Two moments of a work — Romero Venâncio’s (UFS) review of “Sociologia do negro brasileiro”, by Clóvis Moura
Clóvis Moura | Image: Clóvis Moura’s personal archive/Vermelho
Abstract: Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro, by Clóvis Moura, criticizes “racial democracy” and explores post-abolition black resistance. Initially published in 1988 and republished in 2019, the work is fundamental in the fight against racism, in addition to highlighting the importance of black intellectuals in Brazil.
Keywords: Racial Democracy, Black Resistance, Sociology.
The first edition of Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro already indicated the importance and originality of the work. Clóvis Moura published it in the “Fundamentos” collection of Editora Ática in 1988. This date was not random, as the 100th anniversary of the abolition of slavery and an entire “slave heritage” in the post-abolition era were celebrated. The book included a critical reading of “social theories” and “historiographies” about black Brazilians, reiterating his goal of providing answers to what Moura considered the “Brazilian racial and social problem” (p.24).
In 1988, a work like that of Clóvis Moura was necessary. He, who between 1959 and 1988 had researched black Brazilians and their resistance struggles like few others in Brazil, in the introduction to the work, began by telling us: “this book is the synthesis of more than twenty years of research, courses, congresses, symposia , observation and analysis of the situation and perspectives of the black problem in Brazil” (p.24). It was necessary, after 100 years of the abolition of slavery, for a black intellectual to make a broad and critical assessment of May 13, 1888.
The 1980s edition brought the marks of the context and demands of the Unified Black Movement (MNU), which was gaining increasing visibility in the struggle of black men and women in Brazil. The fight against racism entered a new level. There was a climate of radicalization in the black agenda that did not exist in other historical moments in the country, the highlighted examples of which, in Moura’s book, are: the criticism of the idea of “racial democracy” and the recovery of the memory of the Palmarine rebellion (which occurred in the territory from the current state of Alagoas), in the 17th century onwards.
Clóvis Moura always saw the actions of Zumbi and his followers as an extraordinary experience of the black struggle. Brazilian historiography needed to understand the “Palmarine Republic” as a rare moment in Brazil. Clóvis Moura argued that black people fought since the first century of slavery. Thus, the word “resistance” became a hermeneutic criterion for reading the history of black people.
With regard to “improper racial democracy”, Moura did not hold back in criticizing the term and its ideologues. Going so far as to speak of the “myth of racial democracy”, he demonstrated that the historical data of “slave heritage” make any serious discourse on “racial democracy” unfeasible.
The second (and new) edition of Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro appears in a context very different from that of the 1980s. The current edition was published in 2019 by the publisher Perspectiva, in the collection “Palavras Negras”. This collection, which aims to publish black authors, expresses a significant moment for a real idea of “black intellectual” in contemporary Brazil.
In contemporary times, racism has not disappeared from the horizon of Brazilian culture, of course. It has even intensified in certain regions of Brazil. What happened in this country, between the first and second edition of Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro, by Clóvis Moura, which forced Silvio Almeida (professor and currently Minister of Human Rights of the Brazilian State) to designate the occurrences as “structural racism”?
Debate aside about the use or abuse of the term, it makes perfect sense when we study Brazilian history and sociability. However, we cannot fail to consider that, despite racism, black people fought. Movements, public presence, quotas at universities, digital networks and a large group of black writers have assumed hegemony on the stage of Brazil’s recent history. No longer able to be disregarded or made invisible, the black intellectual is a reality and the work of Clóvis Moura has greatly helped in this current situation. The book bore fruit and reached its most recent edition with a rare vitality for a text written by a Brazilian and a black man.
The recent edition of Perspectiva comes with two introductory texts by two black intellectuals and academics, coming from a recent past characterized by the affirmation of black people. These are Dennis de Oliveira (professor at the University of São Paulo – USP) and Cleber Santos Vieira (professor at the Federal University of São Paulo – UNIFESP).
