In October 2022, Brazil will choose a new president. By all odds, we are facing a polarized battle between current conservative president Jair Bolsonaro and leftist veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who ruled the country between 2003 and 2011. For Black Brazilians, a lot is at stake. The election serves as an opportune time for a conversation with Professor Kabengele Munanga about the past, present, and future of the antiracist movement in Brazil.

Born in 1940 in Belgian Congo, Professor Kabengele became the first anthropologist trained at what is today the University of Lumumbashi in Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). After some time in Belgium, Kabengele fled the Mobutist regime in Zaire (as DRC was known at the time) in 1975 and was offered the opportunity to continue his career at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, where he dedicated himself to the study of Brazil’s Black population. Now retired, Kabengele remains a highly respected voice about matters of Blackness in Brazil, as evidenced by his many awards and titles, including his recognition with the Brazilian Order of Cultural Merit in 2002.

(A quick note on the translation from Portuguese to English in this interview: “preto,” the Portuguese word for people with dark skin, is translated as “black” with a lowercase B, while “negro,” the Portuguese word for all black people, including light-skinned Brazilians, is translated as “Black” with a capital B. Professor Kabengele insists on the political usage of the latter term to create a united antiracist struggle in which black and mixed-race Brazilians can find common ground.)