Meeting with Claudete Alves

Today we visited Claudete Alves, the only black woman member of Sao Paulo’s city council. The fact that she is the only black female councilwoman is remarkable given that the city of Sao Paulo is 33% Afro-Brazilian, and that Brazil is 45% Afro-Brazilian. Unlike many of the other politicians in Sao Paulo, she was raised in the favelas (slums). She recounted that her mom worked several jobs to send her to a private boarding school, and that she was the only Afro-Brazilian student in this school. The teachers discriminated against her because she was black, and punished her more severely than her classmates, burning her with a branding iron if she overslept (she took off her watch and showed us her scars). It was the injustice she experienced in school, she says, that instilled in her the desire to combat racism and sexism.

Thus far, she has introduced 79 bills, 4 of which have become laws. All the laws aim to help Sao Paulo’s Afro-Brazilians population. She has improved public school teacher training (where almost all Afro-Brazilian students study), established November 20 to honor Zumbi dos Palmares and celebrate Sao Paulo’s Afro-Brazilian heritage, created the Municipal Program to combat racism and promote affirmative action in Sao Paulo City Hall, and renamed the day care center after an Afro-Brazilian woman. She says that it is difficult to pass laws that combat racism because the other council members are eager to uphold the myth of racial democracy and deny that racism exists.

Our meeting with Claudete Alves reaffirmed the how important it is to have minority voices in public office. Due to her own experiences with racism and sexism, she spoke passionately about these topics and has become an agent for change. Furthermore, she serves as a role model for other women of color (such as myself) and affirms that a high-powered career is both possible and desirable.