Health Care of Afro-Brazilian Women
Two factors of disparity which consistently contribute to the subordination of Afro-Brazilians are race and gender. Black women have fewer and inferior opportunities compared to whites and Black men in Brazil. Moreover cultural representations of Afro-Brazilian women serve to reinforce negative stereotypes about them and to justify existing structures of inequality. Representations of Black women have been crucial to their domination. Notions about the inferiority of Black women are passed down through the family, media and school. With the help of these ideological apparatuses, racial differences are reinforced and internalized. While my seminar paper explored the multiple oppressions experienced by Afro-Brazilian women, my research in Brazil will focus on whether there is a structure to accommodate for their health needs.
The public health system in Brazil has typically ignored Black women because hospitals were prohibited from asking the race of patients in order to keep in line with the myth of racial democracy. As a consequence almost nothing is known about the health conditions of Black women in Brazil. However, Afro-Brazilian feminists know that in other countries Black and white women have significantly different health profiles, therefore the same must be true in Brazil. At the same time they are ignored in terms of other health matters Afro-Brazilian women have been the targets of mass sterilization campaigns.
Through my investigation I want to reveal the disparities between the health care of Black women and white women. I will show that access to health care is yet another area in which Afro-Brazilian women are at a disadvantage as compared to white women. In order to gather this information I will be conducting several interviews with established service providers as well as community organizations.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
George's Project
The Federal Constitution of 1988 Title II, Article 5, Section XLII makes it a crime to racially discriminate. According to the Penal Code, article 140, paragraph 3ยบ, this crime is considered a crime against a person’s honor and state criminal courts have jurisdiction to hear the case. However, there are several procedural impediments to successfully prosecuting this type of crimes. First, unlike other crimes, the victims of honor crimes do not get to use the state prosecutor and have to hire a private attorney. Private attorneys are expensive and many of the victims of these sorts of crimes are black and poor. Further private attorney tend to not take these cases because the low amount of money received in damages for the victim. In addition, the damages are rewarded in the form of a tort. Consequently, the victim has to go to the civil court to actually receive his or her money. Another potential impediment is that the burden of proof is on the victim, and she or he has to prove that the incident actually occurred. These types of impediments concomitant with other substantial and procedural difficulties justify the selection of the research question posed above.
Nikki's Project: Affirmative Action & Backlash
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Brazil, having only recently implemented race conscious remedies appears to be in a similar position as the United States during the Civil Rights Movement. At the same time, in the United States, race conscious remedies have become anathema to many, and in some states, illegal. Colorblindness has become the word of the day, leaving a stage for racial inclusion work that looks like a page out of Brazil’s past regime of racial democracy. At this historical moment the Unites States and Brazil appear to be at in ironic temporal crossroads, making the comparative study of affirmative action in the two nations informative, and hopefully transformative, for students, lawyers, activists, and progressive minds across disciplines in both.
In my seminar paper, I explored the ways in which both the United States and Brazil have, and are using affirmative action as a mechanism to further anti-subordination goals. One of the things that the United States Civil Rights Movement did not do adequately was to anticipate the backlash and attendant arguments against affirmative action that would eventually materialize to be used to attack these programs and to isolate and alienate its intended beneficiaries. Brazil is already facing backlash against affirmative action policies. White students have already filed their first anti-affirmative action lawsuits, demanding admission and claiming that they have been denied their places in the public universites because of racial quotas. Only two years after implementing a 40% set-aside for Black and Brown students Rio de Janeiro’s public universites, the legislature has already amended the policy. In a move that eerily reflects American colorblindness, the 40% quota for people of African decent has been reduced to 20% for Blacks (as opposed to Blacks and Brown), 20% for students who attended public schools, and 5% for students with disabilites.
I am generally interested access to education and the terms upon which it is denied or granted; lost or garnered by black and brown people in the struggle for racial justice and inclusion as it has played out through affirmative action polices and the related discourse. My field study will focus on the nature and effects of the backlash against affirmative action in higher education, and the ways that the arguments for and against affirmative action framed.
My research questions are:
- What is the nature of the backlash against affirmative action?
- How are the arguments for and against affirmative action framed?
- What, if any, affect does this backlash have on student beneficiaries of affirmative action as they try to navigate their education?
Stay Tuned.....
