Public invisibility | Fernando Braga | TEDxBeloHorizonte

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Like many of us, Fernando da Costa Braga felt uneasy with the way certain types of workers are ignored by society. But he didn't just let it be. Instead, he spent 8 years sweeping the streets of São Paulo to understand what he calls "Public Invisibility". Once a week, Fernando Braga da Costa puts on a uniform and sweeps the streets. He carries manure, cleans ditches, works in the rain, and toils under the sun. On account of this, he has developed tendinitis. His routine began 10 years ago, as an assignment for a psychology class he attended at the University of Sao Paulo, which suggested that students work for a day in a lower class profession. This was the starting point for his thesis on "public invisibility", which means that professionals like janitors, elevator operators, and packers aren't "seen" by society; they are perceived as jobs, not people. The thesis became a book: "Invisible Men: Testimonies of Social Humiliation".

The charming and hospitable
capital of Minas Gerais.

I want to ask help from all of you

who've been sitting
quietly together for over an hour.

I'd like everyone to stand up, please.

You can take the opportunity
to change your position.

I'd like a round of applause to those
who prepared our breakfast, our lunch,

and who are once again
preparing our meals.

And also to those workers who,
while we're here discussing new ideas,

carry on cleaning
the toilets we've soiled.

(Applause)

Thank you.

I know I'm ridiculous. I know it.

For us to talk about how our history

has led us to have enslaved individuals

who use this type of uniform
eight hours a day,

six days a week for many years,
I'd need more than 18 minutes.

However, I'd like to say
some important things to you about this.

First of all, I'm not alone on this stage.

On my left: Ernesto Che Guevara,
John Lennon, Mahatma Gandhi,

Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.

On my right: Moises, Nilce,
Joăo, Tonhăo, and many others

who taught me to understand these guys,
and who are very dear to me.

I was a student in Psychology
in my second year at USP.

There was a work assignment
in a discipline called Social Psychology.

The professor said,
"In addition to the academic tasks

you'll need to do a manual task for a day

that doesn't require technical
or school education.

Some went to work
as packers in supermarkets.

Others worked as ticket agents in cinemas.

Some colleagues and I worked
as street cleaners

inside the university campus itself.

OK. The first problem:

at USP, as in every university campus,

every building,
every institute, has a sign.

No one has any problem
finding these places.

The Psychology Institute is this way,
the College of Economy over there.

The University Hospital, straight ahead.

I arrived at USP, where I'd already
been studying for two years,

went up to some people and asked,

"Could someone please tell me
where the street cleaners' lockers are?"

Silence.

When there was no silence,
there was shock. Street cleaners?

Street cleaners in USP?

Well, yes. Why not?
Do the streets clean by themselves?

Are we in Disneyland
where the leaves fall from the trees

and land straight inside the garbage bins?

After that, I went
to the appointed workplace.

Everyone was waiting
for the "foreigner" to arrive,

the Psychology student
who'd be among the street cleaners.

I noticed that the workers
came in garbage trucks

together with brooms, shovels,
hoes, bins, trash bags,

and often the garbage itself.

I noticed that
all their tools were trashy,

like this one here.

This one is a bit better
because the broomstick is a little longer.

But try to imagine someone
eight hours a day doing this.

Sorry director about stepping out
of the red carpet.

Imagine the pain in your forearms,

imagine your back after a few months work.

So when I arrived at the workplace,

everyone was working
with a spade and hoe

because it had been raining
the day before in Săo Paulo.

Heavy dirt had accumulated
in the street corners,

you couldn't work with a broom.

Everyone with spades and hoes
working in this position.

The man in charge says, "Not you.
You go sweep on the other side."

I went to the other side.

When I looked, it seemed
they'd already cleaned the place

and put two or three leaves so the playboy
would think he was sweeping.

I obeyed the boss.

Incidentally, they say
some are born to give orders,

and others to obey.

Please raise your hands those of you
who feel they were born to obey

One. OK, fine.

And those born to give orders,
are there many here?

Interesting. OK

What happened from then onward
was extremely curious,

because there was this distance,
not just a geographical distance,

but a psychological one,
because they're different worlds.

How could they meet here?

A student of Psychology
inside the University of Săo Paulo

- note the paradox -
working with semi-illiterate individuals.

This is very curious,
and it draws attention.

Then the work was interrupted,

and they'd been no contact
whatsoever between us.

What happened then onward was:

they put a thermos flask
onto a concrete platform,

and I didn't see any mugs around,

nor any type of cup or utensil.

Moises, like any good Northeasterner,
carried a big knife.

He went to the garbage bin
and speared three cans with this knife,

cut them in half and with these cans
they started to serve themselves coffee.

Cans scavenged from a public rubbish tip,
where the cleanest things are cockroaches.

That's how they had their coffee.

I stood there not quite
knowing what to do,

anxiously waiting for them
to carry on and forget about me.

Because I had two problems
with this coffee.

The first is that I don't drink coffee.

The second is having to drink coffee
in those conditions.

Moises remembered me
just when I thought he wouldn't.

He poured the coffee
and handed me the mug,

or rather, a soda can
salvaged from the trash.

