19 phrases by Lélia Gonzalez to learn more about this anthropologist

We are not born black, we become black. It is a hard, cruel conquest that develops throughout people’s lives.

You have a huge range of classification, and nothing more than a splintering of the subordinate ethnicity’s identity. That is, you establish a continuum of color and the “lighter” you are, the closer you are to power.

This black identity is not a ready-made thing. So, for me, a black person who is aware of their blackness is in the fight against racism. The others are mulatto, brown, brown, etc.

Therefore, our motto must be: organization now!

In claiming our difference as black women, as African Americans, we are well aware of how much we carry within us the marks of economic exploitation and racial and sexual subordination.

The black woman is responsible for the formation of a Brazilian black cultural unconscious. She passed on black cultural values, Brazilian culture is eminently black, this was her main role from the beginning.

The only way I found to overcome these problems was to be the first student in the class. It’s that story, “she’s black, but she’s smart”.

It is important to emphasize that emotion, subjectivity and other attributions given to our discourse do not imply the renunciation of reason, but, on the contrary, a way of making it more concrete, more human and less abstract and/or metaphysical. In our case, this is another reason.

Why is the Negro what the logic of domination tries (and often succeeds, we know) to domesticate? And the risk we take here is that of speaking with all the implications.

Because of this, it’s going to fight and guaranteeing our spaces that, evidently, were never granted to us.

What actually exists in Brazil is a racial division of labor. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the almost absolute majority of the Brazilian black population is part of the growing marginal mass.

We have to establish tasks within a concrete field and quickly develop a very active militancy with the black communities spread throughout Brazil.

For us, racism is the symptom that characterizes Brazilian cultural neurosis.

Palmares is a free and physical example of a Brazilian nationality, a nationality that is about to be constituted.

We have to go inside the quilombo and organize ourselves better in order to provide instruments for those who will arrive and who will continue our work.

The moment we started talking about racism and its practices in terms of black women, there was no longer unanimity (on Lélia Gonzalez’s perception of the difficulties of certain intersections between the black movement and the women’s movement, two fronts on which she acted)

We are tired of knowing that neither in school, nor in the books where we are told to study, there is no mention of the effective contribution of the popular classes, women, black Indians in our historical and cultural formation.

The issue of ethnocentrism is present in any culture. To the extent that you are socialized, you have received a very large cultural load, and you will look at the world through this critical perspective.