LUIS JUSTINO: A Historic Atrocity

I have been developing photographic essays for years and I actively participate in the lives of the residents of the “Grota do Surucucu” community, in the state of Rio de Janeiroi. In this community, there was the development of cultural projects of extreme importance to the community, among them, the creation of the “Grota String Orchestra”, composed only by young people from the community, who would have little chance of socializing in our segregated society, if the orchestra did not exist.

At the end of September 2020, one of the members of the orchestra, Luiz Carlos Justino, upon returning from a performance, was approached on the street by police officers who took him to the police station and arrested him later, without having anything to do with him. Later on, It was proven that, at the time of the crime, he performed with friends in a commitment with a constant agenda. Four days in prison, in a cell with dozens of prisoners, without knowing the reason, without any police pass and with a good record, was enough for a review of one of the greatest tragedies in our history, which unfolds systematically, until today: “slavery”.

Slavery produced the culture of social humiliation and torture, where, from the deep cut, exclusion from their coexistence, from their sphere of relationships, the slaves lost all their social heritage, the authority over their lives as human beings.

We still live today, plagued by the problem of the marginality of those who are not assimilated by the city's policies, without the right to speak, to human dignity, without any legitimacy of their testimony, traces of the unfolding of slavery, which make daily shame remain. our lives.

The wounds of slavery in Brazil will never leave our souls, forever placing us in the shadow of the “social death” of these people.

HAND PAINTED PHOTO

Thomas Daniel Fowler