Writer, trainer, activist, creator of online content and mother of Africa Uri and Enoâ, aged 15 and 13. Collaborates in press and radio, publishes 'Minorías' (Plan B) and 'Color carn' (Penguin Kids), illustrated by Lydia Mba, a story to explain racism to children



Afrofeminism is concerned with the issues that affect the lives of black women and femininities. When women's rights movements emerge, black women also begin to theorize how they are made invisible by hegemonic feminism and, at the same time, are made invisible within anti-racist movements.


When they were little, what did your daughters ask you about racism?


— The scoundrel does not speak in terms of racism. When children are young, they don't know what racism is, although it is true that they reproduce comments they hear from adults. My daughters, from a very young age, have been aware of their Afro-descendant identity. It caught my attention that the eldest daughter, when she was about three years old, once, while asking a waiter for dessert, commented to him: I want a chocolate cake because I'm black. It is very common to make this relationship of black people with chocolate.



Young children are curious about racial differences.


— I remember one time in the park, when the eldest was about four years old and she met a Chinese girl. They both looked at each other and my daughter asked him: what's wrong with your eyes? And the Chinese girl, who was a little older, answered him: what's wrong with your skin? That made me think of this lie that adults make up when they say "I don't see colors".



We all, adults and children, see the differences in skin.


— The scoundrel identifies racial traits and, therefore, this identification should be used to be able to start a conversation about diversity and the value of difference, to raise the conversation as they grow and be able, with time, to talk of racism, anti-racism and social justice. When my daughters have questions or comments, I always answer them. I do it based on their age. When they were younger, we talked about respect for diversity and valued it. Now that they are teenagers, we talk about racism and privilege.




In a statement of principles that you have on your blog – www.desireebela.com –, you say that you are convinced that love, kindness and compassion are revolutionary.


— Being a mother is the ultimate expression of this declaration of principles. And yet I do not believe in motherhood from the point of view of the self-sacrificing mother who sacrifices herself for her children. Communicating from love, kindness, and compassion to my daughters helps me connect with them, especially now that they are teenagers and I feel that adolescence is such a demonized stage. And, with respect to myself, being compassionate with myself makes me aware that motherhood is a never-ending learning process and that I will make mistakes many times, but that mistakes are also learned from. With them I try to make love, and humor, the engine of the way we communicate.




In the book Minorías you interview women in situations of discrimination. Is there a story that particularly moved you?


— I think a lot about Gisela and how being a woman with chronic illnesses limits her relationship with her children and daughter. When you have to spend a lot of time in bed and you have a small child who needs you often and you have to make him understand that "mommy is tired". It is very hard not to have the mental or physical energy to be more present. Despite the many inconveniences, she feels that motherhood is one of the best things that has happened to her.




What ancestral ways of doing things have served you when it comes to being a mother?


This statement creates a contradiction for me because I don't often talk about my connection to my African roots. But one issue that I have worked on a lot with my daughters, and that my mother did with me as a child, is hair care time. A few days ago, while I was doing my youngest daughter's hair, she told me that she didn't see this at her friends' houses, who are white. He didn't see these moments of combing, which can be hours, in the relationship of his friends with their mothers. Because, indeed, the question of combing the hair is something that between black mothers and daughters is very important.