A little hand raised, a royal crown on the head and, one by one, the children come forward to talk about what part of the story they liked most and why. The hair part black power, which carries everything that Tayó considers most important in life, is, by and large, what they choose to reproduce. “And what, or who, would you take in your black power?”, instigates Kiusam de Oliveira, author of the book The world in Tayó's black power. The atmosphere of the conversation, at this point, is the best possible. But at the beginning of the storytelling event it wasn't quite like that.
Kiusam is a writer, early childhood education teacher, art educator, and activist in the black movement. She was one of the guests for activities at Estação Guanabara at the Unicamp Afro event, held by the University until the end of November (see here the website with programming). She told the story of the girl Tayó only after a class on racism that generated applause and some embarrassment.
- I'll tell you the reason:
The black girl Loide de Souza Mafra always cradled white dolls. It wasn't until college, in the 1980s, that she found her first black doll to buy. Today Loide, who is now retired, has more than a hundred black dolls and dolls that are on display at the same event, at Guanabara Station. Young people who visited the exhibition before the story telling, many of them black, made, according to the writer, some joking comments about the dolls. Kiusam listened and decided to begin his initial conversation with the public: “The racist's greatest victory is when black people do not recognize themselves as black.”
Kiusam remembered that black dolls are generally rejected among children. When she tells stories with black dolls and asks them to hug the dolls, some children reject her saying she is ugly and black. “Black dolls are despised in the school space. This is linked to the affectivity related to the black body”, reflects the author.
Racism divides, the writer continues: “they separate us as black people by hair types, skin tones, some are considered blacker than others. But every time I see this happen, I become stronger in my work of empowering black and non-black children, in storytelling, and in the conversation of texts engaged in the theme of ethnic-racial relations.”
Kiusam has the power of words. She is emphatic in saying that we cannot talk about human rights in Brazil, “when we do not have a greater confrontation, a fight against racist practices, which range from a child at school saying 'my mother told me not to lend her a pencil because she is black' to the destruction of Candomblé houses and the stoning of young people with their beads”.
For the author, since 2003 there has been a small advance, which was the increase in the number of people who declare themselves black to the IBGE. Law 10639/2003 was introduced, which obliges schools to include the teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African history and culture in the curriculum. But the month of November arrives, Black Consciousness Month, and there is no need to celebrate.
“We are waiting for this month to talk about the subject, a subject that children are experiencing every day in schools. They hear that they have bad hair and this affects the bodies of black children who quickly understand themselves as ugly, as not princesses, as not beautiful.” Kiusam is not disqualifying the fight that secured November's schedule. She considers that, at least this month, there is a greater opportunity to raise awareness about what racism means.
Literature
She calls her children’s literature “a black-Brazilian literature of enchantment”. Kiusam observes that children know they are black in a pejorative and negative way. They believe they are ugly because they are black. “I understand that black children need to have their bodies re-enchanted. We are in a country that mistreats black men and women. I may not know all the black men and women who are in this space, but they have certainly all gone through situations like I have.”
All children need to be able to recognize themselves as beautiful and powerful, to become productive and active young people, and adults aware of their beauty and representation in the world, adds the teacher.
Regarding the university, this also needs to change, highlights Kiusam. “The university has a fundamental role in being a space for creation and research, for theories and validation of ways of thinking and acting intellectually. But the university ends up valuing the canons, which are never black. There are, however, great black scientists who do not have visibility.”
According to her, the university also needs to comply with the law that establishes the mandatory teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture within the subjects that are already part of the curriculum.
The storytelling is over. It wasn't long before everyone left. And finally, in the audience made up of young children at the front, mostly white, and teenagers further back, with a greater number of black people, a hand was raised. It was a boy with hair black power.
