sunday afternoon in 2013. I put mine up, as did a few audience members seated towards the back. The rest sat in the sparsely-occupied restaurant and gazed at the ones who were. We couldn’t be moved. We stood firm, resolute in our hip-hop-headness as one of our elders broke bread with us.

“I’m also an emcee” continued the street-smart spitter usually attributed the title of poet, but whose work stretches beyond that medium into novels (Blackheart), and theatre plays which then found a second life in film (Finding Fanon).

When I last saw him, Papa Ramps as he’s affectionately known to the a-weh massive of the underground and yonder, was working on a film-cum-documentary of sorts which traced his journey in poetry through South African greats such as Mafika Gwala.

Back in Mellville, Papa Ramps has just begun reciting his Ode to Hymphatic Thabs. A head paying homage to another, how’s that?! “Mission emphatic,” he begun in his half-rapped, quick-paced style.

Barely a month had passed after the event when Robo the Technician passed away. Robo was instrumental in building the South African hip-hop scene; he was the link between the old school of Papa Ramps and the (new) school over which Hymphatic Thabs reigned supreme in the early 2000s. When Robo succumbed to illness, a legion of broken hearts were left behind. Papa Ramps recited a poem at his memorial service held at the Grayscale Gallery in Johannesburg. I arrived late and hence didn’t catch it, so I got in touch with the elder and asked if he’d let us reproduce the work.

NOTES FOR ROBO-TECH : WORD-GAWD

Robotic Armageddon Lyricist profundity’s geneticist

Cold school Lyrical scrolls unfold in layers players can’t manifest….

Mental uranium to intellectual atom-bomb from underground innards

(break surface toxin awards talk – sin rewards

murder by hunger & homicidal starvation)

show me whores i’ll show you swine.

lil misogynist…go swing off a pole by your vas deferens!

Twisted that off the ROBOok of rhymes aligned

Sacred against the hatred materially created

No inspiration lines but intestines stretched out

Scratch my spinal-cord is a vinyl record

One stanza eat away is a cancer

Empty stomach heavy ruckus dreadie focus

Stake my neck on a train-of-thought-wreck lyric

& (flip it ruff, that pop stuff. gore on the prance-floor.

got a nightmare for a metaphor. muddy rhymes on bloody riddims…

oh lawd a messy…raw gawd of the ‘die…versified’)

While poison pulp pulse in joburg veins

Style it thus : that ‘poverty kills’ is no genius

& pervert the Jamaica thang:

‘mimic & live…create & the artist dead’

& that’s the shebang-bang

Like when the uniformed R1 / R4 rang

Sharpeville Soweto Sebokeng

(we pauseless rap thru the pores no metaphor that’s great white jaws & vampire laws’

shark progress blood-suck commerce draining life-juice off freedom verse

slime-time. universal / unique gawd-verse-cell

fanon-spawn/satan horn – gored vessel )

capital meal? mediocrity rules, for fuck:

word technician no condiment

but rapocalyptic vision embodiment

Of robo-tech wars against pro-gnostic whores

sprouting mainstream purulent sore-flows

what keep the fed in fat : s.a. version? :

they w/rap it in gore….skin of my brother, comrade, friend.

(mourning the microphone-god passing thru…

bow down, MAN’s the truth

the stamp is deep-ink imprint stays on. legacy-shine

rest easy lyrical angel word-warrior soldier-poet.

easy, robo-tech rapping it from heaven’s roof :

‘fuck serpent award ceremonies of filth

i gets more luv where the count is lyrical-riches…

beyond material wretches-

from here to wherever this thing called life stretches…

no coffin, casket, tomb talk…antiquity

you’re rhyming the womb from here to eternity

(& that’s a true line of poetry—

rap running past 2-1 crap lies

lined in paradise) & THAT ART this REALITY

the CORE you died for…opposite the grovel-floor

(verses aligned versus corporate prostituted ….executive perspective

sick-lie finance freakonomics in the mix, constitutes the retrogressive

posterity’s the genesis the END where it begin

no one line cretin-lyric….pioneer-spirit)

(we will yet see mahlathini growl turned

minimised cola-cola tinny as minnie mouse howl at devil’s end)

lyric-spit AK-spray oceanic pen-play

fuck who’s the televised best (keeps the fee

still no free-lip can they pay the sea?)

