friday night in lapa...

in case english-speakers are still reading, here's a not-so-nice snapshot of rio de janeiro last weekend:

the kid who seemed to be a 14-year-old boy was actually a 17-year-old girl.  but it was impossible to know that when we saw her kneeling on the ground of the plaza with her head on the ground.  behind her, a municipal security guard (sort of a junior police officer) twisted her arms behind her back, while another threatened the girl with his hyper-phallic nightstick, a meter-long hard cock.

there were almost thirty of us watching, but the guards only let the girl stand up when six of us - all white university students, and mostly gringos - made our way to the front of the crowd.  the girl - black, with a shaved head, wearing long shorts and with her breasts invisible under her baggy shirt - lifted herself up crying silently, while one of the guards showed the crowd half of a broken bottle, which the girl was supposedly carrying with her as an improvised weapon. one of the university students went to talk with the guards, and told us later that they'd wanted to search the girl, even though she was female and underage (and therefore not legally subject to search by male guards).

the guards, increasingly aware of the crowd's gaze, took the girl to the "shock of order" trailer, which is
right in front of the new "official" graffiti mural.  the mural is subsidized by antarctica beer, which is turning into an official brand for the newly "cool" and "good" lapa neighborhood, the historic bohemian nightlife district that's been heavily spiffed up in recent months.

the plaque celebrating the "union of public and private forces" present in lapa's "revitalization"

as university students, we followed this small spectacle of order in action knowing that lapa is turning "cool" in this way in order to attract people like us, especially gringos.  we also knew that, unfortunately, our gaze has much more power than the other folks out for the night in lapa.

at the trailer, the guards consulted someone - an civilian boss or coordinator - who told them to let the girl go, since there was no video proving anything against.  we escorted her away as a group, because the lack of video wouldn't keep her from being held again, and without the weightier gaze of a group associated with human rights, a second time wouldn't be easy.

writing now days later, i see how the girl - in spite of being at the center of what happened - wasn't the central character in the event.  for the guards, she was an inconvenience, less worrisome than the 6 white university students watching them.  for us, she was a victim, a reflection of various abuses of power that surround us - but we don't know her name, or where she came from, or anything about who she is.  and for lapa as a neighborhood, none of this was out of the ordinary...this sort of thing must happen dozens of times every friday.


a lot of the redefinition of lapa has to do with changing the meaning of the word "malandro."  traditionally, it's represented scoundrels, rascals, and misfits, the clever guys who know how to use the streets to their advantage, to sweet talk, con, seduce, or fight their way to what they need.  a malandro is someone you might admire for his cunning from a distance, but not someone you want to take advantage of you.  now, however, "malandro" is losing any sense of danger or otherness.  these days, real malandros are the hip kids who go out to have responsible fun and spend their money in expensive bars.

being a malandro means not peeing in the street

malandros don't mess around.  don't park illegally.

the other kind of malandro hasn't existed for a long time, and now it's being substituted by street cleaners wearing panama hats (on friday and saturday nights in lapa), street vendors wearing official antarctica beer aprons, and a newly painted aqueduct.  i know that police brutality is also an old tradition in lapa. in that sense what we saw last friday night wasn't especially significant:  beating up poor folks, black people, and gays has been part of the neighborhood's heritage at least since the days of madame satã, the legendary drag queen, malandro, and street fighter from the 1920s.  but i also have to think that real malandros don't beat up women, and especially not girls.

sexta à noite na lapa

parecia um menino de 14 anos, mas na verdade era uma menina de 17.  porém, foi impossível saber disso quando vimos ela ajoelhada na praça com a cabeça no chão, diante de um guarda municipal torcendo os braços dela para atrás das costas, enquanto outro a ameaçou com seu cacete híper-fálico, um pau duro de quase um metro.

eramos quase 30 pessoas olhando, mas os guardas só deixou ela ficar em pé quando 6 de nós - todos brancos, universitários, e em grande parte gringos - fomos para a frente da aglomeração.  a menina - negra, com cabelo raspado, de bermuda e com os peitos invisivéis debaixo da sua camisa folgada - se levantou, chorando silenciosamente, enquanto um dos guardas mostrou metade de uma garrafa quebrada, o que a menina supostamente estava portando como uma arma improvisatória.  uma das universitárias foi falar com os guardas, e disse depois que queriam revistar a menina, apesar dela ser mulher e menor de idade.

os guardas, cada vez mais cientes do olhar da aglomeração, levaram a menina para o trailer do choque de ordem, que fica logo em frente à nova muralha de grafite "oficial", patrocinada pela cerveja antarctica, o que está virando uma marca de uma lapa "boa" e "legal". 

nós universitários seguimos esse pequeno espetáculo de ordenamento em ação sabendo que lapa está virando "legal" desse jeito para agradar gente como a gente, principalmente os gringos, e sabendo também que infelizmente, o nosso olhar tem um poder muito maior do que o dos demais lapianos.

no trailer, consultaram alguém - um chefe/coordenador sem farda - que mandou liberar a menina, já que não tinha vídeo comprovando nada contra ela.  formamos uma escolta para acompanhá-la, pois a falta de vídeo não impederia que ela fosse pega de novo, e sem o olhar pesado de uma galera associada com direitos humanos, a segunda vez com certeza não seria mole.

