Moses Kabagambe, 24, who worked as a day, was beaten to death on 24 January on a beach frequented by the preferred class Carioca. Several events have taken place across the country against a systemic racism of class and skin color.
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Moses Mugenyi Kabagambe died under the blows of the employees of a beach booth on January 24th. This 24-year-old Congolese received 30 sticks in a quarter of an hour, while guests refreshed coconut. Refugee in Brazil since 2011, he came to claim two days of salary to go home by bus. In response, his “colleagues” jumped on him then abandoned his body on this beach frequented by the privileged class of Rio de Janeiro. Once their package accomplished, the three men wiped their fronts and resumed the service. The lynching, filmed by the surveillance cameras, shocked Brazilian society, both the gestures are performed mechanically and quietly, while the images are unsustainable to watch. A demonstration in memory of Moses was organized on Saturday, February 5, in Rio and other Brazilian cities.
To characterize racism in Brazil, where more than half of the population is black, sociologists use social indicators, which are all largely unfavorable to blacks. They also rely on violence statistics, which, each year, show that blacks represent nearly three-quarters of fatal victims of the police. But in front of the lynching of Moses, beaten to death in the general indifference, the sociologist José de Souza Martins, author of the book lynching: the popular justice in Brazil (Contexto, 2015, not translated), advance that “this N ‘ is not just racism; it’s more complicated than that “.
Under the eyes of the municipal police
“Moses was a victim of three prejudices: his skin color, his status as a stranger and salary claim. These three assassins felt that a black, surcharged, moreover, does not have to demand a salary. It is a legacy of slavery that Brazil has never confronted, “considers José de Souza Martins. This professor at the University of Sao Paulo studied in detail nearly 2,000 lynching, between 1950 and 2000. “Brazilian racism is a concealed and cowardly racism,” he adds, but, for the first time, however, however, The teacher notes “a real indignation of society. It’s new and it gives hope”.
It is thanks to the tenacity of the family of Moses that his agony has been known. With the morgue, his body has been placed with those of the indigents, when he had identity papers on him. His family was not prevented and the police immediately put his case below the battery. As for the municipal police, present during the murder, she did not lift the little finger.
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