robo-tech poem-storm bomb-burst –

blast effects last beyond hiroshima genetics

itching for cullinan diamond shine

& joburg fame buried beneath mine-dumps

shaking soul-thief gold-reefed rumps sand-clogged

rectum itching for a Rustenburg platinum butt-plug

fantasise ‘up the aliment with a treacherous bone-/precious stone encrusted log’

toilet) bank-roll (selves) all exotic for tourist bog titillation

self-dehumanisation….

rust content rhyme on a dust-context rhythm

crapper-rappers got a bland crew rag joint

dumbed down to rap-n-fetchin’ clown pissy-blather-wack

(they made the move from ‘art of war’ to fart of gore when intellect-assault put mental to asphalt)

but) easy father tech, you got it slain on point…-pointing pain towards self-dignification!) respek

(This is one of the final performances Robo gave. Shot at The Bassline, October 2013)

*This article is part of Africasacountry’s series on South African Hip-Hop in 2014. You can follow the rest of the series here.

 

So then, what does Blackness in Brazil look like?

With the increased attention on Brazil since the Cup started, I’ve noticed non-Brazilians trying to figure out what exactly is going on with Brazilian racial politics. I’ll tell you it’s not an easy task. It’s taken me months to grasp even an idea of what’s going on with race while learning the culture, the language, and the layout of my new city. A mixed raced person myself, one who is often taken as Brazilian on the streets (until I open my mouth), I’ve eventually come to understand the national myth of a singular Brazilian identity made up of different races from around the entire world. But if we outsiders look at Neymar Jr. and seem him as black, and he really is a disappearing donkey, than what does blackness in Brazil look like? Well it may look something like this:

This scene, that looks like it could take place in any U.S. city, is Baile Charme. The above video takes place in Madureira, a neighborhood with an historical Afro-Brazilian community in Rio’s North Zone, and the epicenter of the Baile Charme movement. The coordinated dances to smooth American R&B tunes seemed out of place when I first saw them in Rio. But after understanding that this North American expression of blackness was one of the few places for black-identifying people in the city to congregate, I realized that such a movement was actually somewhat of a political statement. The mission statement of the Baile Black Bom party at Pedra do Sal explicitly states that they, “are a Baile Black who’s purpose is to valorize black culture through music, literature, and afro-entrepreneurship.”

Granted, Samba is ostensibly Afro-Brazilian, and many of its stars are black Brazilians. However, with the help of the Estado Novo, it was fully appropriated by white Brazilians and became a symbol of a multi-racial Brazilian-ness. Funk music came out of a very similar Baile Black scene in Rio, but after co-option by drug dealers, and the focus on lyrics that depict sex and violence, an explicit blackness has been weened out of a genre that now represents the multi-racial favelas. So, what results is that expressions of blackness are done through the appropriation of foreign cultures, which can’t be appropriated as Brazilian by the greater population. Jamaican and the U.S. cultures, with strong histories of black empowerment movements become a convenient way to channel this identity.

To see the roots of the scene, check out my favorite scene from the movie Cidade de Deus, which takes place during a Baile Black/Old School Funk Party in that neighborhood:

In the states, the coordinated line dance style, isn’t as has hip as twerking today. But it, does still have its space in U.S. culture. Two of the biggest line dances of the last decade, and staples of the black Midwestern and Southern family reunion/wedding scene were the Cupid Shuffle, and the Cha Cha Slide. Of course the black fraternities on U.S. College campuses are the most fervent defenders (and innovators) of the tradition:

And in Oakland, the spiritual home of the hyphy movement (if Vallejo was its creative epicenter), a new hybrid twerk-step dance called Yiken has emerged (apparently merging with moves from the Gas Pedal.) Many of the moves are R-rated, what I initially called hyphy daggering, but this group of ladies really shows the creative side of the dance, and the energy of a place like the Town:

So there you go. It may not sort out all us outsiders’ understanding of racial identity in Brazil, but for me the connections are enough to satisfy — and even understand my place in my new home.

This post first appeared in modified form on Dutty Artz.

New Sounds from Mozambique

Most of Mozambique’s music stars and musical genres known abroad come from the south of the country and the capital Maputo. That’s why Wired for Sound—the mobile recording studio we wrote about previously—toured the central and northern regions of Mozambique to record some new sounds from young musicians, new and established bands, and more traditional choirs. What they returned with is a pretty diverse representation of musical talent: High school students, a women’s choir, traditional instrumentalists, bands using hand-made instruments, and a tour guide whose nom de guerre is Harry Potter.

