Ever since Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, the country has seen itself as a racial democracy. Unlike in the U.S., there were never anti-miscegenation laws keeping blacks from marrying whites nor did schools and public transportation ever segregate the races. So when the question of affirmative action entered into public debate in the early 2000s due to Rio de Janeiro’s adoption of statewide quotas, many Brazilians wanted to leave race out of the conversation. Race creates racism, the reasoning went. Brazil’s idea of diversity was “one lively and integrating process of humanity”–assimilation, in other words. This stands in stark contrast to the current U.S. ideology of nourishing, celebrating, and preserving differences. Basing college admissions on race would destroy the paradisiacal homogeneity children grew up accepting as fact.
The opposing camp argued that racial inequalities exist and need to be addressed. Outside of Nigeria, Brazil has the largest population of African descendants in the world. The number of non-whites finally surpassed that of whites in the 2010 census. To look at an average college campus, though, you wouldn’t know it. An underwhelming two to three percent of the students at the country’s public universities are black. Of course, complicating the issue is the fact that one speaks not of race but of “tipo” in Brazil, and it’s determined by appearance, not ancestry.
After a decade of deliberation, the federal government established a stance in favor of affirmative action this month. A Senate-approved bill, which is expected to be signed into law by President Dilma Rousseff, guarantees public high school graduates 50% of the seats in public universities. Additionally, it sets up quotas to be filled by black, indigenous, and mixed-race students, in the proportion they are represented in each state. It remains to be seen whether the future of Brazil will lie in ever more diverse hands or less.
For more background on the Brazilian concept of race, click here.
Creative Commons Love: Axel Bührmann on Flickr.com
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