Race and the Law in Brazil

The following social inclusion policies are currently under consideration by the Brazilian Congress. For more information, please visit http://www2.camara.gov.br/proposicoes.

• REQ 190/2007 – Requests a solemn section in celebration of the international day against discrimination (03/21/2007).

• PL-6264/2005 – Institutes the Statute for Racial Equality, which determines criteria and framework to combat racial discrimination against Afro-Brazilians. Awaits final vote. Status: Under urgency.

• PL 6214/2005 (Called “Lei de Quotas”)–Mandates that 20% (minimum) of seats in state and federal universities be reserved for Afro-Brazilians and Indians. (Annexed to PL 6264, Statute of Racial Equality; other annexed bills refer to employment quotas, private and public).
  

• PL 6418/2005 – Repeals criminal law 7.716/1989. Defines crimes based on race, color, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. Includes the crime of discrimination in the job market, prejudicial injury, racism apology, etc.; makes crimes of discrimination non-bailable and not subject to time limitations. Status: Awaits for advisory opinion

Brazil, Inequality and the Myth of Racial Democracy

For more information on race, racism and inequality in Brazil, listen to commentary by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw on the Tavis Smiley Show.

The Project: An Introduction

The Global Affirmative Action Praxis Project (“Praxis Project” or “GAAPP”), in collaboration with the African American Policy Forum, is an initiative which will connect students enrolled or affiliated with the critical race studies program at UCLA School of Law (“UCLAW”) with activists and other policymakers promoting race conscious social inclusion policies in Brazil. The Praxis Project is informed by the increasing importance of transnational conversation and collaboration regarding racial inequality and the power that comparative legal analysis can have on our ability to imagine both the possibilities and limitations of anti-discrimination remedies in both countries.

Brazil is an important site for comparative exploration within this transnational conversation for a number of reasons. First, as a result of evolving conceptions of race, the U.S. and Brazil—once thought to be at opposite extremes--have come to resemble each other in critical respects. Sociologist Howard Winant suggests that “each country is experiencing a deepening awareness of the complexity and permanence of racial difference.” In the U.S., race is becoming “more complicated and nuanced,” as evidenced by its decreasing salience in popular discourse regarding inequality. Meanwhile in Brazil, race is becoming “more politicized,” where just a decade ago the language of race was absent an explanatory force for social stratification.

Second, despite the convergent nature of race in the U.S. and Brazil, social inclusion discourse has evolved in a disparate fashion. In the U.S., the deep resistance to race conscious remedies has resulted in the passage of anti-affirmative action initiatives such as Proposition 209 and a series of cases challenging the constitutionality of targeted social inclusion policies. Unlike the U.S., Brazil is actively pursing a program of racial inclusion and is struggling with the meaning of integration and full citizenship.

The Praxis Project and the Brazil field study will further ongoing efforts at inter-disciplinary and international dialogue to promote social inclusion and equality. Most importantly, the Praxis Project will highlight the unique lens that can be brought to bear by a critical race theory analysis of inequality and discrimination in a space where new ground is being broken regarding racial discourse. Similarly, as a result of the Project, we will learn new approaches to expand the space in which race can be marshalled to address the contemporary problems of discrimination in the U.S.