With the help of South African musicians, Wired for Sound—consisting of Freshlyground, radio producer Kim Winter, and Freshlyground guitarist Julio Sigauque—produced an album with 17 tracks, all recorded between the central province of Tete and the northern island of Ibo off the coast of Cabo Delgado province. Every artist will receive copies of their produced tracks so that they can promote themselves through community radio stations and Soundcloud.

The songs feature musical genres from hip hop, African style zouk, and the Mozambican Marrabenta and Chimurenga rhythms. Most lyrics cover relationships between the young and the elders, relations among family members, and relationships between men and women. Marcelino from Furancungo, Tete province, and Harry Potter (aka Genitomolava Molava) from Nacala and Ilha de Moçambique, Cabo Delgado province, remind young people to respect what their elders did for them:

Mdy-k Raisse O Tesouro and Flay C Gazua Gazua from Pemba in Cabo Delgado urge women and families to speak up against domestic violence:

Academico (a teacher, but he explains that his name is a combination of the first letter of each family member’s name) and Pimento from Ibo Island wrote a song in English about “my most wonderful baby my wife… I want to marry you very well:”

And Nelito Lucas Meque and Armando Joaquim Sozinho from Catandica in Manica province complain about materialism poisoning love and relationships:

* The album launches today, June 24, on iTunes. You can also listen to the songs, watch a video of the recordings and listen to a radio documentary on the website Wired for Sound.

@ChiefBoima World Cup Diary Day 12 – Fatigue

I’ve stopped going to Fan Fests. I’m tired, I didn’t pace myself. A month is a long time, and new arrivals seem to come every day. World Cup tourists have an endless number of substitutions. They’re always feeling fresh for the party. The knock out stages start soon. Big European teams – former American colonizers like England, Spain, Portugal – will start going home, and American teams like Chile, Costa Rica, and Colombia will be on top. Somewhat knocked out by the party, I too will be leaving at the end of the week.

Last night I went on the town to see the U.S. v. Portugal. There were so many U.S. fans that the Fan Fest sold out. I’m not sure that’s happened for any other match but the home team’s. The traffic back up passing the Fan Fest made me miss the first 30 minutes of the match.

After the match I met a Cameroonian-American. I felt for him. His Lions seem like the least deserving team to be out here. Today they play Brazil in their last group game. I hope Brazil can use this match as a way to build some momentum for the knock out stages. My Cameroonian friend lives in D.C., and he’s one of a few visitors I’ve met that seem to have a genuine interest in exploring Brazil beyond the Cup. He took Portuguese classes before coming, and we talked at length about politics and social issues amidst the Belgian and U.S. revelry. It’s unfortunate he came here during the Cup because there aren’t as many ways to experience Brazil beyond that right now. At least in Zona Sul, normal life has gone on holiday.

It feels strange how much of an international city Rio has become. It feels like New York right now. It didn’t feel that way before. Hip kids from the states are here throwing private, corporate-sponsored DJ parties – they don’t really seem to care that much about football. The two parties I went to this weekend weren’t showing any of the matches that were happening simultaneously. It felt like SXSW. A parallel leisure global tourism is happening underneath the shadow of the sport infrastructure.

My favorite days here are when Brazil plays. Every time the Seleçao is on the entire country goes on holiday. Last week I watched Brazil v. Mexico from a favela in Zona Oeste. Again, it was a festive atmosphere. Average Brazilians are very much enjoying the matches in their normal ways: at home, in bars, fireworks, and Neymar shirts. Even though it was a scoreless draw, the bar I watched it in partied the night away to pagode, funk, samba, and charme. I hope there are lots of fireworks today.

Christopher Gaffney hopes otherwise. He thinks that if Brazil goes out early it will force a national reflection on their deal with the devil. It’s an interesting proposal. Read his highly informative post on the state of the protests in Brazil, which continue despite the lack of coverage in international media. Whatever happens on the pitch, after this Cup experience I want Brazil to win more than ever.

Image: FIFA.com

Neymar e o burro em fuga

No momento em que você lê este texto, é bem provável que toda pessoa do planeta já saiba quem é Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior. A imagem acima é de Neymar, 10 dias atrás.

Neymar, há um ano:

Esta é de três anos atrás:

Este é o Neymar de cinco anos atrás:

O pequeno Neymar com seus pais e irmã:

Você poderia chegar a inúmeras conclusões sobre a notável transformação de Neymar. Por exemplo, você poderia concluir que raça não existe no Brasil, frase favorita de uma “tribo” específica de brasileiros – todos liberais impecáveis, que coincidentemente são da classe alta, brancos e no topo da escombreira.