He poured the coffee and handed it to me.

The can was so grimy,
if I opened my hand, it wouldn't drop.

They all watched me

to see if the playboy,
the rich young student,

would drink the coffee or not
in those circumstances.

Something told me I should drink
the coffee because, if I didn't,

and I'll take poetic license,
since no one's said a swear word,

but I was basically screwed.
You're screwed.

Or you drink the damn coffee,

or they won't be
any researching here, my friend.

You come to an agreement.

Either you're with us or you're not.

I mean, "Or ya with us or ya ain't."

Understand?

So I drank the coffee.

As I drank it, all my anxiety went away.

Anthropologists usually call this
the rite of passage or entrance test.

Of course, I wasn't wholly accepted
into the group yet,

but it was fraternizing in some ways.

From that moment onward they'd bring me
things salvaged from the dumps,

and show me what their reality was like,
tell jokes, funny stories,

or talk about their nicknames,

or the sexual performance of each one.

After the work had been interrupted
we continued sweeping.

Actually, we didn't continue sweeping,
because I'd hardly pick up the broom

before they'd say,

"See how we're treated?

Do you see these wretched brooms?
Tell them what the brooms are like.

And the coffee? Did you see
the filthy way we're treated here?

The way we drink coffee?

Tell them we're treated in this manner."
And I thought: "Tell who?"

(Laughter)

Tell who?

Nineteen years of age
with no important connections.

I'm not a friend of Aécio Neves,
nor of the President or governor.

Tell this to who?
I'm not from the Sarney family.

What can we do in this damn country
if we're not well connected? Tell me.

How could I imagine that 20 years later
I'd be talking to an audience,

not just here, but also on the Internet.
I hope this reaches other places,

because this doesn't appear to be
a problem only here in Brazil.

The problem of dominating others
happens all over the world.

In fact, there are nations ruling over
other nations and this isn't anything new.

What was to come was even more surprising,

because I had to go
through the Psychology college

with a red uniform,
not this orange one.

And I thought, "I play soccer, ping-pong,
I know a lot of people, I have classmates.

This will be interesting.

They'll look at me and say,

"What's up? What are you doing
in these clothes?"

I went to the ground floor,
through the library,

the Academic Center, the canteen,
and no one saw me.

When my workmates learned about this

and my expectations, they said,

"Don't be ridiculous. Did you think
they'd notice you in this uniform?"

Do you think we walk around
with this uniform?

Who'll sit next to us on the bus?
Who'll talk to us?

At best we're useful
for giving information."

So I'm here on behalf of these guys,
because I spent 10 years there

sweeping the streets twice a week,

cleaning garbage bins,
picking up dead animals.

And I'd say, after half an hour
working on the first day,

that street cleaning is stupid.

And when I say it's stupid,
it's in respect to these guys,

like Wagner who was cleaning a toilet,
who I was talking to a moment ago.

They're extremely intelligent,
with great creative potential,

and we enslave them.

We don't call this slavery,
we call it wage labor.

A lie.

Wage labor is a worldwide evil.

No human relationship is authentic
from the moment one bosses the other.

I thank Eloah's talk and also
Pamela's for this reason.

From the moment we're implanted
in an asymmetrical situation,

truth doesn't exist.

And if we're far from the truth,
we're also far from our humanity.

This is a very old problem.

This is because we live
in segregated class societies,

something that capitalism didn't invent.

This isn't the invention
of capitalist production.

But capitalism learned
to spread this problem in a perverse way.

We learned that
we should have a profession,

we learned that we should be
leaders, or subordinates,

and that these symbolic places
are immutable.

That's all crap. It's all nonsense.

And despite having studied a lot
in the largest university in the country,

I learned this with Moises, with Nilce.

I learned with people who shared
their bread at the canteen,

who gave me an orange.

It wasn't with a class colleague,
busy studying, or setting up a practice,

or having some little article
published in a scientific journal,

because that's what academic students do.

Nowadays, academics aren't interested
in teaching, or giving back.

They're interested
in publishing articles, books,

appear in the media and whatever else.

This is really lousy.
So what I want to say is:

Geopolitical borders

- something that I think
similarly to Ernesto Guevara -

are illusory.

I speak especially
to our fellow Latin Americans.

I speak especially to our fellow Africans.

What unites us is domination.
We're a dominated people.

If I ask you to give me the name of a city
in the United States, you'll give me 18.

Washington, New York, Miami,
Orlando, and so on.

Tell me, please.
What's the capital of Sudan?

The country responsible
for sending a large portion

of the black population who built Brazil.

We don't even know the name
of the capital of Sudan.

This is called domination.

The only way to overcome domination
is through resistance,

not with bullets or weapons,
because the American bomb,

the Western European bomb,
is bigger than ours.

We need to borrow ideas
from John Lennon and Mahatma Gandhi.

In other words, resistance.

Volkswagen and Fiat,
all the pharmaceutical industries

aren't here for our good. They're not.

Or do you think they're here
for us to drive in comfortable cars?

Obviously not.

They're here to collect taxes
to maintain their yachts.

