CATEGORIES:
< 10 Minutes, Creative Activism, Education, Human Rights, Youth
KEYWORDS:
Brazil, Diversity, Violence, Discrimination, Activism, Music, Marginalization, Law, Resilience, Latin America
Director: Katherine Jinyi Li
Producer: Katherine Jinyi Li
2016 | 7 min
Latin America
Brazil
Language: Portuguese
Subtitles: English
“Being Black Is No Crime” is the fourth episode of the web-series “The Conscious Hood” documenting social issues crucial to the residents of São Paulo’s Heliópolis, the second largest urban slum in Latin America. Directed by videomaker Katherine Jinyi Li and filmed during her youth journalism workshops at the community organization UNAS-Heliópolis, The Conscious Hood features Li’s journalism students, their families, neighbors, and community leaders as protagonists of their social struggle.
“Being Black Is No Crime” brings the violent reality of police discrimination against young, black members of the Heliópolis favela to the screen with locals’ testimonies on camera, a short skit of a standard stop and frisk, a “funk” rap, and a quick lesson of any person’s legal rights when stopped by the police. Past episodes of “The Conscious Hood” discussed public waste management, homophobia, and women’s rights in the favela.