escrevendo agora, dois dias depois, vejo como a menina, apesar de estar no centro do acontecimento, não foi o personagem central.  para os guardas, foi uma inconveniência, menos preocupante do que os 6 universitários brancos assistindo.  para nós, ela era uma vítima, reflexão dos vários abusos do poder que nos cercam...mas não sabemos o nome dela, ou de onde ela veio, ou muito menos quem ela é.  e para lapa em si, não era nada fora do normal...esse tipo de coisa deve se repetir dezenas de vezes a cada sexta-feira.

boa parte da redefinição da lapa é fazer com que a palavra "malandro" muda de significado, perdendo qualquer sentido de perigo ou alternatividade.  malandro que é malandro agora é cult, é quem sai para se divertir responsávelmente, gastando dinheiro nos botequins mais caros. 

a outra tal malandragem não existe faz tempo, e agora está sendo substituida por garis com chapeu panamá, barraqueiros com avental da antarctica, e arcos novamente pintados.  sei que brutalidade policial também é uma antiga tradição na lapa, e o que a gente viu sexta à noite era muito pouco:  bater em pobres, negros, e gays é património do bairro pelo menos desde os tempos de madame satã.  mas tenho que pensar também que malandro que é malandro não bate em mulher, e muito menos em menina.

hoje na lapa...

como a próxima postagem vai relatar uma história bastante desesperada, queria mostrar antes esse sinal de vitalidade urbana que encontrei hoje, por volta do meio-dia, na calçada a frente à escola de música da ufrj na lapa.


since the next post is going to tell a pretty desperate story, i wanted to show this sign of urban vitality first.  i wandered into it today, around noon, on the sidewalk in front of the ufrj school of music in lapa.

limpeza urbana/urban cleansing

suco me ligou hoje à tarde para avisar que os restantes materiais da ocupação carlos marighella estavam sendo descartados.  em preparação para a próxima fase, seja ela o que for, o interior do prédio está sendo depositado na rua.

suco called me this afternoon to tell me that the material remainders of the carlos marighella squatters' occupation were being discarded.  in preparation for the next phase - whatever that is - the inside of the building is being deposited on the street.

choque de ordem em tempo real, com direito ao um grande sorriso do governador sérgio cabral. 

(a mancha preta nas fotos da fachada vem de um esforço rapidamente implementada para cobrir  grafite anti-governamental). 

shock of order in real time, with a big smile from governor sérgio cabral.

(the black stain in the photos of the building's facade comes from a quickly implemented effort to cover anti-government graffiti).

more dipshittery from alexei barrionuevo/nyt on latin america

hey guys,

i don't mean to nitpick in the midst of the truly amazing rescue of the miners, but you keep catching my attention by making it sound like you're writing for "the economist."  for example:

"The race to save the miners has thrust Chile into a spotlight it has often sought but rarely experienced. While lauded for its economic management and austerity, the nation has often found the world’s attention trained more on its human rights violations and natural disasters than on uplifting moments."

- Alexei Barrionuevo and Simon Romero, NYT, 10/13/2010

your imagined universal approval board lauding chile's austerity - presumably the same one that's "concerned" about brasil turning to the left - does not exist.  a lot of people around the world, especially in latin america, are not so cool with government "austerity" measures, especially when they leave people uneducated, hungry, and homeless.

since you don't give us any idea of what kind of time frame you're talking about - but also since chilean human rights abuses have really been a non-issue during michelle bachelet's presidency - i have to wonder if you're talking about this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet

...whose austerity measures and economic management forced more than half of the population into abject poverty for a couple of decades, opened the country's natural resources to unrestrained international exploitation, and did away with any sort of leverage that well-represented workers might exercise.  such as, just off the top of my head, safely maintained gold and copper mines.

please check this out, if you haven't already:  http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

find the whole times article here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/world/americas/14chile.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

dear new york times/alexei barrionuevo...

A few minor complaints about your recent coverage of the Brasilian elections:

1. When you cite sources like Datafolha or Veja, it would be a nice to tell your non-Brazilian readers that they have a strong and freely admitted right-wing bias.

2. You could at least try to hide your disappointment that the "scandal" you tried so hard to peddle didn't really take off.

3. When you say that Lula "deepened" Fernando Henrique Cardoso's economic policies, it would be good to point out that this did not include the wholesale privatization of public resources, or the meek obeisance to the IMF and World Bank.

3b. Actually, maybe it would be better not to say it at all, given that it is not true, per se.

4. The idea that Dilma might steer the country to the left is not, as you suggest, a universal "concern." Nobody really believes that this will happen, but a lot of my friends think it would be a good idea.

I'm not trying to endorse Dilma or anybody else, but I think it's important to look at how relentlessly the NYT distorts its coverage of Latin America to promote a neoliberal agenda that's in line with Brasil's right wing.  Given the paper's importance on the world stage and its supposed neutrality, its coverage is often cited in Brazil as an example of unbiased outside reporting, even though most of its content comes cribbed from ideologically slanted sources (imagine reporting on the States based only on what's in the Wall Street Journal or Fox News).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/world/americas/03brazil.html?ref=americas