The title of Dennis de Oliveira’s text already says a lot about the subject: “Conceptually repositioning the black Brazilian in the eyes of a black intellectual”. He situates the work written in 1988, its legacy and the place of Clóvis Moura in studies on black people in Brazil. Moura “educated” Brazilian universities to recognize the importance of black people throughout Brazilian social formation. Hello
Oliveira faz um breve percurso da vida e das obras de Clóvis Moura para nos demonstrar o pioneirismo da escrita do intelectual do Piauí.
Uma atitude das mais importantes no texto do Dennis é a ideia de aproximar (aparentemente inusitada) Clóvis Moura e Cedric J. Robinson (traduzido pela mesma editora perspectiva). Para o autor, “a tradição do radicalismo negro iniciada contra a escravização de africanos inaugura a rebelião anticapitalista, tendo em vista que boa parte da riqueza acumulada por meio do trabalho forçado de africanos é que deu bases para a constituição do capitalismo.” Oliveira takes a brief look at the life and works of Clóvis Moura to show us the pioneering work of the intellectual from Piauí.
Cleber Santos, in his text “A rosary of struggles — Clóvis Moura and the centenary of Abolition”, reinforces Moura’s great thesis in all his works about black Brazilians: resistance and its different faces in history. The “myth” of the peaceful black man does not exist or exists only in the writings of white people interested in domesticating the “rosary of struggles” of black people at all moments in the history of slaveholding Brazil.
Thus, Cleber Santos defines the work as a “synthesis book of his research, whose strength of arguments lies in the balance between the production of knowledge and the intense engagement in the analysis and formulation of resolutions to the problems faced at different levels by the black population” ( p.10).
The idea of a “synthesis book” is perfect for saying what Clóvis Moura was and wanted in 1988. The book resulted from (and affirmed) a radical perspective on the history of black people in Brazil: the fight for abolition is not limited to Princess Isabel and only to white abolitionists. The fight for abolition had deeper roots in the history of Brazil and well before 1888 and has a black presence. Moura dialectically articulated the first black struggles against slavery with the struggle for abolition, neutralizing the jingoistic and white reading of abolition.
This work is unprecedented in Brazilian social theory. Clóvis Moura’s book fulfills the goal of offering a “synthesis” of his intellectual activities, containing a particular “solution to the Brazilian racial and social problem” (p.24). It is an aid to the best in the studies and struggles of the black population of Brazil in 2023. An instrument in the fight against racism and a key piece in the intellectual formation of black youth eager for knowledge and liberation, Moura’s work revived the “thread of memory” of historical moments in Brazil where black participation was a symbol of resistance.
Summary ofSociologia do negro brasileiro
Apresentação: Reposicionando Conceitualmente o Negro Brasileiro no Olhar de um Intelectual Negro | Dennis de Oliveira
Prefácio: Um Rosário de Lutas — Clóvis Moura e o Centenário da Abolição | Cleber Santos Vieira
Introdução
I. Teorias à procura de uma prática
1. Os estudos sobre o Negro como reflexo da estrutura da sociedade brasileira
2. Sincretismo, assimilação, acomodação, aculturação e luta de classes
3. Miscigenação e democracia racial: mito e realidade
4. O Negro como grupo específico ou diferenciado em uma sociedade de capitalismo dependente
II. A dinâmica negra e o racismo branco
5. Sociologia da República de Palmares
6. O Negro visto contra o espelho de dois analistas
MOURA, Clóvis. Sociologia do negro brasileiro. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2019. 316p. Review by: VENÂNCIO, Romero. Two moments of a work. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.15, jan./feb., 2024. Available at <https://www.criticahistoriografica.com.br/en/two-moments-of-a-work-romero-venancios-ufs-review-of-sociologia-do-negro-brasileiro-by-clovis-moura/>.
Two moments of a work — Romero Venâncio’s (UFS) review of “Sociologia do negro brasileiro”, by Clóvis Moura
20 January 2024
Clóvis Moura | Image: Clóvis Moura’s personal archive/Vermelho
Abstract: Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro, by Clóvis Moura, criticizes “racial democracy” and explores post-abolition black resistance. Initially published in 1988 and republished in 2019, the work is fundamental in the fight against racism, in addition to highlighting the importance of black intellectuals in Brazil.
