Walking into the Bertha V.B. Lederer Gallery for a lecture on Northeastern Brazil and the female struggles in the country, one would expect to find a handful of students and maybe a staff member or two.
The audience for “I Only Leave Here for the Sky: Black Women and the Fight for the City,” however, was incredibly diverse. Students of different disciplines, staff members and even local residents all varying in age attended.
Brown University associate professor of Africana diaspora feminisms and anthropology Dr. Keisha-Khan Y. Perry led the presentation in the same space as the “Bandits & Heroes, Poets & Saints” exhibit. This time, the presentation was less a celebration and more an opportunity to share the injustices Northeastern Brazilians face.
Perry had a slideshow to visually follow her speech, and one picture that stuck out was a pregnant woman Perry became close with in Brazil who later gave birth to a stillborn infant. Perry bonded with this woman and during a violent altercation with the police, she and her baby were hit by debris from a wall that she was sitting next to.
This absolutely appalled the local community. This was not the worst police offense, however, as the people later watched their policemen cause an unnecessary fatality.
“The second incident was the death of a one-year-old baby girl … claiming to be looking for a bandido, or bandit,” Perry said. “Police officers shot her in the head as she sat on her father’s lap.”
The people were rightfully angered and fought back against the injustices the police were getting away with in their area.
“They were fighting to end the everyday police war on poor communities,” Perry said.
In this case, the community members fighting back were mostly women and children because they felt most vulnerable to police brutality.
Throughout Perry’s talk, it was evident that those living in the poorer communities were much more likely to be subject to police brutality and Perry wanted to highlight the injustices she saw while spending time in these areas.
One of the audience members, sociology major senior Leigh Mankoff, had some background on the violence in Northeastern Brazil before attending the lecture.
“Violence in Northeastern Brazil is very prevalent,” Mankoff said. “But I did not realize how prevalent it is in women’s lives. It seemed to be more like a man’s thing from what I had learned before now.”
Campus lectures like these are beneficial for students because it provides greater perspective for classroom topics. It shows that what students learn in class is applicable to the real world and current events.
Assistant professor of anthropology Melanie Medeiros organized the event in hopes of better informing the audience.
“Keisha-Khan Perry’s presentation drew attention to the issues of poverty and state violence against black Brazilians in Brazil,” Medeiros said. “This highlights the complexity of Brazilian society, which we don’t often see.”
Even for non-anthropology students, it is invaluable to understand that there are places in the world facing brutal realities unlike our own. While students might not be taking courses on these specific places, the people and their circumstances are something to be paid attention to regardless of major.
Lectures spread knowledge about things that aren’t always contemplated but should be. The Lederer Gallery has lectures on upcoming Wednesdays at 2:30 p.m. and everyone is encouraged to attend.