According to a report from The New York Times, some NFL players said they did not want to go to Brazil for the Philadelphia Eagles game against the Green Bay Packers, held at Arena Corinthians in São Paulo last Friday (6). The reason? Violence in Brazil.
The Philadelphia Eagles player, Darius Slay, in his podcast the week before the game, said: “We’ve been told not to leave the hotel,” he continued. “The crime rate is crazy. You know what I’m saying? I’m like, NFL, why do you want to send us somewhere with such a high crime rate?
Slay was not the only concerned player. AJ Brown, from the same team, told reporters he planned to stay in his hotel room after the team’s directors gave the players a long list of what “not to do” in Brazil. The list included something “as simple as walking down the street with your phone in hand.”
But what they forgot to tell them, reported the NYT, is that in the city where they play, Philadelphia, there are more murders than in São Paulo.
According to the NYT, last year, São Paulo recorded 4.2 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the lowest rates in Brazil. In Philadelphia, the homicide rate was six times higher, at 26.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, which even surpassed the national homicide rate of 23.1 in Brazil. The rates are from the Homicide Monitor, a database of government statistics from the Igarapé Institute, a research institute studying security.
And the NYT report also notes that it’s not just Philadelphia. Most cities with NFL teams had higher homicide rates than São Paulo, including: New Orleans, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Washington, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Buffalo, Houston, Nashville, and Jacksonville.
Even New York, one of the safest major cities in the United States, had a per capita homicide rate slightly higher than São Paulo, according to the article.
Tanner McKee, one of the Eagles players who spent two years in Brazil as a missionary, made a statement that clarifies the controversy: “We’re in a country where many of them haven’t been, don’t speak the language, and know nothing about Brazil.”
That’s it. People who don’t know Brazil have a wrong perception of the country. Is Brazil violent? No doubt! Does it have much higher violence rates than several other countries? Of course! But the largest country in Latin America is not the jungle that many imagine.
The NYT in its article highlighted a fact that explains the erroneous perception of people:
“Crime comes in different forms, and Brazilian cities have a notorious problem with phone theft. Young people from poorer neighborhoods often travel to wealthier areas to steal phones from people’s hands or pockets. Last year, there were 1,782 thefts of this type for every 100,000 inhabitants in São Paulo.”
“Philadelphia and other U.S. cities do not release specific data on phone thefts, but the numbers are likely much lower. Philadelphia, for example, had 367 thefts or burglaries of any kind reported per 100,000 people last year.”
The newspaper highlights that these thefts in Brazil fuel the perception that crime, in general, is worse than it is, even among Brazilians themselves. And it leaves the impression that Brazil is a dangerous place to visit.
Source: The New York Times