with Jacqueline Moraes Teixeira (PhD in Anthropology, USP), Fabiane Medina (PhD student in Political Science, Unicamp) and Talita Lazarin Dal Bo (PhD in Anthropology, USP). COPAF Mediation (PPGAS/USP).
Wednesday, November 4, 2020, 18h
Racism crosses the most different areas of life. In April, the pandemic of the new coronavirus showed one of the most harmful faces of Brazilian ethnic-racial inequality: blacks and browns are, respectively, 62% and 23% more likely to die of covid-19 than whites in the city of São Paulo (https://bit.ly/3ek5inW). Indigenous peoples also suffer from this inequality: their mortality rate per one million inhabitants reaches 855, against 510 on average in Brazil (https://bit.ly/3cfEh22).
Alongside these alarming data on public health, there are also appalling data on ethnic-racial inequalities in education, mainly academic, the theme of the first table of this sixth-month cycle, held in partnership with COPAF - Permanent Commission for Affirmative Action of PPGAS/USP. Largely due to affirmative action policies for admission to public universities in 2018, the blacks became the majority of the students who make up the public university -- although still underrepresented --, and the number of indigenous entrants became nine times higher (https://bit.ly/2PJCbA9).
Also due to affirmative action policies, the entry of blacks and indigenous peoples into graduate programs has also increased in recent years. However, attempts to backtrack -- such as the recent repeal, reversed shortly thereafter, of the MEC ordinance that stipulates affirmative actions for blacks, indigenous people and people with disabilities in graduate studies (https://bit.ly/38kLnkT). The current context of advances and challenges makes urgent and necessary the discussion and defense of affirmative action policies, in addition to the creation of new mechanisms of student permanence. This Friday of the Month aims to take a look at ethnic-racial inequalities in the academy, especially those suffered by blacks and indigenous peoples, and will discuss some specific experiences of affirmative action policies and academic production generated from other epistemologies.
Link available here.