On August 31st, the rightwing forces in Brazil impeached President Dilma Rousseff on spurious grounds thus setting back the Workers’ Party’s social justice programs
and implementing an austerity program that will most gravely affect the working class and the largest Afro descent population outside of Nigeria. Afro-Brazilians  suffer some of the most blatantly egregious poverty, racism and discrimination in the world, including being subjected to the highest official police murder rates of Black youth (6-7 daily as recently reported by the Washington Post).

The overwhelmingly white protests backing the ouster of the President, combined with attacks by the right wing all white male Temer government that had dismantled the Special Ministry against racial discrimination, reveal the racial divide within the current political crisis.

Hear from our panelists about the lead-up to the coup and what the social justice movements in Brazil need from us. The discussion will recount how race and class in Brazil are nearly indistinguishable and the various ways the weight of reactionary policies will fall heaviest on the country’s predominantly Black and low-income populations.

Panelists:

• Azadeh Shahshahani is Legal and Advocacy Director with Project South and a past president of the National Lawyers Guild. In July, Shahshahani served as a juror for the International Tribunal on Democracy in Brazil.
• Aline Cristiane Piva, is a Brazilian political analyst on media relations in Brazil and a Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. She has a post-graduate degree in International Relations from the University of Brasilia, UnB, Brazil.
• Alex Main is Senior Associate for International Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) whose work focuses on U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean. Alex just returned from Brazil, meeting with many social movement leaders.

Moderated by IPS Associate Fellow, Manuel Pérez-Rocha.

Please RSVP.

Co-sponsors: Institute for Policy Studies, National Lawyers Guild DC-Chapter, and Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).