THE MASSACRE OF BLACK BRAZILIANS IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

• Main Authors: Nathália Oliveira, Eduardo Ribeiro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Associação Direitos Humanos em Rede 2018-12-01
• Series: Sur: International Journal on Human Rights
• Subjects: drug policy; racism; youth
• Online Access: https://sur.conectas.org/en/the-massacre-of-black-brazilians-in-the-war-on-drugs/

The distribution of death as an organised exercise of state power, militarised topographies where experiencing the early burial of peers is part of the socialisation of generations of people, the vocabulary of homicide and slaughter integrated into the formation of black people’s experience from the time of their childhood in war-torn territories and necropolitics, which promotes a set of racialised and racialising categories and undertakings, define the political agenda, permeate televised narratives and distribute fear to market the idea of social peace. These are all part of a broad range of actions legitimised by the idea of war, including against other peoples, under another spectre of war – the so-called side effects. The selectiveness of prohibitionist drug policies is one of the tools used to perpetuate a series of injustices that are the result of a perverse regime that operates today via an economy marked by violence, which continues to have effects even today.