"Who wants/can be black in Brazil?". The question, launched at the opening by Doctor Professor Rodrigo Ednilson of Jesus, did not remain in the air as a mere provocation. Over two intense days (August 11th and 12th), it gained body, history and context, leading magistrates and civil servers of the Judiciary of the state of Tocantins through a path that passes through the slave past, crosses the post-abolition and reaches the contemporary practices of affirmative action and racial hetero identification.
The training, with a workload of 20 hours-class, promoted by the Superior School of the Judges of the State of Tocantins (Esmat), addressed positive discrimination and the need for hetero identification commissions, provided in public policies such as quotas.
Coordinated by Judge Arióstenis Guimarães Vieira, the course integrates the training programming aimed at magistrates and civil servers, based on the Resolution 541 of the National Council of Justice (CNJ), 2023, which establishes guidelines for the performance of commissions in public tenders.
In the opening, Judge Arióstenis highlighted that the initiative was born from a request of the commission itself and that the participation of magistrates is fundamental to strengthen the effectiveness of affirmative actions.
HISTORY THAT EXPLAINS THE PRESENT
On the first day, Professor Rodrigo chose to start from scratch: the historical construction of racism in Brazil. An essential overview to understand the racial inequalities in the country. He recalled that Brazil was the largest destination of Africans enslaved during the transatlantic trade, about 4.9 million people between 1550 and 1860, corresponding to 40% of the entire African diaspora.
Brazil was also the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery on May 13th, 1888, after more than 300 years of exploitation. During this period, enslaved people faced strenuous working hours, legalized physical punishment and life expectancy that rarely exceeded 30 years.
According to the professor, "before affirmative action, there were negative actions directed at the black population," such as the prohibition of literacy for enslaved people (Law of 1850) and the exclusion of access to land. After the abolition, the absence of reparation policies, combined with criminalization measures - such as the Vagrancy Law of 1933 -, maintained and strengthened the racial hierarchy inherited from the slavery period.
REPRESENTATIONS, NARRATIVES AND SILENCES
Doctor in Education, by the Federal University of the state of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Rodrigo spoke about collective social representations, remembering that the way we look at and name the other helps to create - and sustain - the idea of this another.
“Silence is also a grammar, a narrative that builds certain realities; the Brazilian language itself is built on racialization," he said.
The professor instigated the students to think about quotas beyond common sense, alerting to the contradictions and disputes present in any social myth and to the influence of the historical and geographical context on the perception of who is black in Brazil.
THE ROLE OF the HETEROIDENTIFICATION COMMISSIONS
When dealing with the practice of commissions, the professor pointed out that the function is not to combat fraud, but to ensure that the policy reaches the target group. The evaluation considers how a person is socially recognized as black, not just the existence of ancestry or kinship.
“The bank has no obligation to define the veracity of self-declaration. It is complementary," he explained.
Rodrigo also brought the challenge of dealing with degrees of subjectivity and the importance of clear parameters for fair decisions. Throughout the discussions, it became clear that dealing with subjectivity is part of the process, and that the challenge is to seek inter subjective consensus, avoiding both essentialisms and relativisms.
More information on the course
The training also included a stage of virtual setting. In all, 50 places were made available for magistrates and civil servers of the Judiciary of the state of Tocantins. The programming included historical, social and legal foundations of affirmative actions; concepts of race, racism, branquitude and colorism; technical aspects of phenotypic evaluation; criteria for composition and performance of committees; analysis of concrete cases and jurisprudence; elements of communication and record of decisions.
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