This supports their health systems,
which we drool over as if they're great.

But their wealth
is the result of our poverty.

This is obvious.

The only way we can combat this mess,
this crap, is through resistance.

This will only happen
if we reclaim our schools

and reclaim our education.

All we do is reproduce models
that are passed down from top to bottom.

I learned at school, for example,

things about the American independence,
the Civil War, or whatever.

What crap is that?

What good is this to me
here in Brazil?

I need to learn the history of our people.
The history of Africa.

I need to hear the losers,
not the winners.

I need to hear what the Indians
have to say about what the pioneers did,

and I'll say in English,
so Laisse won't dirty her mouth:

motherfuckers, right?

They decimated lots of Indians
and are honored in the state of Săo Paulo:

Borba Gato highway, Bandeirantes Palace.

They were the first
big deforesters in Brazil.

They killed loads of people,

and the Catholic Church washed their hands
like in the time of the Holocaust.

If negligence wasn't a form of violence,
failure to rescue wasn't a crime.

Isn't that right?

And what can we do about this?

We need, of course,
to regain control of our land.

We need to nationalize and expulse
those transnational companies.

Either it works our way, or out they go,

because they're here to exploit
our people, to exploit our souls.

We've got life running through our veins,
we've got a body and soul.

We're human beings,
we've got feelings and thoughts,

and we're capable
of changing this reality.

We'll only change this by resistance,

and resistance will come
through an open mind,

through in-depth studies to understand
when William Bonner says on TV:

"Communist China".

Communism, yeah sure.

China isn't communist.
Cuba isn't communist.

The Soviet Union wasn't communist.

If you've read three lines
from Marx you'd know

that communism didn't envisage
someone sitting in power for 50 years.

What they have is state capitalism.

Why doesn't Mr. William Bonner say on TV,
"The capitalist United States?"

When they talk crap
about a country, it's always,

"Communist North Korea."

We need communism,
but we need to study communism.

Communism doesn't mean
three people sharing our bedroom,

sleeping underneath our bed, or whatever.

It means we're all responsible
for producing wealth. Everybody.

Except that this wealth
is taken over by a few.

This is the problem. And it's unfair.

If we don't change our ways of production,

we'll go on creating invisible,
humiliated people.

While we're here thinking
we're going to change the world,

they're out there baking our cheese rolls,
washing the cups that we've dirtied.

This is really shameful.
It's more than shameful.

What good are we here
discussing ideas and revolution

if we continue maintaining
humiliated and invisible people?

That's why I say if the revolution
doesn't start in Latin America,

if it doesn't start in Africa
as a resistance, like Gandhi thought,

we won't achieve anything.

We're the owners of our land.
We're the owners of our territory,

and we're the owners of our workforce.

I also think this way
about any environment,

any work environment.

This isn't only for intellectual things.
It's also for our workforce,

exploited by these industries
that come to make money here.

Or do you think

the money that the rich countries
exhibit comes from where?

They used to steal our precious stones.

Now our treasures
are our minds, our bodies.

I've still got two minutes left,
which I'm very glad about.

I'm not a singer,
but I'll tell you something,

since I'm subversive I'll step out again.

We need to learn to change places.
We need to learn to be subversive,

to think different things.

Otherwise, and I repeat,
while we think we're revolutionizing,

Wagner is cleaning the toilets
that we dirty. This is shameful.

(Rap) A black woman
and a child in her arms,

alone in a jungle of concrete and steel.

See a face in the crowd again,

the crowd is the monster
without a face or heart.

Hey. Săo Paulo, skyscraper land,

the flesh-tearing rain,
it's the Tower of Babel.

Brazilian family, two against the world,

single mother of a promising vagabond.

Lights, camera, action,
let's record the scene.

A bastard? Another dark son without a dad.

Hey. Landowner I know who you are.

Who are you alone?
You can't handle this alone.

You said it was good
and the slums heard you,

they've got whiskey, Red Bull
Nike shoes and rifles.

I admit, your cars are fancy,

and I don't know Internet,
videos cassettes and crazy cars.

Yes, I'm a little backward.

Your game is dirty and I don't fit in,

I'm too much trouble
from carnival to carnival.

I'm from the jungle, a lion.

I'm too much for you,
I've too many school problems.

Believe it or not, your son imitates me.
He's the smartest of you all.

He's got swing and talks slang.
No, not slang, dialect.

He's no longer yours, he's gone.

I entered your radio
and took him. No one saw.

We're this and we're that.
What? Didn't you say?

Your son wants to be black. How ironic.
Sticks a poster of 2Pac. How about that?

Feel the black drama.
Go on, try to be happy.

Hey cool guy, what makes
you think you're so good?

What'd you give? What'd you do?
What'd you do for me?

I got your open sewage
and plywood walls, I didn't die of shame.

I'm good. I'm here, not you.
You won't cross when the Red Sea opens.

I'm a tough guy, from the ghetto.

Brown. Yeah. That crazy guy
who can't mess up,

the one you love and hate right now.

Brown skin, I listen to funk.
Where do diamonds come from?

From the mud. Thank you.

(Applause)