Brazil: São Paulo's most-voted-for congresswoman expressed gratitude for colonization and called Indigenous people “cannibals”

rainpizza@lemmygrad.ml · 4 days

Eduarda Campopiano (PL-SP), 23, was elected this Sunday as the state representative with the most votes in São Paulo, with 1,956,238 votes—a record for the São Paulo State Legislative Assembly. But her public record includes statements that sparked controversy even before the election.

In May of this year, during an interview on the RedCast podcast, Campopiano claimed that, had it not been for European Christianization, indigenous peoples would be “practicing cannibalism” in Brazil. “Praise God that they colonized us, praise God that they Christianized the indigenous women. Praise God that the far right arrived and told the Indians: ‘Guys, making sacrifices and eating your little brother’s arm isn’t right, burying children alive…’,” she declared.

Campopiano is a digital influencer and describes herself as “the greatest enemy of São Paulo’s feminists.” She was elected city councilor in Praia Grande in 2024 with just over 3,500 votes, and in 2026 she left that position to run for the State Legislature. Her political mentor is Lucas Pavanato (PL), who was elected to the Federal Chamber of Deputies in São Paulo with 3,038,438 votes—the second-highest vote total in the history of the Chamber of Deputies. Both are part of the same cohort of conservative influencers that the Liberal Party propelled into the legislature in these elections.

Archive link -> https://archive.ph/NvtRV

Krinkil2705@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

I wish they actually cannibalized your ancestors so we didn’t have to hear shit like this.

demeritum@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

They despise the new explosion of research indicating that the Amazon had “complex” civilizations and that indigenous people were a boon for the condition of rainforest. I had my fair share of clashes with some Brazilians over this.

burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

It’s the reflex of the history taught at schools. Indigenous are treated either as barbarous cannibals and degenerates or as innocent child-like savages. One narrative justifies the genocide and enslavement of the natives, the other encourages the tutelage of Jesuits and Christian missions to indoctrinate people into the European culture and values. Almost no proper historiography is taught in schools to teach the complex relationships between different and same tribes.

Although there’s a lot of racism and prejudice against African descendants, Brazil’s erasure of indigenous culture is far more advanced than in other regions in South America. Even today the prejudice against indigenous communities is simply horrendous.

TabularTuxedo@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

Really? I thought it was known for a long while that their societies are very complex.

demeritum@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

Advances in LiDAR made it into an undeniable fact, also the stigma around taking oral traditions serious lessened. Especially Native North American Archeology is booming.

sangeteria@lemmy.ml · 3 days

Indigenous people are cannibals? Hope they eat her first then

REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

Gentle reminder that blood of the hanged was considered folk medicine in europe until the late 20th century.

And when the spanish witnessed the Aztecs sacrificing humans their only problem was that it was not done in the name of Christ.

These crackers have no right to stand on.

KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

What the fuck is happening to Brazil man

prof_tincoa@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

It’s all of South America. The empire is pulling its strings. In her specific case, she got her claim to fame/infamy on social media, controlled by Zuckerberg and Musk.

That said, the Worker’s Party (PT) also made a lot of mistakes. We weren’t expecting much from them socdems/liberals, but wtf was this last Lula term. He didn’t revert a single privatization of fomer state companies. Brazil has virtually lost its energy sovereignty, and they did fucking nothing to revert it.

olgas_husband@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

same as everywhere else, systemic crysis and the boojwazy hitting the emergency button.

burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

It’s been like this since 2015, and it’s getting worse.

RedPartisan@lemmygrad.ml · 4 days

In moments like this I feel like liberal democracy is worse than nothing.

TabularTuxedo@lemmygrad.ml · 4 days

Branco corta seres humanos ao meio, traz o fogo do inferno para a floresta pra plantar soja e ainda assim se diz civilizado.

rainpizza@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

The colonizers also kidnapped and trafficked millions of people from Africa in the deadly slave trade. Also, like the rest of the “civilized” Europe, the Portuguese were known for burning women in the stake. Yeah, that’s the kind of people Eduarda is celebrating as “civilized”.

TabularTuxedo@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

Within the tribe there is as yet no difference between rights and duties; the question whether participation in public affairs, in blood revenge or atonement, is a right or a duty, does not exist for the [American] Indian; it would seem to him just as absurd as the question whether it was a right or a duty to sleep, eat, or hunt. A division of the tribe or of the gens into different classes was equally impossible. And that brings us to the examination of the economic basis of these conditions.

Engels on tribes (IX. Barbarism and Civilization, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State)

Complementing what you said.

Lussy [he/him, des/pair]@hexbear.net · 3 days

No civilized person would name their child Eduarda

Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net · 3 days

Edward - Edwarda

Robert - Roberta

Alexander - Alexandra

Bob - …Boba?

amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

Is this what people call being “mentally colonized”?

loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

It depends. Like if a settler descendant said this it would just be standard coloniser stuff. But I don’t know if there is a fine line between settler and indigenous in Latam. I only have the misfortune of knowing this about US and Kanada.

Conselheiro@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

In Brazil if they have a Italian surname, they’re probably descendants of the 1880s-1930s immigration wave that was incentivized specifically as a way to avoid giving work and land to the recently freed black population.