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Priscilla's Project: The Black Movement in Brazil
As I travel to Brazil with the group of six students affiliated with the Praxis Project, I will explore race consciousness and racial identification in Brazil and its impact on the development of a Black mass movement. As a student of critical race theory, I am most interested in how law shapes racial identities and therefore the ability of oppressed peoples to resist their subordination. I have seen "Eyes on the Prize" more times than I can count, but surely it is not the case that the U.S. Civil Rights movement was launched solely because Rosa Parks "refused to sit in the back of the bus" (actually, Mrs. Parks was already in the back of the bus, but refused to stand up so a white man could take her seat...but I digress...). If social movements do not emerge simply as a result of pervasive injustice or extraordinary acts of courage, what more is needed to motivate subordinated peoples to resist in mass?
The Background
Contemporary social movement theory, largely derived from the experience of U.S. movements, suggests that a collective identity is central to the development of a sustainable mass mobilization of people. In the context of the U.S. civil rights movement, race was central not only as an identity around which movement was organized, it shaped the creation of institutions, the availability of opportunities to disrupt the equilibrium of the state and the building of a collective sense of empowerment among folks who shared the collective identity of Blackness.
In Brazil, Black movement activists have sought to facilitate the development of a collective racial identity which, like the United States, can be used as a mechanism through which a mass movement can be built. Unlike the U.S. civil rights movement, which developed under a regime explicitly steeped in white supremacy, the establishment of a mass base in Brazil is occurring on a societal terrain grounded in the ideology of “racial democracy,” which denied the existence of race as an organizing factor in society and therefore served to undermine the establishment of collective racial identity.
Despite the challenges posed by racial democracy in the development of Black racial consciousness, Black movement activists have succeeded in destabilizing the basic premise of racial democracy. Movement activists have leveraged contemporary scholarship regarding racial inequality in Brazil, linkages to other African diaspora populations and their presence on the international stage to challenge this national ethos. As a result of the efforts of Black movement activists, a new dialogue regarding racial inequality is taking place and affirmative action programs are currently being implemented in various public entities.
The Paper
Contemporary social movement theory, largely derived from the experience of U.S. movements, suggests that a collective identity is central to the development of a sustainable mass mobilization of people. In the context of the U.S. civil rights movement, race was central not only as an identity around which movement was organized, it shaped the creation of institutions, the availability of opportunities to disrupt the equilibrium of the state and the building of a collective sense of empowerment among folks who shared the collective identity of Blackness.
In Brazil, Black movement activists have sought to facilitate the development of a collective racial identity which, like the United States, can be used as a mechanism through which a mass movement can be built. Unlike the U.S. civil rights movement, which developed under a regime explicitly steeped in white supremacy, the establishment of a mass base in Brazil is occurring on a societal terrain grounded in the ideology of “racial democracy,” which denied the existence of race as an organizing factor in society and therefore served to undermine the establishment of collective racial identity.
Despite the challenges posed by racial democracy in the development of Black racial consciousness, Black movement activists have succeeded in destabilizing the basic premise of racial democracy. Movement activists have leveraged contemporary scholarship regarding racial inequality in Brazil, linkages to other African diaspora populations and their presence on the international stage to challenge this national ethos. As a result of the efforts of Black movement activists, a new dialogue regarding racial inequality is taking place and affirmative action programs are currently being implemented in various public entities.
The Paper
In a recent paper for the seminar, I explored the extent to which race consciousness and Black racial identity is a necessary predicate for organizing a mass movement designed to extend the transformative vision of the Black movement. While race-based movements in the U.S. and elsewhere serve as a particular model of mass mobilization, I examined both the existence and efficacy of alternative organizing strategies which center less on a common sense of “racial groupness” and more around common sets of exclusions facing individual members of society.
