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Letters from Latin America with Leo Boix: February 21, 2024
The human cost of Brazilian racism, the massacre of peasants in Columbia, and transgender transformations of language: reviews of a novel by Brazilian author Jeferson Tenorio and poetry by Brazilian Eliana Hernandez-Pachon and Venezuelan Isadoro Saturno

ALTHOUGH over half of Brazil's population (approximately 56 per cent) identifies as black, which is the largest population of African descent outside of Africa, less than 20 per cent of all members of Congress in Brazil are black. 

Shockingly, black Brazilians make up 75 per cent of murder victims and those killed by police. 

Unfortunately, under the leadership of right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro from 2019-2022, the situation worsened. Police killings of black Brazilians rose to 5,804 in 2019, which is almost six times more than the number of police killings in the United States.

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