An independent, ad-free leftist magazine of critical essays, poetry, fiction, and art.

Cale-se*

In the song Cálice, infamously censored by the U.S.-backed Brazilian military dictatorship, Chico Buarque and Milton Nascimento express the need to launch an inhuman scream because it is the only way to be heard

This is, of course, roughly translated. Translated roughly, of course, like human beings across ocean and desert, landing where

searching for life becomes criminal alien
ravaging lives turns into removal proceedings
children in cages shift to minor detainees
concentration camps metamorphose to detention centers,

all blending together, blending with thousands of other translations that maintain this stolen land, blending into our daily lives, blending into your mind, ultimately begging a single question:

 Are 11 million screams enough? 

 

*Shut up

 


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