Abstract
Looking back towards the colonization of the Americas and the enslavement of indigenous and black peoples is essential to understand the contemporary world, as these historical and political processes built the structures of modern societies. The colonization produced racialized bodies, establishing a life/death hierarchy. Thus, racism becomes the foundation of the right to kill. The black is manufactured as a death insignia, dehumanized and subjected to racial-colonial violence, as well as of gender. This essay aims to reflect how racism modulates and is modulated in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, besides highlighting a historical continuum of racial violence that reenact the colonial past. To this end, black women’s experiences comprise the core of the debate, as their role within the power structures allow us to observe and analyze social realities from a counter-hegemonic and insurgent perspective. By arranging black women’s experiences as a privileged locus of knowledge production on the Brazilian reality, we may understand the consequences of racism based on the social fabric and expose historical resistance to the genocidal state.
Keywords:
Racism; Covid-19 pandemic; Black Women