Is it good for you? | Kenia Maria | TEDxSãoPauloSalon

Kenia Maria tells about her experience with the "Is it good for you?" video channel, which deals with race issues lightly and with intelligent humor.

Kenia is an artistically engaged and socially concerned actress and businesswoman. In 2013, she founded, together with her daughter Gabriela Dias, the YouTube channel and the series Tá bom pra você? (Is it good for you?) with the collaboration of her husband and actor Érico Brás, and her son Mateus Dias.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Please close your eyes.

It'll be quick, I'm not going to do magic.

OK? Just relax.

Please close your eyes.

It'll be quick.

Imagine

an angel.

Keep this image.

A prince,

a princess,

and a doll.

Keep these images, and now open your eyes.

I want to know, in these images
that you visualized,

how many of them were black?

Yes,

I confess that, until today,
I do this test,

and still can't deconstruct these images

that my mind insists on reproducing.

How to deconstruct this?

The question I ask

is if what you see
when you close your eyes

is the world that you want and imagine.

I want to know if what you see

is good for you.

Is it good for you?

Well,

sometimes it seems like
someone is dominating my thoughts,

controlling how I should act,

how I should dress,
and what hairstyle I should have.

It seems like some kind of curse

when I find myself in this situation -

obligated to use things
that I have no choice about.

I have a 17-year-old daughter.

Her name is Gabriela.

She's an actress,

a dancer, a violinist,

and a singer.

She's here,

and she's one of the creators

of the "Tá bom pra você?,"
"Is it good for you?" project.

When Gabriela was 13,

she read a book

called "Um Defeito de Cor,"
"A Color Defect,"

by Ana Maria Gonçalves,
a writer I like very much.

It's a novel.

She was doing theater,
and one day, she stopped and said,

"Mom, I'm doing theater.

I want to be an actress.

I'm a model, I can sing,

but I don't see many places for me

in advertising, theater, or movies.

Sometimes, one or two.

I want to talk about this.

She was actually a little angry.

Thirteen years old -

it's a little complicated.

I said, "Well, let's get this out.

Let's start a blog, talk about this,
and see where it leads.

Let's put this discussion forward."

A little later, this idea
became a video channel.

I said, "Let's produce
what isn't there already:

commercials with our faces,

that represent us.

Let's produce things to see
if we can provoke people a little bit

to think about how advertising
normally portrays things.

My first idea was to talk

about the standard margarine ad.

[Black Light margarine]

You must have seen

that the actors in margarine commercials
are always the same:

heterosexual white couples,

men who respect morals and good customs

with their submissive modest housewives.

Excuse me, I needed to say this, OK?

(Laughter)

(Cheers)

(Applause)

Have you noticed

that, in these commercials
for margarine and other things,

women are always so very happy

to be joyfully serving everybody?

I don't know what woman
wakes up this way, but anyway -

(Laughter)

So we created our first commercial,

starring a black family.

On the video channel "Tá bom pra você?,"
Black Light margarine is available.

It's still not in supermarkets,
but we'll keep waiting.

So, for the first time
in Brazil's history -

at least, I've never seen a commercial
for margarine with a black family -

we have it on "Tá bom pra você?,"
and there's my family.

This idea originated from Gabriela,

her questions, and our talks,

but soon after,

my entire family decided to participate

because I pressured them.

They had no choice.

I had an actor at home, my husband,

who collaborated a lot with this project,

and my son, who had to be convinced,
as he was a little contrary to the idea.

(Laughter)

I want to say that the standard ad
is very dangerous

because it causes serious problems

for people who don't fit the pattern.

Problems and even psychological issues,

as in the case of Juliete.

[Alisandro]

Juliete is this girl who is tormented
by this monster called Alisandro.

Alisandro carries a pot.

I'll explain that to you:

Juliete is a very famous
black feminist blogger

with hair like this, like mine.

She feels very pressured

when she has to face
her first employment interview.

She stays in that torment

and starts to monitor
what happens in society.

You must have seen
what happens to black women

who now occupy positions

that before were occupied
only by white women:

actresses, singers, right?

Racist attacks

always happen to these women.

Juliete starts to see that
and gets a little scared, desperate,

and starts suffering delirium
and having hallucinations of Alisandro,

who appears with an enormous pot
of smoothing cream

and other instruments of torture

that people with hair
like mine don't want to use.

This guy appears in Juliete's nightmare,
at school, and on her computer.

It's serious business,
and she'll end up in the asylum.

This is serious.

It's serious.

The other commercial I wanted
to use to provoke this debate

was about something very simple
that happens to every woman:

menstruation.

There's never been a tampon
commercial with a black woman.

I saw Lélia Gonzalez,
an important black activist, saying this.

I think this interview
is already 25 years old.