Ou poderia concluir que todo mundo no Brasil é de fato, mestiço – que é, a segunda frase favorita do mesmo grupo.

Ou, poderia se perguntar o que aconteceu com este menino.

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É fácil demais condenar Neymar por fingir ser branco: a julgar pelas imagens, ele é parcialmente branco. É tolice acusá-lo de negar sua ascendência mestiça pois a mais simples das buscas regurgita centenas de imagens de sua infância, das quais ele não parece se envergonhar. Há isso: quando questionado se ele alguma vez havia sido vítima de racismo, ele disse, “Nunca. Nem dentro nem fora de campo. Porque eu não sou preto, certo? ”

A palavra que ele usou, ‘preto’, é fato significativo, já que, no Brasil, quando usado como cor atribuída a pessoas – ao invés de coisas, como arroz ou feijão – equivale à palavra ‘n’ em inglês (negro ou nigger); ‘negro’ e ‘negra’ são termos mais aceitáveis para descrever alguém que é de fato ‘negro’ (em inglês, black). E, ‘moreno’ ou ‘morena’ são os padrões para descrever alguém de pele mais escura, assim como, ocasionalmente, eufemismos para o ser negro). Tecnicamente falando, entretanto, a lógica de Neymar é irrepreensível – e até meio que interessantemente honesta: o Neymar que fez a declaração era um rapaz de dezoito anos, sem experiência forasteira e ainda não tinha morado fora do Brasil. E, no Brasil, Neymar não é negro (ou preto).

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Em 1976, o IBGE realizou uma pesquisa que marcou uma mudança crucial em relação a exercícios de pesquisa amostral e censitária anteriores. A Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) não dava aos brasileiros um conjunto de opções predeterminadas para escolher uma raça; ao invés disso, os pesquisadores saíram e solicitaram às pessoas que descrevessem a cor que elas acreditavam que fossem.

Este foi o retorno.

