Brazil’s Race War: The History Behind the Headlines
By Darius Spearman (africanelements)
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On October 28, 2025, a day of immense tragedy unfolded in the Alemão and Penha favelas of Rio de Janeiro. A massive police operation involving 2,500 officers resulted in the deaths of nearly 150 people, making it the most lethal police action in Brazil’s post-emancipation history. Officials claimed the “mega-operation” was a successful strike against the Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, a powerful criminal organization. However, the reality on the ground told a different story. Police served only a small fraction of their arrest warrants before abruptly withdrawing, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies, most of whom were low-level gang members and innocent residents.
This massacre is not a random act of violence. It is a brutal chapter in a long and painful history of systemic violence against Black Brazilians. These events highlight the sober assessment of the late Brazilian intellectual Lélia Gonzalez, who argued that in Brazil, the class war is also a race war. For over 400 years, people of African descent have formed the bedrock of Brazil’s economy, receiving only poverty and violence in return. Indeed, the slaughter in Alemão and Penha is a direct echo of the lash, a modern manifestation of a historical war against Black bodies that began with slavery and never truly ended.
An Unfinished Abolition
Brazil has the dark distinction of being the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery, officially ending the practice with the Lei Áurea, or Golden Act, in 1888. The nation imported an estimated 5.5 million enslaved Africans, nearly half of all those forcibly brought to the Americas, whose labor built immense wealth for the country (gilderlehrman.org). The end of slavery, however, did not bring freedom or equality. Instead, it marked the beginning of Brazil’s post-emancipation history, a period defined by the systemic failure to integrate Afro-Brazilians into society and the creation of new forms of racial control.
The concept of an “unfinished abolition” is central to understanding this history. It argues that the legal end of slavery was incomplete because it was not followed by policies to ensure genuine freedom. There was no reparative justice, a term describing measures like land redistribution, educational programs, and economic support designed to address the deep harms of slavery. Consequently, the newly freed Black population was abandoned, left without land, education, or jobs. The government even pursued a “branqueamento,” or “whitening” policy, encouraging European immigration to dilute the country’s African heritage. This abandonment forced millions of Black Brazilians to the absolute margins of society.
Favelas and the Poverty of Rights
In the wake of this state-sanctioned neglect, formerly enslaved people began to build squatter settlements on the outskirts of major cities. These communities, which became the first favelas, were born of necessity. Rio de Janeiro’s oldest favela, Providência, was founded in 1897, and many early settlements were known as “bairros africanos” (African neighborhoods), reflecting their overwhelmingly Black populations (catcomm.org). From their very inception, these communities, filled with the descendants of enslaved Africans, became targets of state repression and violence.
This historical pattern has created a persistent “poverty of rights” for favela residents. This term describes a state where fundamental human rights, including safety, housing, and equal treatment under the law, are systematically denied. For these predominantly Afro-Brazilian communities, the state’s presence is felt not as a provider of services but as a punitive, militarized force. This dynamic created a vacuum that allowed criminal organizations to gain influence. Furthermore, it established a cycle where the state’s violent interventions only deepen the marginalization and suffering of the people it is supposed to protect.
The Rise of State-Sanctioned Violence
The Comando Vermelho, the group targeted in the October 2025 operation, has its own roots in state failure. It was founded in a Rio prison in 1979 during Brazil’s military dictatorship, an authoritarian regime that lasted from 1964 to 1985 (wikipedia.org). This period was marked by severe political repression and human rights abuses. The CV emerged from an alliance between common criminals and leftist political prisoners, gaining a foothold in poor communities by sometimes providing services the government ignored.
The rise of the cocaine trade in the 1980s transformed these groups and intensified conflict, which in turn invited even more brutal state intervention. The October 2025 massacre represents an extreme example of this cycle. Residents reported shots fired from helicopters, raids conducted without warrants, and a denial of medical aid to the injured. Moreover, bodies were found with bound hands and shots to the back of the head, signs consistent with possible extrajudicial execution. An extrajudicial execution is the killing of a person by government authorities without the sanction of any legal process, a grave violation of human rights that bypasses due process and the right to a fair trial.
The Statistics of a Race War
The numbers behind police violence in Brazil paint a horrifyingly clear picture of racial disparity. In 2023 alone, Brazilian police killed 6,393 people. A staggering 83 percent of these victims were identified as Black or Afro-descendant (wikipedia.org). Understanding this statistic requires a brief look at Brazil’s racial classification system. The census uses categories like *preto* (black) and *pardo* (brown). Both groups are generally considered under the broader umbrella of *negro* or Afro-Brazilian, representing people of African descent. *Pardo* typically refers to people of mixed racial ancestry, often with a significant African component.
The 2022 census shows that while brown and black people make up 45.3% and 10.2% of the total population, respectively, they represent 56.8% and 16.1% of residents in Brazil’s 12,348 favelas. This concentration of Afro-Brazilians in marginalized communities directly correlates with their overrepresentation as victims of state violence. Disturbingly, a Black person was killed every 12 minutes in Brazil between 2012 and 2023. This violence is officially endorsed by politicians like Governor Cláudio Castro, whose administration is linked to four of Rio’s five deadliest police operations and who has publicly criticized a Supreme Court ruling aimed at restricting such deadly raids.
Police Killings in Brazil (2023)
of the 6,393 people killed by police were Black or Afro-descendant.
This stark figure highlights the extreme racial disparity in lethal police violence across the nation. (wikipedia.org)
Challenging the Myth of Racial Democracy
The ongoing violence against Black Brazilians stands in direct opposition to a powerful national narrative: the “myth of racial democracy.” This idea claims that because of widespread racial mixing, Brazil is a harmonious society free from racism. It suggests that race is not a barrier to success and that inequality is a matter of class, not color. However, as the data on police killings and economic disparity clearly show, this is a dangerous fiction. The myth serves to mask the profound, systemic racism that Black Brazilians face every day, making it harder to address the root causes of injustice.
Lélia Gonzalez dedicated her life to dismantling this myth. Her work analyzed the intertwined realities of race, gender, and coloniality. “Coloniality” refers to the enduring power structures and hierarchies established during colonialism that persist long after formal independence. For Gonzalez, Brazil’s problems could not be understood without acknowledging these deep-seated patterns of domination. Consequently, the massacre in Alemão and Penha is not just a failure of modern policing. It is a product of coloniality, a violent expression of a society that has never fully reckoned with its legacy of slavery, and a grim confirmation that the race war in Brazil continues.
Mortality Risk: Black vs. White Youth
Young Black Brazilians face a mortality risk that is 4.4 times higher than their white counterparts. (amnesty.org)
About the Author
Darius Spearman is a professor of Black Studies at San Diego City College, where he has been teaching for over 20 years. He is the founder of African Elements, a media platform dedicated to providing educational resources on the history and culture of the African diaspora. Through his work, Spearman aims to empower and educate by bringing historical context to contemporary issues affecting the Black community.
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