2023-11-10 17:48:00
The scene of children from quilombola communities with Afro hair and bright eyes participating in the narration of the story written by her is a memory that Judge Jaceguara Dantas da Silva will keep for her entire life. “I saw the black kids saying, ‘Hey mom, it looks like it’s me!’ “I thought it was nice.” In the work “Agatha’s Dreams”, the judge of the TJ-MS (Mato Grosso do Sul Court of Justice) challenged herself to find a message of hope to help black girls who today face the racism that she faced in the childhood. There were memories from that period that Jaceguara revisited during the pandemic, while she dealt with the anxiety of being away from her mother. “I wanted to strengthen these children and tell them that they are not alone. We do have paths to travel and we can go wherever we want.”
Born into a humble family in Guajará-Mirim (RO), the daughter of housewife Leonir and Army sergeant Elias moved to Curitiba. It was also her father who gave her racial awareness. At school, she doesn’t remember other black kids. “She was like a weirdo, so much so that the children called each other to show me, because they all had blue eyes or red hair,” she says.
The magistrate’s mother is of indigenous and Portuguese descent, which explains her straight hair. “It makes me sad when someone asks if I straighten my hair, because I would love to have that nice afro,” she enthuses.
In recent years, she came closer to her own indigenous identity through a project in collaboration with the state government carried out by the court’s Women’s Coordination, which she leads. The action seeks to translate the Maria da Penha Law to eight ethnic groups in the territory of Mato Grosso do Sul.
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