The Question
While in Brazil, I will continue to explore race consciousness as a basis for mobilization. Through this field study, I will analyze the mobilization strategies and the tactics of collective action currently employed by Black movement activists as well as the applicability of organizing strategies which do not invoke traditional conceptions of racial identity. To the extent that race consciousness is adopted as a mobilization strategy by activists, I will explore the impact of cultural nationalism as a mechanism for racial identity development. In addition, I will interrogate the influence of affirmative action in politicizing race and stimulating racial identification.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
New Legal Developments on Racial Justice in Brazil, Part II
Shell Oil and Racial Discrimination
The institute of Racial and Environmental Advocacy (IARA) and the SINDIPETRO (Union formed by workers of the oil, chemical, and plastic industries) from Alagoas, Seara, entered with a representation against Petrobras and Shell Brasil due to the lack of blacks and Afro descendents employed in these respective companies. The president of IARA, Humberto Adami Santos Junior, was received on the 23rd, by Procurador Chefe (equivalent to Chief District Attorney) of Regional Office of First Region (Rio de Janeiro), Marcio Vieira Alves, and by the Labor D.A.s (procuradoras do trabalho), Juliane Mombelli, Maria Julieta Tepedino de Braganca e Lisyane Chaves Motta. This representation will be distributed to other regional Labor Public Ministry Offices and was distributed to the Federal Public Ministry on the 22nd .
According to the representation, discrimination against blacks and Afro-descendents was observed through the annual social statement of these companies. In the case of Petrobras, out of 53.933 employees, 2.339 are Afro-Brazilians, and out of these 3.10% are in decision-making positions. In the case of Shell, out of 1.657 employees, 34 are blacks and none of them hold decision-making positions. The numbers refer to the year of 2005. Besides the representation, the attorney petitions for the inception of a public civil inquisition [which can give bases to a Public Civil Action] in order to investigate the situation. The petition is also signed by attorney Anderson Bussinger Carvalho, who says:
The first hearing of the public civil inquisition is scheduled to happen this month, March 2007, through the Public Ministry of Labor.
The institute of Racial and Environmental Advocacy (IARA) and the SINDIPETRO (Union formed by workers of the oil, chemical, and plastic industries) from Alagoas, Seara, entered with a representation against Petrobras and Shell Brasil due to the lack of blacks and Afro descendents employed in these respective companies. The president of IARA, Humberto Adami Santos Junior, was received on the 23rd, by Procurador Chefe (equivalent to Chief District Attorney) of Regional Office of First Region (Rio de Janeiro), Marcio Vieira Alves, and by the Labor D.A.s (procuradoras do trabalho), Juliane Mombelli, Maria Julieta Tepedino de Braganca e Lisyane Chaves Motta. This representation will be distributed to other regional Labor Public Ministry Offices and was distributed to the Federal Public Ministry on the 22nd .
According to the representation, discrimination against blacks and Afro-descendents was observed through the annual social statement of these companies. In the case of Petrobras, out of 53.933 employees, 2.339 are Afro-Brazilians, and out of these 3.10% are in decision-making positions. In the case of Shell, out of 1.657 employees, 34 are blacks and none of them hold decision-making positions. The numbers refer to the year of 2005. Besides the representation, the attorney petitions for the inception of a public civil inquisition [which can give bases to a Public Civil Action] in order to investigate the situation. The petition is also signed by attorney Anderson Bussinger Carvalho, who says:
“In this country, it is fundamental that major companies, which profit from exploration of our natural resources, become role models for all the other institutions. Through the analysis of the social statements published by Petrobras and Shell Brasil, it is possible to conclude that, although the first [Petrobras] has supported projects in favor of promoting racial equality, both of them have the same anomaly happening internally, which is a contradiction to the in-favor-of-racial equality- programs and discourse that have been massively published.
The first hearing of the public civil inquisition is scheduled to happen this month, March 2007, through the Public Ministry of Labor.
New Legal Developments on Racial Justice in Brazil, Part I
Translation:
American Flight Attendants Will Answer For Racial Prejudice
Published on December 28th , 2006 at 10:31 am
Brazilian STJ (Superior Tribunal of Justice)
Two male flight attendants from American Airlines will answer for crime of racial prejudice in response to the offense committed against a Brazilian passenger. The decision is from the fifth panel of the Brazilian Superior Court (STJ), which denied review of habeas corpus to the North-Americans, Shaw Tiptonlic and Scott Mathew Goncalves, employees of American Airlines.
