Global Voices
Posted 14 July 2010
Affirmative action, one of the most controversial issues dragging on in the Brazilian congress for most of the first decade of the 21st century, was left out of the Racial Equality Statute passed last June 16th by the senate. The policy, which would implement a mandatory temporary quota system for Afro-Brazilians in universities, jobs and political parties, was rejected together with incentive measures for private companies adopting the system [pt]. According to pro affirmative action groups, the decision to exclude the policy neglects the historical processes leading to the state of socio-racial inequality existent in Brazil today. On the other side of the coin are opponents of affirmative action who speak of reverse discrimination and incitement to racial tensions.
The day before the vote in congress, No Race blog [PT], which presents itself as both anti-racist and against race public policies, published Senator Demóstenes Torres’ justification of his opposition to affirmative action. The Senator, a member of the DEM [PT] (Democrats party) an opposition party to President Lula’s PT, explains that race does not exist and justifies why he removed from the text - but not from the title “Racial Equality Statute” - the terms “race”, “racial” and “ethno-racial”.
Full Blog Post: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/07/14/brazil-afro-brazilian-claims-to-affirmative-action-denied/
Showing posts with label Afro-Brazilians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afro-Brazilians. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Affirmative Action, Brazilian-Style
The Chronicle of Higher Education
October 11, 2009
By Marion Lloyd
Six years after Brazilian universities began embracing affirmative action, higher education in Brazil is no longer the domain of a mostly white elite.
Since 2003 more than 1,300 institutions of higher education have adopted quotas for Afro-Brazilians and graduates of public high schools. The government has also created 10 public universities and dozens of new campuses in poor areas in an effort to expand access to higher education for the underprivileged.
But the debate over the quota system—racial quotas in particular—continues to inflame passions in a country that has long considered itself a racial democracy.
Brazil was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery, in 1888. Today the descendants of slaves officially make up nearly half of the country's 190 million people, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, the government census bureau. Proponents of quotas for Afro-Brazilians argue that only Nigeria has a larger black population. But centuries of racial intermixing, which was initially encouraged by Portuguese colonizers seeking to whiten the population, have made it famously hard to classify Brazilians by race.
Take the case of Alan and Alex Texeira, identical male twins who applied for admission to the federal University of Brasilia in 2007 under the racial quotas. After analyzing photos of the brothers—a required step for accessing the university's quota system—separate "race boards" determined that one was black and one was white.
Opponents of the racial quotas argue that poverty, not race, is the main obstacle to getting a university education in Brazil. The country's more than 130 public universities are free, and competition at most of them, particularly the 55 federal universities, is brutal. Private universities enroll about 80 percent of the 4.5 million students in the higher-education system. But in a nation where per capita income is just $7,350 a year, and the distribution of wealth is among the world's most unequal, most families cannot afford to send their children to private universities.
Full Story: http://chronicle.com/article/Affirmative-Action/48734/
October 11, 2009
By Marion Lloyd
Six years after Brazilian universities began embracing affirmative action, higher education in Brazil is no longer the domain of a mostly white elite.
Since 2003 more than 1,300 institutions of higher education have adopted quotas for Afro-Brazilians and graduates of public high schools. The government has also created 10 public universities and dozens of new campuses in poor areas in an effort to expand access to higher education for the underprivileged.
But the debate over the quota system—racial quotas in particular—continues to inflame passions in a country that has long considered itself a racial democracy.
Brazil was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery, in 1888. Today the descendants of slaves officially make up nearly half of the country's 190 million people, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, the government census bureau. Proponents of quotas for Afro-Brazilians argue that only Nigeria has a larger black population. But centuries of racial intermixing, which was initially encouraged by Portuguese colonizers seeking to whiten the population, have made it famously hard to classify Brazilians by race.
Take the case of Alan and Alex Texeira, identical male twins who applied for admission to the federal University of Brasilia in 2007 under the racial quotas. After analyzing photos of the brothers—a required step for accessing the university's quota system—separate "race boards" determined that one was black and one was white.
Opponents of the racial quotas argue that poverty, not race, is the main obstacle to getting a university education in Brazil. The country's more than 130 public universities are free, and competition at most of them, particularly the 55 federal universities, is brutal. Private universities enroll about 80 percent of the 4.5 million students in the higher-education system. But in a nation where per capita income is just $7,350 a year, and the distribution of wealth is among the world's most unequal, most families cannot afford to send their children to private universities.
Full Story: http://chronicle.com/article/Affirmative-Action/48734/
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