"“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” ...
Michelle_Michy
LettertotheEditor1.docx4
Letter to the Editor
Student’s Name
University
Course
Professor
Date
Keep Doing Good Even if not Appreciated
Date
By (Student’s Name)
The history of the slaves who were forcefully taken to Brazil since 1500 always reminds me of the hardships the victims had to live with in a foreign land before the abolishment of slavery trade in 1888. I know a lot of males are concerned about the fate of the African families which were left behind after their men, who were family heads, were captured and taken to Brazil as slaves. It touches me when I recall the high number of homeless orphans who led miserable lives without the intervention of the government. Mae Preta remains to be my source of inspiration when it comes to helping the less fortunate members of the society. She had her personal problems after she had fled home to Salvador at the age of 15 years. She had nothing by the time she started a new life in the streets before she met a friend who advised her to seek employment in a massage parlor. It saddens me that Mae Preta was forced to work as a prostitute as a way to earn a living and she ended up with twenty children. According to me, Mae led a miserable life but she remained positive and a remarkable change in the lives of street children who had been neglected by the government. Mae still remained to be a source of hope to the children in the streets of Brazil and a promise of a brighter tomorrow regardless of her personal challenges and strains. Her persistent determination gives me the positivity of extending hope and happiness despite the negative energy in the surrounding environment. Mae Preta shows that giving does not result from having excess but from the willingness of the heart. Mae Preta would even give food to the hungry children even from her father’s shop. Such a doing gives me the urge to give a stretch of help to the less fortunate despite what I possess. Mae Preta would always find positive energy on remembering the voice of the singing children that she would feed and help from the streets of Brazil. Theact makes me that sharing what I have the capability to share always have a positive source of happiness from seeing the happy people who I help around me. She also provided a safe environment to the left children from the streets which provided safety and comfort to the children left in the poorest areas of Brazil and even those left by parents not due to slavery but due to poverty and lifelong diseases of the parents.
In derailing conversations about racism, I believe that the Brazilian government has focused on committing ny previously tolerant space to ensure that marginalized individuals are unable to raise their opinion about their unpleasant treatment or experiences .In essence, it results to the rejection of their experiences, ideas as an irrelevant issues to the current situation. Even if an individual proceeds to identify how they feel about an offense, it may count for nothing on issues affecting black people or people of color living in Brazil during this period. As such, this is one reason why such discussions emerge in forums such as learning institutions since it permits for the establishment of space where people are unable to abandon their normalized habit of self-censorship.
Based on Me Preta’s experience, I believe that one way that issues of race and discrimination are ignored and dismissed is by blaming the marginalized individual. The Brazilian government makes them understand that they are establishing a problem where it is non-existent which in the process shuts down any prospective conversations. By stating that racial discrimination issues or statements are not personal, such phrases ignore the racial discriminating issues prevalent n the Brazilian society.
The case and discrimination nature of Mae Preta’s story s evident that black feminism has been prevalent in the Brazil for decades. However, I believe that in recent years, the advent of the digital community, black feminism has increased relative to the Mae Preta’s period. One reason black feminism is blossoming in Brazil is that many women are now joining tertiary institutions and becoming novelists, historians, professionals and researchers. I believe that the internet is an exemplary way of establishing a community and considering that there are many social networking sites such as YouTube and blogs, it establishes a renaissance in that was never seen during the me Preta’s period. In Brazil, Black women and people of color are mostly rape victims, experience institutional violence, suffer domestic violence which explains an increasing rate of single mothers in Brazilian culture.
One way that racism in Brazil could be combated is including indigenous people in the discussion of race. In Brazilian culture, traditional individuals are viewed as people of the past. I believe that such internalized beliefs are caused by the increasing extinction and genocide that for years has been associated with indigenous people. Therefore implementation of systematic programs in Brazil to assist in assimilating a few remaining indigenous individuals. Mae Preta’s story has sown that not only are indigenous populations still prevalent in Brazil; they are still subjected to violence and genocide.
