Manuel Raimundo Querino (1851-1923): Color of Change: Justice for Oscar Grant

16/01/2009

Color of Change: Justice for Oscar Grant

Thirteen days after the murder of Oscar Grant on New Year's Eve, the police officer who killed him has finally been arrested and charged with murder.¹ Even the District Attorney admitted it was only because of massive public pressure that he moved so aggressively, pressure that included more than 20,000 of you speaking up.²

That's why it's so important for each of us to commit to staying involved. Johannes Mehserle's arrest is important, but it's only the first step. In cases like this, history has repeatedly shown that as soon as the public eye turns away the prospect of justice fades.

We need you, and so does Oscar Grant's family. Making sure the prosecution does its job and pushing for much-needed reforms will continue to require your voice.

Are you in? Click below--it takes just a moment:

http://www.colorofchange.org/oscar_update/?id=2473-605038

In 14 years as Alameda County District Attorney, Tom Orloff had never before charged a police officer for an on-duty shooting. And when asked, several legal experts were unable to come up with any examples of officer-involved shootings becoming murder cases in California.³

But over 20,000 of you, along with citizens and organizers in the Bay Area, made it impossible for Orloff to ignore Oscar Grant's murder. He said that "because of the intense public interest I think more resources were put into wrapping this up than would be put in in other situations."⁴ Orloff made it clear that due to your efforts, he poured investigative resources into this case that his record tells us he never would have otherwise.

We've exposed a chink in the armor of a system that protects trigger-happy cops instead of regular folks. Now there's a real opportunity to create systemic changes that would introduce transparency and accountability to police forces across California, and especially to the BART Police Department. We need to keep the pressure on Tom Orloff to make sure he keeps devoting time and energy to Mehserle's prosecution.

Help honor the memory of Oscar Grant and others who have fallen victim to police violence. Please sign up to stay involved in pushing for justice in this case and for real accountability for police. Join us:

http://www.colorofchange.org/oscar_update/?id=2473-605038

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, Clarissa, William, Dani, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
January 16th, 2008

References

1. "Behind murder charge against ex-BART officer," San Francisco Chronicle, 1-15-2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/14/MNJE15A6O2.DTL

2. "Highlights Of DA Tom Orloff's Wednesday News Conference On Murder Charge," KTVU, 1-14-2009
http://www.ktvu.com/video/18481107/index.html

3. See reference 1.

4. See reference 2.

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About Manuel Querino

ln a racial climate that was at best condescending and at worst genocidal toward blacks, Manuel Querino helped pioneer the study of the Afro-Brazilians and their culture.

This blog is dedicated to the life, work and causes of this African-Brazilian scholar. The importance of his pioneering efforts in the study of Afro-Brazilian culture can only be understood in the perspective of the environment of pseudoscientific racism in which all intellectuals lived in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Brazil.

By recognizing the contributions of Africans and their descendants to Brazil's national identity and culture, even a Brazilian "race," Querino displayed phenomenal independence of scholarship and mind. He defied the influence of European pseudoscientific racism in a country whose economy was partially based on racial slavery until 1888. Like most Brazilian intellectuals, Querino was seeking to provide a scientific or historical basis for a founding myth of Brazilian nationality and culture: in searching for the characteristic that gave their country and people their unique identity, he chose the fait accompli and undeniable fact of widespread cultural and biological miscegenation.

Quotations

> "Here it was the work of blacks that sustained the nobility and prosperity of Brazil for centuries, without fail; it was as a result of their work that we have scientific institutions, letters, arts, commerce, industry, etc. Therefore, they have played an outstanding role as a factor in Brazilian civilization.” - Manuel Querino
> "Brazil has two great glories: the bounty of its soil and the talent of the mestiço." - Manuel Querino
> "The generosity of the human spirit can overcome all adversity. Through compassion and caring, we create...hope." - Nelson Mandela
> "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice." - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
> "Until the lion writes his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." - African proverb
> "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others.... One ever feels his twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." - W.E.B. DuBois
> "From a genetic perspective, all humans are Africans, either residing in Africa or in recent exile." - Svante Pääbo (Swedish biologist specialized in evolutionary genetics)
> "There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life." - Booker T. Washington
> "We have to recognize that the price of equality in pluralism, like the price of liberty, is eternal vigilance." - Carl N. Degler

Querinophiles and Querinologists

Several scholars have focussed on Querino in works published and produced in Brazil and the US over the past few decades, including Jorge Calmon, Pedro Calmon, E. Bradford Burns, Jaime Nascimento, Jaime Sodré, Maria das Graças Andrade Leal, David Brookshaw, Emanoel Araújo, Luiz Alberto Ribeiro Freire, Eliane Nunes, Kim Butler, Vivaldo da Costa Lima, Antonio Sergio Alfredo Guimarães and Waldeloir Rego. The greatest "Querinophile" of all was Jorge Amado, who drew inspiration from Querino's life and works when creating Pedro Archanjo, the protagonist of Tent of Miracles.

Background

My interest in Manuel Querino began when I was studying for my MA in Latin American Studies at UCLA in the early 1980s. After reading Jorge Amado's Tent of Miracles, I learned that the protagonist was largely inspired by Querino's life and works. My MA advisor, the late E. Bradford Burns, shared my interest in Querino and urged me to write his biography. It has taken me a long time to get around to it - I moved to Brazil shortly after graduating in 1986 and spent 28 years there making a living as a translator and raising a family before returning to the UK. In addition to researching Querino's life and Brazilian race relations in general, my PhD in Ethnic Studies at CEAO/UFBA focussed on the intellectual history of the African diaspora through two figures: Manuel R. Querino and Booker T. Washington. I recently published a version of my thesis in Portuguese and am working on the English edition. Suggestions and/or critiques of this blog will be warmly and gratefully welcomed.

-- Sabrina Gledhill