Systemic Racism
Black Lives Matter
In the same week two black men are killed in suspicious police shootings. The deaths of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, spark violent protests. Both incidents are just the latest in a summer that has been fraught with tensions between police and black and activist communities outraged by police killings of black people. The american police seem to be unable or unwilling to de-escalate situations, regularly following trivial ocurrences to a violent outcome, specially when racial profiling is involved.
Baltimore
Published in Diário de Notícias, 3 May, 2015.
SELECTED WINNER for the Communication Arts Illustration Annual 57, Editorial category.
MERIT award at the 3x3 Pro Show, 2016, in the Editorial category.
The death of Freddie Gray, a 25 year-old African-American man that sustained injuries to his neck and spinal cord while on police custody, sparks protests in Baltimore, USA. Police brutality seems to always be disproportionately aimed at the African-American community, often with deadly consequences.
Hunger Strike
Published in Diário de Notícias, 18 Oct, 2015.
In Angola, 15 activists are arrested and illegaly kept in prison on trumped-up charges. One of the detainees, Luaty Beirão, has been for 25 days on hunger strike. He seems willing to do what it takes to show to the world how the Angolan government can be no different than a dictatorship. They may be in prison, but the ideals and struggle of the angolan 15 will not be confined.
Angolan Terrorist
Published in Diário de Notícias, 3 April, 2016.
In Angola 17 activists received sentences of up to 8 years in prison. Their crime? Reading a book on how to prevent and fight dictatorships.
Muhammad Ali
For Ali, words were also a weapon. May he rest in peace.
Published in Diário de Notícias, 5 Jun, 2016.
Ebola
Published in Diário de Notícias, Aug 10, 2014; Bronze Award at the 3x3 Pro Show No 12, 2015; Grand Prize at the World Press Cartoon.
Panic of Infection
Published in Diário de Notícias, Oct 12, 2014.
Xenophobia in South Africa
Published in Diário de Notícias, Apr 19, 2015.
The post-apatheid Rainbow Nation takes a dark turn, when deadly protests fuelled by anti-immigration and xenophobe rhetoric erupt around the country. Several foreign residents are killed, and the UN Refugee Agency estimates that a total of 5,000 people, immigrants from other african nations, are displaced in the current wave of violence. Ironically, the apartheid seems to have left its heritage among the people who have most suffered from it.
Meanwhile, in Sweden
Published in Diário de Notícias, 8 May, 2016.
In Sweden, a woman blocks the path of a right-wing extremist march, with a clenched fist. The image by photographer David Lagerlof turns viral, and despite her wishes to not be made into a symbol, Ms Tess Asplund becomes one of the faces of an Europe that does not want to go back to a time when racism and intolerance were acceptable.