Keywords: Racial Democracy, Black Resistance, Sociology.
The first edition of Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro already indicated the importance and originality of the work. Clóvis Moura published it in the “Fundamentos” collection of Editora Ática in 1988. This date was not random, as the 100th anniversary of the abolition of slavery and an entire “slave heritage” in the post-abolition era were celebrated. The book included a critical reading of “social theories” and “historiographies” about black Brazilians, reiterating his goal of providing answers to what Moura considered the “Brazilian racial and social problem” (p.24).
In 1988, a work like that of Clóvis Moura was necessary. He, who between 1959 and 1988 had researched black Brazilians and their resistance struggles like few others in Brazil, in the introduction to the work, began by telling us: “this book is the synthesis of more than twenty years of research, courses, congresses, symposia , observation and analysis of the situation and perspectives of the black problem in Brazil” (p.24). It was necessary, after 100 years of the abolition of slavery, for a black intellectual to make a broad and critical assessment of May 13, 1888.
The 1980s edition brought the marks of the context and demands of the Unified Black Movement (MNU), which was gaining increasing visibility in the struggle of black men and women in Brazil. The fight against racism entered a new level. There was a climate of radicalization in the black agenda that did not exist in other historical moments in the country, the highlighted examples of which, in Moura’s book, are: the criticism of the idea of “racial democracy” and the recovery of the memory of the Palmarine rebellion (which occurred in the territory from the current state of Alagoas), in the 17th century onwards.
Clóvis Moura always saw the actions of Zumbi and his followers as an extraordinary experience of the black struggle. Brazilian historiography needed to understand the “Palmarine Republic” as a rare moment in Brazil. Clóvis Moura argued that black people fought since the first century of slavery. Thus, the word “resistance” became a hermeneutic criterion for reading the history of black people.
With regard to “improper racial democracy”, Moura did not hold back in criticizing the term and its ideologues. Going so far as to speak of the “myth of racial democracy”, he demonstrated that the historical data of “slave heritage” make any serious discourse on “racial democracy” unfeasible.
The second (and new) edition of Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro appears in a context very different from that of the 1980s. The current edition was published in 2019 by the publisher Perspectiva, in the collection “Palavras Negras”. This collection, which aims to publish black authors, expresses a significant moment for a real idea of “black intellectual” in contemporary Brazil.
In contemporary times, racism has not disappeared from the horizon of Brazilian culture, of course. It has even intensified in certain regions of Brazil. What happened in this country, between the first and second edition of Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro, by Clóvis Moura, which forced Silvio Almeida (professor and currently Minister of Human Rights of the Brazilian State) to designate the occurrences as “structural racism”?
Debate aside about the use or abuse of the term, it makes perfect sense when we study Brazilian history and sociability. However, we cannot fail to consider that, despite racism, black people fought. Movements, public presence, quotas at universities, digital networks and a large group of black writers have assumed hegemony on the stage of Brazil’s recent history. No longer able to be disregarded or made invisible, the black intellectual is a reality and the work of Clóvis Moura has greatly helped in this current situation. The book bore fruit and reached its most recent edition with a rare vitality for a text written by a Brazilian and a black man.
The recent edition of Perspectiva comes with two introductory texts by two black intellectuals and academics, coming from a recent past characterized by the affirmation of black people. These are Dennis de Oliveira (professor at the University of São Paulo – USP) and Cleber Santos Vieira (professor at the Federal University of São Paulo – UNIFESP).
The title of Dennis de Oliveira’s text already says a lot about the subject: “Conceptually repositioning the black Brazilian in the eyes of a black intellectual”. He situates the work written in 1988, its legacy and the place of Clóvis Moura in studies on black people in Brazil. Moura “educated” Brazilian universities to recognize the importance of black people throughout Brazilian social formation. Hello
Oliveira faz um breve percurso da vida e das obras de Clóvis Moura para nos demonstrar o pioneirismo da escrita do intelectual do Piauí.
