BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT WANTS FINISH MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE

The Brazilian Multiracial Movement was in the General Committee convened by the Chamber of Deputies, in Brasilia,  to discuss the Statute of Racial Equality, where its representative criticized the project, denounces discrimination against Multiracials and the racial conflict between Blacks and Mulattoes.

MR. GERSON CÉSAR LEÃO ALVES - I am very happy to be in this event, because there are treated much about the Black (preto) people and Brown people, but the Brown usually are not called to give their opinion about the issue. Usually, people decide by Browns. This is very interesting.
There are 3 points in the Statute of Racial Equality directly related to this issue. The Statute classifies all Brown as Black or African. Now, we know that at least in the Amazon region, which is not small - more than half the national territory - it does not make sense. In the Amazon region, being brown means, first of all, be a Multiracial "caboclo", whose identity is not based on African origin. Their identity is based on the encounter of the native indigenous identity and the identity of the peoples of Europe.
This policy, by signal, has caused profound damage to the work that has been done to combat racism and discrimination against the Multiracial "caboclos" population in the Amazon.
The Statute also goes against the Declaration of Durban, which, in matters Gerais, item 56, talks about the Multiracial people, born of the meeting of various ethnicities. The main way to deny these people, something that has occurred, that is to say they do not exist: "There is not Multiracial. There is not Brown."
There is a propaganda to prevent that person say that [he/she] is a Brown. They say "brown" (pardo) comes from "sparrow" (pardal), but the word comes from the Latin "pardus", which means leopard. It is the deconstruction of identity, so that the person does not take as Multiracial or Brown.
A third point is the increasing of something that is already occurring in the Amazon. There is a racial conflict between Blacks (negros) and Multiracial "caboclos". The racial war will not be provoked by the Statute, no. She has begun.
Recently - by signal, this is already in the site of the government, of the CONSEA - was drafted a letter in the Meeting of the Black and Communities of Terreiros of Roraima, that call for finish the law establishing the Mixed Race Day, adopted in the States of Amazonas and Roraima. To protect us from this policy of destruction our identity, we had to create a legislation. The Multiracial movement in Amazonas, Roraima and Paraiba States has conquest laws that create the Mixed Race Day.
Because it is need that people learn to respect the way other people identify theirselves. In the Amazon, this conflict occurs mainly in relation to "caboclo" population. In the Amazon, it is good stress, slavery was mainly of indigenous and "cabocla" populations. And more: the indigenous slavery, in a sense, was far more violent than the slavery undertaken against Blacks: the Indigenous was a national and African slave was a slave imported. If an Indigenous was killed, it was enough replace it with another. Already the African, no, cost dearly, because it was need to pay tax, rate.
Violence against indigenous populations and "caboclo" slaves in the Amazon was terrible, and this policy that classifies Brown as Black virtually transforms the "caboclos" in Blacks in the Amazon, which has no historical connection with the their cultural formation. This is a kind of statistic ethnocide. If I am not mistaken, on the site of the SEPPIR in statistics on the black population of the Amazon, add up Black and Brown. But Brown and "caboclos" do not exist only in the Amazon. From the coastline, in the direction of the border, the Multiracial population will increasingly assuming the characteristics of the descendants of Indigenous.
It's good stress, in relation to identify Brown as descendent of African that, in Amazon, there is conflict between mulattoes and blacks now. A Mulatto girl was attacked by assuming be a Mulatto girl. The mulattos are also suffering this process, hear say that "mulato" comes from "mule". But we know that the word comes from Latin "mulu", which means hybrid, or comes from the Arabic word "muwallad", which means Multiracial.
I am a Mulatto. This is my identity, and I demand respect for my choice.
Thank you.

Brasilia, Brazil, November 26, 2007.