1. Acastanhada

2. Agalegada

3. Alva

4. Alva escura

5. Alvarenta

6. Alvarinta

7. Alva rosada

8. Alvinha

9. Amarela

10. Amarelada

11. Amarela-queimada

12. Amarelosa

13. Amorenada

14. Avermelhada

15. Azul

16. Azul-marinho

17. Baiano

18. Bem branca

19. Bem clara

20. Bem morena

21. Branca

22. Branca-avermelhada

23. Branca-melada

24. Branca-morena

25. Branca-pálida

26. Branca-queimada

27. Branca-sardenta

28. Branca-suja

29. Branquiça

30. Branquinha

31. Bronze

32. Bronzeada

33. Bugrezinha-escura

34. Burro-quando-foge

35. Cabocla

36. Cabo-verde

37. Café

38. Café-com-leite

39. Canela

40. Canelada

41. Cardão

42. Castanha

43. Castanha-clara

44. Castanha-escura

45. Chocolate

46. Clara

47. Clarinha

48. Cobre

49. Corada

50. Cor-de-café

51. Cor-de-canela

52. Cor-de-cuia

53. Cor-de-leite

54. Cor-de-ouro

55. Cor-de-rosa

56. Cor-firme

57. Crioula

58. Encerada

59. Enxofrada

60. Esbranquecimento

61. Escura

62. Escurinha

63. Fogoió

64. Galega

65. Galegada

66. Jambo

67. Laranja

68. Lilás

69. Loira

70. Loira-clara

71. Loura

72. Lourinha

73. Malaia

74. Marinheira

75. Marrom

76. Meio-amarela

77. Meio-branca

78. Meio-morena

79. Meio-preta

80. Melada

81. Mestiça

82. Miscigenação

83. Mista

84. Morena

85. Morena-bem-chegada

86. Morena-bronzeada

87. Morena-canelada

88. Morena-castanha

89. Morena-clara

90. Morena-cor-de-canela

91. Morena-jambo

92. Morenada

93. Morena-escura

94. Morena-fechada

95. Morenão

96. Morena-parda

97. Morena-roxa

98. Morena-ruiva

99. Morena-trigueira

100. Moreninha

101. Mulata

102. Mulatinha

103. Negra

104. Negrota

105. Pálida

106. Paraíba

107. Parda

108. Parda-clara

109. Parda-morena

110. Parda-preta

111. Polaca

112. Pouco-clara

113. Pouco-morena

114. Pretinha

115. Puxa-para-branco

116. Quase-negra

117. Queimada

118. Queimada-de-praia

119. Queimada-de-sol

120. Regular

121. Retinta

122. Rosa

123. Rosada

124. Rosa-queimada

125. Roxa

126. Ruiva

127. Russo

128. Sapecada

129. Sarará

130. Saraúba

131. Tostada

132. Trigo

133. Trigueira

134. Turva

135. Verde

136. Vermelha

Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, antropóloga da Universidade de São Paulo, USP, tem uma variedade surpreendente de insights à volta desta pesquisa histórica. O artigo “Not black, not white: just the opposite. Culture, race and national identity in Brazil” [Nem preto, nem branco: exatamente o contrário. Cultura, raça e identidade nacional no Brasil], do qual a tabela acima foi retirada, é uma preciosidade. (A autora também analisa os primórdios da questão, em livro de sua autoria: “Espetáculo das Raças: Cientistas, Instituições e Questão Racial no Brasil 1870-1930“).

O trabalho de Schwarcz é repleto de análise original e refletida, e é caracterizada por um destemor incomum (incomum, para um assunto tão complicado). Ler Schwarcz é uma revelação; revela-se que existe um lugar real a se esconder embaixo da avalanche de clichês. Se você alguma vez já se perguntou como o racismo esmagador pode florescer em um país onde aparentemente a raça em si mesma foi esmagada, considere que tudo que define o Brasil – do lema “somos todos misturados”, a feijoada, a capoeira e o candomblé, até samba e o futebol – é o resultado de uma manobra política insidiosa, revisionista e perspicaz dos anos 1930, cortesia das habilidades combinadas do intelectual popular Gilberto Freyre e do populista Getúlio Vargas. O corpo maltratado da cultura da escravidão foi sequestrado pela cultura nacional para renovar a cultura branca.

Entre os muitos resultados de arregalar os olhos reportados na PNAD, o que mais me atraí é a do ‘burro quando foge’. Você pode encontrá-la na tabela no número 34. O tradutor do Google inexplicavelmente traduz a frase como ‘sela’, que é incrível, e demonstra que a Lusofonia ainda mantém alguns segredos além do alcance do monstro gigante. ‘Burro quando foge’ é traduzido para o inglês por Schwarcz, limitada ao espaço de apenas umacoluna, como the disappearing donkey e explicado como um termo cômico que denota uma cor inclassificável.

E mais. Ametáfora é singular ao Brasil: uma cor que possa ser inclassificável, indefinida, elusiva, ou feia – e, só para deixar as coisas mais claras, também castanho-amarelado, bege, ou uma sombra de marrom caprichosa. A ideia transmitida na frase é tão quanto interessante. Usada entre amigos, passa como piada. Caso contrário, quase sempre denota algo desagradável. É usualmente usada como insulto, embora, curiosamente, dadas as cores e os sentimentos – não é especificamente um insulto racial.

De todas as cento e trinta e seis cores de raça no Brasil, esta é minha predileta. É irreverente, factual e ficcional de uma só vez, e, como tal, serve-me perfeitamente. Raça não é um termo que tem muita expressão na Índia, país onde moro. É, entretanto, característica central de Johanesburgo e São Paulo, duas cidades nas quais trabalho ocasionalmente, e tanto quanto estou ciente de quão privilegiado sou de não estar completamente sujeito a ela, sinto-me curiosamente desprovido de raça em ambos os lugares. Certamente, cresci com cor: por ser a criança moreninha em uma família uniformemente de cútis clara, regularmente contendia com parentes bem-intencionados que beliscavam minhas bochechas e me ralhavam por “ter perdido minha cor” – como se o tom de pele fosse algo que eu tivesse trazido sobre mim mesmo por um ataque de distração. Não obstante, se devo escolher uma raça, indiano poderia funcionar para algumas pessoas, mas trata-se da denominação de meu passaporte e de minha residência, e isso basta. Castanho é genérico demais, e negro, seria um pouco demais inacreditável, considerando todas as coisas. Dado o tempo que gastei na minha infância lendo Gerald Durrell e sonhando com burros, adotar a cor deles parece correto de diversos pontos de vista.

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E onde tudo isso deixa nosso garoto prodígio? Podemos começar com o Estado Novo, o regime autoritário de Vargas entre 1937 e 1945. Apenas alguns anos antes, Freyre havia publicado o maior sucesso de sua carreira, Casa Grande e Senzala, um grande sucesso. A teoria central de Freyre era algo que ele chamou de ‘Lusotropicalismo’. Narra a história reconfortante do passado (ao retratar os portugueses como escravocratas imperiais mais gentis e amáveis), oferece uma solução conveniente para o presente (ao tornar a mistura de raças em virtude) e apresenta uma conclusão atraente, nomeadamente, a ideia de que o Brasil era uma democracia racial.