Uma atitude das mais importantes no texto do Dennis é a ideia de aproximar (aparentemente inusitada) Clóvis Moura e Cedric J. Robinson (traduzido pela mesma editora perspectiva). Para o autor, “a tradição do radicalismo negro iniciada contra a escravização de africanos inaugura a rebelião anticapitalista, tendo em vista que boa parte da riqueza acumulada por meio do trabalho forçado de africanos é que deu bases para a constituição do capitalismo.” Oliveira takes a brief look at the life and works of Clóvis Moura to show us the pioneering work of the intellectual from Piauí.
Cleber Santos, in his text “A rosary of struggles — Clóvis Moura and the centenary of Abolition”, reinforces Moura’s great thesis in all his works about black Brazilians: resistance and its different faces in history. The “myth” of the peaceful black man does not exist or exists only in the writings of white people interested in domesticating the “rosary of struggles” of black people at all moments in the history of slaveholding Brazil.
Thus, Cleber Santos defines the work as a “synthesis book of his research, whose strength of arguments lies in the balance between the production of knowledge and the intense engagement in the analysis and formulation of resolutions to the problems faced at different levels by the black population” ( p.10).
The idea of a “synthesis book” is perfect for saying what Clóvis Moura was and wanted in 1988. The book resulted from (and affirmed) a radical perspective on the history of black people in Brazil: the fight for abolition is not limited to Princess Isabel and only to white abolitionists. The fight for abolition had deeper roots in the history of Brazil and well before 1888 and has a black presence. Moura dialectically articulated the first black struggles against slavery with the struggle for abolition, neutralizing the jingoistic and white reading of abolition.
This work is unprecedented in Brazilian social theory. Clóvis Moura’s book fulfills the goal of offering a “synthesis” of his intellectual activities, containing a particular “solution to the Brazilian racial and social problem” (p.24). It is an aid to the best in the studies and struggles of the black population of Brazil in 2023. An instrument in the fight against racism and a key piece in the intellectual formation of black youth eager for knowledge and liberation, Moura’s work revived the “thread of memory” of historical moments in Brazil where black participation was a symbol of resistance.
Summary ofSociologia do negro brasileiro
Apresentação: Reposicionando Conceitualmente o Negro Brasileiro no Olhar de um Intelectual Negro | Dennis de Oliveira
Prefácio: Um Rosário de Lutas — Clóvis Moura e o Centenário da Abolição | Cleber Santos Vieira
Introdução
I. Teorias à procura de uma prática
1. Os estudos sobre o Negro como reflexo da estrutura da sociedade brasileira
2. Sincretismo, assimilação, acomodação, aculturação e luta de classes
3. Miscigenação e democracia racial: mito e realidade
4. O Negro como grupo específico ou diferenciado em uma sociedade de capitalismo dependente
II. A dinâmica negra e o racismo branco
5. Sociologia da República de Palmares
6. O Negro visto contra o espelho de dois analistas
MOURA, Clóvis. Sociologia do negro brasileiro. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2019. 316p. Review by: VENÂNCIO, Romero. Two moments of a work. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.15, jan./feb., 2024. Available at <https://www.criticahistoriografica.com.br/en/two-moments-of-a-work-romero-venancios-ufs-review-of-sociologia-do-negro-brasileiro-by-clovis-moura/>.
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Romero Junior Venancio Silva has a PhD in Philosophy from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (2010), a Master’s degree in Sociologia (1997) and a degree in Philosophy from the Universidade Federal da Paraíba (1994). He is an adjunct professor at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe (Departamento de Filosofia e Núcleo de Ciências da Religião) and has published, among other works, La trilogía del silencio de Bergman, el cine de Dreyer y la Filosofía de la existencia. ID: Lattes: http://lattes.cnpq.br/3944170306845714; ID ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-2283; E-mail:
