More than half of Brazil’s population is Black or mixed race. But only a very small percentage of university students in Brazil are Black.
Brazlian President Dilma Rouseff recently signed legislation requiring federal universities to reserve half their places for graduates of public high schools and to give priority to minority applicants. The reserved seats for public school students will be distributed between Black, mixed race, and indigenous students in proportion to their share of the population in the state in which the federal university is located.
There are 59 federal universities in Brazil. More than 30 of these universities have already instituted some sort of quota system to benefit minority applicants. Now all will be required to do so.
Brazil was major destination of the Atlantic slave trade. Brazil is closer to the African continent and a much shorter run for the European slavers.
Brazil had the largest Black African slave population in the world which was substantially larger than the United States of America.
Brazil finally abolished slavery in 1888 with the Golden Law but bondage for many Black Africans continued for years.
Brazil has always had a hierarchical racial/color caste system which is still pervasive in all its institutions.
Brazil purports to be a unique multi harmonious racial democracy but it is far from being that.
Structural systemic racism is widespread in all its institutions and individual racism is also prevalent.
If you are lighter or whiter relative to skin tone in Brazil you will be able to navigate more effectively through a malaise of structural barriers which is inherent in its color caste system.
The lighter the skin tone in Brazil the better!
Even some people who have Ebony skin tones with kinky hair list the white race as their race.
For many Afro-Brazilians, the lighter the skin tone the better as they spend mucho dollars straightening their hair along with the use of bleaching creams.
There are some Afro-Brazilians who are proud of their Blackness and their rich African as well as Brazilian history. But for the most part the Afro-Brazilians like the African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, were taught/indoctrinated/brainwashed to hate their Blackness and everything connected to the Motherland of Africa.
Most so-called White Brazilians of Portuguese ancestry have a Sub-Saharan African geno trait.
Although DNA testing is incomplete most of the white descendants of the Portuguese slavers have Black African blood in their veins.
There were hundreds of slave revolts and rebellions in Brazil and slavery in Brazil was horribly brutal and wicked.
On many occasions indigenous tribes and Black Africans fought the brutal Portuguese in the interior and on the coast.
Some scholars believe that Black African slavery saved the indigenous tribes from complete genocide.
Black African culture is present everywhere in Brazil which is reflective in the tribal religions, music, song, dance, food, and the arts.
Brazil only gave up its colonial possession in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau after they were soundly defeated on the battlefield by the combined forces of African Freedom Fighters and Cubans.
All of Brazil’s and Portugal’s warped racist Manifest Destiny history cannot be swept under the rug as it relates to people of color in Brazil or on the continent of Africa.
Brazil will be attempting to put its best face forward for the world to see as its starts it PR campaign as a build up to the 2016 Olympics which includes the adopting of racial quotas in many of its Federal institutions of higher learning.
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have some of the worst slums anywhere in the world and many of Black African and mixed race descendants of slaves live in these wretched shacks called homes.
I suspect that the Brazilian government will demolish these these slums in Rio and Sao Paulo and hopefully they will provide the misplaced residents with beautiful homes and gardens.
@Saunders…well stated. Brazil is Overdue! Considering Brazil was the last country to end slavery their inequity in education comes as no surprise. It has persisted for too long and this decision is well overdue.
Whats new? If you go into any office complex where major businesses are located in Brazil, they are populated by white to light complexioned people. Darker skinned people are cleaners in those buildings, work in the cafeteria etc.,It is more than obvious that darker skinned people through out Brazilian society, are not being educated in places of higher education. Hence their lack of people in middle class employment.
Tj Saunders: Black African slavery in Brazil was very deep seeded and even after the passage of the Golden Law which outlawed slavery in Brazil, the Brazilian government subsidized Europeans who had limited job skills to immigrate to the country for the lower end jobs to keep the newly freed slaves at an economic disadvantage that exist even to the present time.
The subsidization of European immigration was also done to increase the white population in Brazil which after many centuries of forced and voluntary miscegenation had a very high Black African and mixed race population.
The pathologies of Brazil’s slavery can be seen today in Blacks having the highest rates of poverty (70%)of the total, the highest rates of unemployment, poor health care, poor housing, inadequate and inferior schools, lower on the totem pole jobs, highest rates of juvenile delinquency, sky high crime rates, residential segregation and blatant employment discrimination.
Sound familiar!
Wherein Blacks in Brazil where not able to mobilize like in the US with its on-going Civil Rights Movement because they had very harsh brutal dictatorial regimes that repressed any talk of racial justice on any level.
The Black Liberation struggle in Brazil has finally emerged with the Black Civil Rights Movement to demand equality of treatment/opportunities in all its institutions along with reciprocity on a whole host of issues which are very similar to and germane to what Afro-Americans, Afro-Canadians fought for and died for in the modern day era in their respective countries.
There are Black Brazilians who have dedicated their lives to the improvement of other Black Brazilians who receive very little attention for their efforts from the sponsored media in Brazil.
The 2016 Olympics should reinvigorate the people involved in the Brazilian Civil Rights Movement to increase the pressure on the institutions that have treated them like third class strangers in a land that their ancestors built.