The battle over Affirmative Action in Brazil

Black students only make up 33% of the student population in Brazil’s private schools and this percentage drops to only 30% in high school. Recent data also showed that white students in private schools score on average 21% higher on standardized tests than black students from the public school network. Considering these figures we can begin to understand how social inequalities in Brazil are so unequal in terms of race. Due to these inequalities, in the late 1980s, activists such as Abdias do Nascimento and social scientist Florestan Fernandes began to suggest that Affirmative Action policies would be one way to even up some of the country’s social inequalities.

In 2004, after five years of debates, the Universidade de Brasília became the first federal university in Brazil to implement the system of quotas. In the first subsequent entrance exam, the quota system was responsible 18.6% of the candidates. 20% of the total vacancies were to be given to beneficiaries in every course offered in the university. As of April of this year, 25 of the country’s 59 federal universities offered some sort of racial quota system for the black, brown and Indian population.

As the issue of quotas based on race or color are so controversial, exactly what are some of the main ?arguments of those who are against Affirmative Action policies?

Below are just a few of main arguments.

1. It would lower the quality of education in the country because it allows students who receive lower scores on the vestibular test (college entrance exam) to enter universities.

2. It is a form of reverse discrimination that goes against Martin Luther King’s ideal of judging one not by the color of skin but by content of character

3. A child of a rich black family should not qualify for quotas

4. Quotas will racialize a Brazil that sees itself as one people

5. Due to centuries of racial mixing, it is not possible to determine who is black.

So that readers can get a clear understanding of some of twists and turns involved in the Brazilian way of implementing quotas, let’s take a look at a few examples that consider a few of the above arguments.

In 2003, of the 1,969 black students that were approved in the entrance exam test, 83% entered the State University of Rio de Janeiro through the quota system. One of them was the Afro-Brazilian actress Juliana Alves, who, with a score of 54 points was approved while a white student, Nino Donato Oliv, who scored 81 points, was denied. In Oliv’s view, the quota system “doesn’t resolve nothing. It only gives privilege to some persons in detriment of the right of other. The law goes against the Constitution.”

Another controversial facet of the quota system was that students who wanted to enter a university under the quota system had to deny themselves as either black or brown. Besides, they would also need to submit a photo to be judged as to whether they were really black or brown or in fact a dishonest white student trying to “pass”. In 2007, identical twins Alan and Alex Teixeira da Cunha both attempted to enter the University of Brasília under the quota system. The twins were the children of an interracial marriage, their father black and their mother white. Alan, who wanted to study Physical Education, was judged to be black and approved, while his identical twin brother Alex, who wanted to study Nutrition, was denied. Needless to say, the press jumped all over this incident as proof that quotas based on race were unfair and inapplicable in a country like Brazil.

In the 19th century, when Europeans started to colonize the black continent, they found jusitifications for imposing in the colonized people its laws and ways of living. One of these justifications was the erroneous idea that blacks were an inferior “race” and they went on to apply discrimination with a basis in race in its colnies to secure determined “rights” to the European settlers and colonizers.

Even after May 13, 1888, when slavery was abolished, the idea of superior race amongst whites continued, being that blacks were excluded from the job market and were obliged to live in favelas (shantytowns). Also because of this reason, black people are found in every type of the most degrading work, living in the worst houses, eating low quality food, with no means of going to college, no health care, no respect surviving with meager social programs and the like. 

Because of this idea implemented in the past by whites that blacks were an inferior race, today’s result is:

1. Among the inhabitants of favelas (shantytowns) of the country, the majority are black
2. Among the victims of police violence, the overwhelming majority are poor, black youth
3. In this picture, it’s not difficult to perceive that the poor youth of the majority black periphery (outskirts, favelas) are preferential victims of the allurement to crime that leads to death or jail
4. Unemployment is the greatest and most irreversible amongst blacks
5. When employed, blacks receive smaller salaries than non-blacks
6. Among women, that are already discriminated against in the job market in relation to men, the smallest salaries are earned by black women
7. Among university students, blacks are a small minority