Assim que publicado, o trabalho de Freyre imediatamente atraiu a ira da nação portuguesa ao sugerir que seus cidadãos eram propensos à miscigenação. No Brasil, no entanto, a tese se tornou o plano mestre de Vargas para o país que ele havia se apossado – e sua estratégia para sobrevivência política. Três quartos de século mais tarde, a concepção maior de Freyre permanece persistente de Brasil, uma ideia cujo apelo cresce a passos largos e faz eco pelo globo, e certamente, com frequência escapa das garras de seus criadores gerando efeitos deslumbrantes. Mesmo assim, considere a ironia: o sentimento que o país tem de si mesmo como democracia racial foi contrabandeado alma adentro por um autocrata.

O termo Estado Novo se refere a um período de ditadura, em si profético, já que as palavras também descrevem uma tarefa peculiar que compete a pelo menos metade da população brasileira. Essa tarefa, claro, é o afazer do branqueamento – transformar, de forma bastante literal, em um novo estado físico. (A despeito de sua defesa da miscigenação, Schwarcz chama à atenção em O Espetáculo das Raças, que Freyre, tal como seus críticos, era veementemente a favor de manter a estrutura do Brasil intacta: como hierarquia, a brancura no topo). Nesse sentido, Neymar é apenas a mais recente, em uma longa fila de celebridades e brasileiros de menor monta, que entende. Entende a letra pequena no contrato; entende que a identidade nacional se assenta sobre a harmonia racial, que, por sua vez, se assenta sobre um acesso potencial à oportunidade. Não a oportunidade de ser igual, tenha isso em mente, mas a oportunidade de ser branco. Podemos nos escandalizar com ele quanto quisermos, mas ao alisar o cabelo, esticando-o, e tingindo-o de loiro, Neymar estava cumprindo seu destino patriótico, exatamente tanto quanto confundindo os croatas e levando sua equipe à vitória no jogo de abertura da Copa.

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Arrisco-me a afirmar que a cor de burro quando foge se encaixa a Neymar com exatidão. A final de contas, ele é ambos: tanto incontestavelmente quanto enganosamente, marrom. Sim, existe a questão da sua “ambição loira”. “O burro fugiu? ” Eu gostaria de pensar que não.  Por um lado, o rapaz tem apenas vinte e dois anos e uma vida inteira para mudar de ideia – e de cabelo. Por outro lado, tenho uma Copa do Mundo inteira para assistir. Tenha dó. Passo horas e horas, todas as semanas, estudando português brasileiro, tenho devoção ao país, e sou de Bangalore, cidade onde Pelé é deus. E não digo isso metaforicamente. Em um bairro de nome Gowthampura, pertinho de onde moro, os moradores erigiram um encantador santuário a quatro ícones locais: o Buda, Doutor Ambedkar, Madre Teresa e o ex-atacante do Santos.

Como você pode ver, minhas mãos estão atadas. Tenho meu próprio destino patriótico a cumprir, e ele envolve torcer para o Brasil, que quer dizer que preciso gostar muito do Neymar.

Eu consigo.

De qualquer jeito, burros são animais famosos pela teimosia. Eles são bons de esperar.

* Nota do Tradutor: embora alguns leitores do artigo em inglês argumentem em seus comentários que o termo “preto” em português não equivale ao inglês “nigger”, a maioria dos tradutores e especialistas fazem uso do termo na literatura e em legendas de filmes. No Brasil, especialmente nas capitais e cidades maiores, chamar um afrodescendente de ‘preto’ é considerado ofensivo, e pode ser enquadrado como injúria qualificada, crime previsto em lei, artigo 140, § 3º do Código Penal que trata de “crimes resultantes de discriminação ou preconceito de raça, cor, etnia, religião ou procedência nacional”.

[Translator’s Note: although a number of readers in the comments section of the English article argue that the term “preto” in Portuguese is not equivalent to the English “nigger”, most translators and specialists make use of the terms as equivalents in literature and film subtitles. In Brazil, especially in state capitals and larger cities, calling an Afro Brazilian “preto” is considered offensive, and it is prosecutable under Brazilian law as a hate crime - Article 140, paragraph 3rd of the Penal Code, known as ‘injúria qualificada’.]