Bahian deputy launches book Black Woman in Politics

State deputy Olívia Santana (PCdoB-BA), 56 years old, launches, next Saturday (the 8th), at the Latinidades Festival, in Brasília (DF), her first book: Black Women in Politics (publisher Malê). The event takes place in the annex of the National Museum in Brasília. The festival has the support of Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC). The book addresses, from personal and research experiences, the difficulties that black women have in reaching and establishing themselves in elective positions. According to the author, the book has elements of autobiography, but also dialogues with the experiences of other black women who ran for the Executive or the Legislative. “I mention, including the situations of political violence that we live”, she said, in an interview with Agência Brasil. The deputy, who has more than 35 years of experience in social struggles, reached her second term, with 92,559 votes, in the 2022 elections. The first victory for a deputy had 57,755 votes. “I am the only black deputy of the Legislative Assembly in the blackest state in Brazil”, said the parliamentarian. “The black population is the majority in this country and, even so, our presence is not adequately reflected in the spaces of power”. The book will also be launched at the Museum of Tomorrow (in Rio de Janeiro), on July 15th, and at Casa Mulher com a Palavra, at the Goethe Institute (in Salvador), on July 25th, International Day of Black Latino Women. American and Caribbean. From cleaning lady to deputy The deputy, who is a teacher and pedagogue, worked, before reaching higher education, as a cleaning lady and lunch lady at a school. Delighted with what she saw in a classroom, she decided to study to be a teacher. It was with difficulties that she took the pedagogy course at the Federal University of Bahia, while working as a cleaner. “Imagine what a university does in the mind of a cleaning lady, from the slums and restless”, she wrote in the book’s introduction. Minority She regrets that of the 63 deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Bahia, for example, women continue to be a minority. “In 2018, we were ten women and I was the only black woman. Now, only eight women have been elected, despite not having the same tools as my male counterparts to campaign”. Even with a mandate, she noticed moments when she was passed over. “We know when racism and sexism come together to leave us out, or for us to have less guarantee of parliamentary amendments”. In addition, she identifies that racism presents itself in different faces. The parliamentarian even recalls episodes in which voters found it strange that she was a candidate or a parliamentarian. “We are so few in the spaces of power historically associated with white men. This construction also serves as a wall to isolate us from these spaces and format a collective imagination”. Olívia Santana was Salvador’s Secretary of Education and Culture, and for the State of Bahia, she served in the Secretariats for Policy for Women and for Work, Employment, Income and Sport. Service Launch of the book Black Women in Politics, by Olívia Santana Date: July 8, 2023, at 2 pm Festival Latinidades – Annex of the National Museum, in Brasília

Agência Brasil