NIREMA Conference at PUC-Rio

NIREMA Conference at PUC-Rio

Upon arrival to PUC-Rio, I realized that I was stepping onto my second college abroad. The first was in the Caribbean, and it didn’t appear as developed. However, on arrival to PUC-RIO, the campus was unlike very developed. As we walked on the campus, I noticed that I did not see very many people that looked like Afro-Brazilians. I along with my classmates decided that we should do our own informal study of Afro-Brazilans at PUC-Rio, by counting the number of Afro-Brazilians we see in an hour. At the conclusion of the hour, we noticed about 5 Afro-Brazilians, with 3 of them workers which is similar to UCLA, in which most people of color, in particular people of African descent are workers not students.
The conference that we attended was titled “Seminario de apresentacao de pesquisa de discriminaco racial no Brasil pesquisas e debates”. The first panel, an professor of African descent presented a research project that was focused on the framing of racial discrimination in Brazilian newspapers. The professor and her students collected newspaper articles to investigate discrimination incidents in the newspapers of Rio de Janiero. After they collected stores they would review the story for the people involved and would use this information to discover if the incidents were litigated. If they were litigated, they would track the results.
The rationale for the project was to inform to find out the way in which media would discuss racialized acts of discrimination and the way it is litigated in court. When she told us that, I initially thought of constitutional stories, a book that provides contextual information that provides information to better understand a case that is being litigated. Another reason for this project is to find out if these cases were litigated, and if they were litigated were they litigated as racial discrimination case. This project is important because in the last 20 years, there has been an increase interest in the truth about racial discrimination. was not followed up again.
This project revealed that 88% of the incidents where in the city and that the highest concentration of incidents were located in the central and north districts of Rio de Janiero. The data also revealed that men and woman are discriminated differently. Male were more likely to be discriminated in the public sphere 43% compared to woman 39%. Woman were more likely to discriminated in the private sphere than men. This asymmetrical experience of racial discrimination is reflects occupational difference between men and woman. In Rio de Janiero, men were likely to be discriminated in the bank, and the streets compared to women in schools, and homes. This showcases the gendered roles of occupation in Rio.
An interesting fact about this project is that majority of cases involved police or security forces. This notion of security and police being involved in the most racial incidents appear to depict that the police are patrolling the color lines and acknowledges race even if Brazilans claim that racial distinction do not exist. When she presented this data about people involved in the racial incident , the project labeled offender and perpetrator, which was intriguing because I thought this was interesting way to describe racial discrimination. It appears that the framing of the problem is the platform for an intent doctrine to fight racial discrimination. This appeared to be very problematic because if one was to use the US example of intent doctrine to fight discrimination, it will illustrate the ineffectiveness of intent doctrine to fight discrimination.
The most intriguing part of the panel was the peer response to the project. The first response was given by Anton Segio of the University of Sao Paulo. His initially response was that he was glad to have a conference such as this in Brazil because this does not occur often. The major takeaway point from his comments is that this project is essential to have a better understanding of race, racism and the way in which these matters are handled. He highlights that newspapers and the case that is litigated are starkly different, and any many cases racial discrimination may not adjudicated . Thus this project allows for people to understand the nuances of racism in Brazil, and the manner in which courts are effective and ineffective spaces to eliminate racial discrimination.