In accordance with the written information offered by the Public Ministry, Nelson Marcio Nirenberg, Brazilian, argued with both of flight attendants during the flight between NYC and Rio de Janeiro. Following the argument, the AA employee, Shaw, would have offended the Brazilian passenger saying: “Tomorrow, I will wake up young, beautiful, proud, rich, and being a powerful American, and you will wake up as a naughty, indecent, repulsive, bastard, and miserable Brazilian.” In accordance with the written information, the flight attendant, Mathew, would have helped in this act, due to acts of incentive and cooperation in the alleged racism offense.
The employees of AA were accused of racism practice, crime established by art. 20 of Law Cao, L. n. 7.716/89. The information was offered by the Public Ministry and was accepted by the Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro. The flight attendants filed a writ of Habeas Corpus in the Regional Tribunal of the 2nd region, which denied the review.
In the writ directed to the STJ (Superior Tribunal of Justice), the defendants contested the continuance of the proceeding arguing that the crime of racial prejudice did not occur, but rather a honor crime of injury. In this case, the crime would be of private action, and the Public Ministry would lack criminal jurisdiction and standing to enter with the criminal proceeding. The main argument of the defense is that the action of the flight attendants was offensive only towards the passenger and not towards the Brazilian people. The defense attorneys also contested the accusation against Matthew, since he did not commit the act himself.
Minister Felix Fischer, from the STJ, delivered the opinion of the Court reasoning that the intention of the accused, prima facie, was not to disrespect the passenger but to highlight his inferior condition because he is a Brazilian. The idea, therefore, is to highlight the perceived superiority of the American people in contrast to the alleged inferior position of Brazilians. This posture, in the Minister’s opinion, is against the Brazilian collectivity, and, consequently, covered by art. 20 of Law 7.716/89. The accusation was based on many depositions from several witnesses, who were present. The Court concluded that all the elements necessary for the inception of a public criminal proceeding are present, being inadequate the suspension of the proceeding because of lack of standing. The Court denies the review of the writ of Habeas.
American Flight Attendants Will Answer For Racial Prejudice
Published on December 28th , 2006 at 10:31 am
Brazilian STJ (Superior Tribunal of Justice)
Two male flight attendants from American Airlines will answer for crime of racial prejudice in response to the offense committed against a Brazilian passenger. The decision is from the fifth panel of the Brazilian Superior Court (STJ), which denied review of habeas corpus to the North-Americans, Shaw Tiptonlic and Scott Mathew Goncalves, employees of American Airlines.
In accordance with the written information offered by the Public Ministry, Nelson Marcio Nirenberg, Brazilian, argued with both of flight attendants during the flight between NYC and Rio de Janeiro. Following the argument, the AA employee, Shaw, would have offended the Brazilian passenger saying: “Tomorrow, I will wake up young, beautiful, proud, rich, and being a powerful American, and you will wake up as a naughty, indecent, repulsive, bastard, and miserable Brazilian.” In accordance with the written information, the flight attendant, Mathew, would have helped in this act, due to acts of incentive and cooperation in the alleged racism offense.
The employees of AA were accused of racism practice, crime established by art. 20 of Law Cao, L. n. 7.716/89. The information was offered by the Public Ministry and was accepted by the Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro. The flight attendants filed a writ of Habeas Corpus in the Regional Tribunal of the 2nd region, which denied the review.
In the writ directed to the STJ (Superior Tribunal of Justice), the defendants contested the continuance of the proceeding arguing that the crime of racial prejudice did not occur, but rather a honor crime of injury. In this case, the crime would be of private action, and the Public Ministry would lack criminal jurisdiction and standing to enter with the criminal proceeding. The main argument of the defense is that the action of the flight attendants was offensive only towards the passenger and not towards the Brazilian people. The defense attorneys also contested the accusation against Matthew, since he did not commit the act himself.
Minister Felix Fischer, from the STJ, delivered the opinion of the Court reasoning that the intention of the accused, prima facie, was not to disrespect the passenger but to highlight his inferior condition because he is a Brazilian. The idea, therefore, is to highlight the perceived superiority of the American people in contrast to the alleged inferior position of Brazilians. This posture, in the Minister’s opinion, is against the Brazilian collectivity, and, consequently, covered by art. 20 of Law 7.716/89. The accusation was based on many depositions from several witnesses, who were present. The Court concluded that all the elements necessary for the inception of a public criminal proceeding are present, being inadequate the suspension of the proceeding because of lack of standing. The Court denies the review of the writ of Habeas.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
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