Two black women attending the Brazil Conference, an event organized by Brazilian students from Harvard and MIT in Cambridge (USA), claim they were victims of racism on Saturday (6).
Naira Santa Rita told Folha that while attending a panel with Thiago Leifert at Harvard along with her friend Marta Melo, she heard three Brazilian women sitting behind them making comments in English about their hair. "They were wondering if we had lice in our dreads and braids," she said.
Naira then says she turned around immediately. "They saw that I had understood and left. At that moment, I didn't speak up because I am a black woman, Marta is a black woman, and if we interrupted the conference, we would be painted and labeled as black women are: angry, combative, scandalous," she said. Naira and Marta participated on Sunday afternoon in a panel on social impact, formed by what the organization calls the "Brazil Conference ambassador program."
At the end of the panel, moderated by Regina Casé, Naira read a letter of repudiation alongside Marta. The speech was broadcast on the event's YouTube channel.
Casé hugged both of them afterwards. The audience applauded both of them standing up. In a statement, the Brazil Conference stated that it "recognizes and reiterates its commitment against racism in all its forms." "We vehemently repudiate any act of racial discrimination and do not condone such behavior at our events."