The ex-slaves were driven into the city periphery (eventually leading to the favela phenomenon), while Italian newcommers were given priority for land distribution alongside some of the (Portuguese-ish) white urban population.

loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

My god that is so cruel

demeritum@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

Yeah they also tried to erase darker skin-tones via “whitening” - thats something to keep in mind when certain people claim Brazil or other LatAm countries are post-racial colorblind utopias.

amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

So does this mean it’s likely that the person saying this awful stuff is a descendant of colonizers?

Conselheiro@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

Incredibly likely. Not of the “original colonisers”, as in the Portuguese, but rather of the new settlers from after slavery was abolished. Ironically the Portuguese settler descendants themselves got the short end of the stick among the whites. Even Bolsonaro himself is of Italian settler descent.

amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

Oh wow. Thanks for the context on it. I admit I had no idea of how complicated Brazil’s history is in that way.

darkernations@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

If those words didn’t hurt who she wants to hurt then she wouldn’t have to say them; she wants to hurt them because the threat against fascism is real enough to warrant it. Even in power, at some level, they understand how unstable their authority is. When fascists posture then it is a sign that what they fear is worth realising.

What fascists fear, above all else, are successful marxist-leninists. And marxists-leninists are borne out of the fruits of their barbarism. Those most subjugated are sometimes the most susceptible to being open to the science of socialism; so fascists project their fear so those that are hurt by that fear may never become brave enough to embrace the science of revolutionary socialism.

Fascists may not understand what they fear and how they come to fear it. Let us help them understand.

The real is rational and the rational is real. Use it to your advantage folks.

Conselheiro@lemmygrad.ml · 3 days

she wants to hurt them because the threat against fascism is real enough to warrant it.

Nah, indigenous activism is incredibly weak and, at best, defensive in Brazil. A large portion of it has been co-opted by the “progressive” Lula’s party. This is like saying trans people are an overwhelming threat to capital in the UK.

What fascists fear, above all else, are successful marxist-leninists.

Well, they’re in luck. There are barely any in Brazil. And definitely very few in the indigenous movements. MLs typically grow in urban centers.

Those most subjugated are sometimes the most susceptible to being open to the science of socialism

The lumpenproletariat or the hyperexploited sections of the proletariat are never the main component of any professionalised vanguard party, which is key to ML theory.

This all smacks of bad analysis. The reborn agitation against indigenous peoples is to manufacture consent for private exploration of their few remaining territories, with all the violence that usually entails. Indigenous peoples “need” to be massacred so that the mining and oil exploration can develop, and so they “need” to be dehumanised and have their traditional ways of living distorted as preparation.

It’s not a sign we’re doing well, or that we’re even politically relevant to this calculus at all.

darkernations@lemmygrad.ml · 2 days

Nah, indigenous activism is incredibly weak and, at best, defensive in Brazil. A large portion of it has been co-opted by the “progressive” Lula’s party.

Who said otherwise? If Lula were able to out-organise communists do we blame the indigenous? What happened to the autodynamism of dialectical materialism? Furthermore, it is not just the indigenous who are hurt.

Well, they’re in luck. There are barely any in Brazil. And definitely very few in the indigenous movements. MLs typically grow in urban centers.

And?

The lumpenproletariat or the hyperexploited sections of the proletariat are never the main component of any professionalised vanguard party, which is key to ML theory.

ML theory is a living thing. It wasn’t too long ago the sickle was added to the hammer. Some of the most revolutionary in the US and Israel, for example, are borne from the lumpenproleteriat.

In the 21st century in large parts of the world the proleteriat is being pulled towards two poles - labour aristocracy and lumpenproleteriat. A communist who wants to de-emphasise the revolutionary potential of the latter will end up taling the former.

This all smacks of bad analysis. The reborn agitation against indigenous peoples is to manufacture consent for private exploration…

Manufacturing consent is a failed idealist theory made popular by a sheepdog idealist hack (Chomsky. Parenti attempted to bring a materialist analysis earlier but it is one of his weaker works). Social licensing is a much better materialist theory of how propaganda works.

It’s not a sign we’re doing well, or that we’re even politically relevant to this calculus at all.

I never said it was. When fascists posture it is a call to action against them. As Kwame Ture says wherever there is oppression there is resistance even if that resistance appears silent. It is up to the scientific socialist to awaken the beast of revolution. So what are you going to do about it? Clearly the political theory on the ground is left wanting. Why should the indigenous join losers who will not value their political potential?

=== Edited to add, oof I forgot this juicy number:

This is like saying trans people are an overwhelming threat to capital in the UK.

We’ll ignore your strawman weasel word “overwhelming”. Trans folks are a threat to capital, they are a threat to the binary division of gendered labour and the bourgeoisie ideal of the nuclear family unit. They expose how gender is a social construct. They totally are a fucking threat to capital. An effective vangaurd could be in part be made up of this threat. Some of the most awesome living marxist-leninists are trans. For example go read this absolute banger of an essay by Nia Frome:

https://redsails.org/the-problem-of-recognition-in-transitional-states/

Johnny_Arson [she/her]@hexbear.net · 3 days

So she’s saying we should eat the rich?

Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]@hexbear.net · 3 days

Sad how it’s a step better than the types who bemoan not being colonized by the British

machiabelly [she/her]@hexbear.net · 3 days

Who the fuck are they?

Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]@hexbear.net · 3 days

Used to be more of a thing in Central America.

Brazil: São Paulo's most-voted-for congresswoman expressed gratitude for colonization and called Indigenous people “cannibals”

Painel: Deputada estadual mais votada em SP já agradeceu pela colonização e disse que indígenas são canibais