She said, "I never saw a tampon
commercial with a black woman."

So we created the Free Black tampon,

[Free Black]

also available at "Tá bom pra você?,"

soon to be seen in markets near you.

We continue to wait for this too.

So I want to talk about
other products we consume.

It's worth remembering that we, blacks,

are 57% of Brazil's population,

according to IBGE
government agency figures.

We consume more than
1.5 trillion Brazilian reals per year.

But in the advertising
and audiovisual industries,

we're only at 4%.

And we consume these products.

[Black Cereal]

Here's Black Cereal,
also available at "Tá bom pra você?"

We also made a commercial for toothpaste:

Total Protection Black toothpaste.

Because, as incredible as it seems,
we brush our teeth, right?

(Laughter)

And worst of all, we buy these products.

Let's think, like I said, let's imagine.

We're more than half the population.

Imagine if we quit buying these products.

What would happen?

(Cheers)

(Applause)

Huh?

(Applause)

Now I want to talk about my sister.

Beatriz Nascimento, unfortunately,
passed away 17 years ago,

but I've kept everything she taught me.

My sister, when I was young -
I was born in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro -

made sure to take me to places
frequented by Rio's elite.

She took me to these places,
looked at me and said,

"Look, I'm bringing you here

so you'll learn that absolutely
nobody has the right to tell you

that you can't enter these places."

So I learned this lesson well,

and now I want to show you

what happens when children
and youngsters feel represented.

These images that I'll show now

are photos of children
that were taken by their parents

when they felt represented.

I don't think I need to make any comment.

There's a photo is of an American boy.

His mother took that picture
when she saw her son's reaction

when he identified with the child
on the package of diapers,

the child with the doll.

I don't think I need to comment,

but I want to comment

about this last photo of a boy,
who is 20 years old now.

He's a biomedicine student,

a black boy.

When I lived in Venezuela,
I worked in the sports field.

One day, my son came home
crying and crying.

He couldn't talk.

Went in the bathroom.

Couldn't talk with me.

Trying to talk with him, I asked,

"What happened?"

He answered, "Mom, I went in the school,

and all the kids laughed and asked
if someone had forgotten me in the stove."

(Sighs)

This is still very difficult for me.

So -

So I said, "What can I do?"

He was 13 or 14.

I thought, "How can I say
that it's society that's sick,

and he doesn't have a problem?"

I got the lyrics from a song
called "Negro Drama,"

by Mano Brown.

(Cheers)

(Applause)

I said,

"Listen to this music,
once, twice, three times alone.

Later, if you want, we can talk,
chat a little, see what you think of it,

and let's talk, figure out this story."

He listened to it. He loved it.

After this day, we started hearing

Racionais, Mano Brown's group,
at least 10 times a day.

Matheus, the one in the picture
who's learning biomedicine,

is my son.

(Cheers)

Then, when I returned to Brazil,

I made a point to get
a photograph of his first reaction

when he saw his idol, Mano Brown, onstage.

It was crowded; I needed someone
to take the picture, but I saw nobody.

A little later, I saw Eliane Dias go by,

the marvelous goddess who was just here.

I took her arm and said,
"Please, my son needs to meet" -

I didn't know Eliane at this time -

"My son needs to meet Mano Brown."

She said, "OK,"
understanding the situation.

She said, "Wow, I need to take this boy."

And there he was with his idol.

Well, I want to say

that representation is important -

extremely important for society
and very good for business.

since half of this population
consumes all the products.

It's good that we're in São Paulo
so we can talk about this.

We don't want to be equal to anyone.

That's not it.

The most interesting thing in the world

is difference.

We don't want to be equal to anyone,
but we deserve equal rights,

and we'll fight for those, right?

I think it's very simple.

We don't need appreciation from people
affected by the margarine commercial,

who think it's great to say,

"No, I'm not a racist,
my best friend's a black guy."

No, that's not the point.

It's simple: you only have to understand
that if there's a chair for you,

there has to be one for me too, right?

That's the point.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

We're talking of one nation.

We're the Brazilian nation.

This isn't a friends club

where your brother, uncle,
and cousin enter -

No!

We're all part of humanity.

We must respect it
and respect human rights, OK?

I think diversity is more interesting
than a world full of dolls,

angels, princes, princesses,
gods, queens, and kings, all equal.

No!

I want to be able to suddenly
close my eyes next time.

I suggest that you do the same,
tomorrow or later, today, later,

and try to realize that your mind is free

to have the dreams you want,

the images you want,

and to make the films you want,

thus deconstructing our colonized minds.

We need new stories to do that.

And finally,

as I usually say,

"The good thing

is when I can learn with you

what you still don't know about me."

Is it good for you?

Thank you.

(Applause)