According to Human Rights Watch,police in the state of Rio de Janeiro killed more than 8,000 people between 2005 and 2015.Three-fourths of them were black men.Police say most are legitimate cases of officers defending themselves.Activists say that's an age-old defense officers used across the world.
Brazil's history,like that of the U.S. is fraught when it comes to race.Brazil was an important hub of the transatlantic slave trade,receiving millions of enslaved Americans.Slavery was legal in Brazil until 1888,later than anywhere else in the Americas.
''Brazilian black populations are the poorest among the poor,'' said Marcelo Paixao,a Brazilian economist who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.
He says that things for black Brazilians improved in the early 2000s because of progressive policies and affirmative action.In 2010,people who self-declared as black or brown made up the majority of the population for the first time,surpassing people who describe themselves as white.Paixao says for a moment ,it looked like Brazil was on a path toward equality.But then,he says ,there was a backlash.
''These transformations helped to upset the white Brazilian middle class,'' Paixao said.
The economy soured,progressive policies ended and Paixao says economic mobility slowed for black people.In 2015,police fatally shot five young black men out celebrating after one of them got his first paycheck.In 2018,a black city councillor in Rio de Janeiro,Marielle Franco,was killed and noone's been charged with her murder.
The Black Lives Matter movement has become active in Brazil and there are more and more demonstrations against police brutality there.-Rupa Shenoy,Public Radio International,February 25,2019.
