City Hall holds seminar on promoting racial equality

Continuing the actions promoted on the occasion of Black November, the City of Rio held, on Tuesday (22/11), the Rio de Janeiro Seminar for the Promotion of Racial Equality, in the Auditorium of the City's General Archives. The event was a partnership between the Executive Coordination for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Cepir), of the Secretariat of Government and Public Integrity (Segovi), and the General Archives of the City of Rio de Janeiro and was part of a series of systematic actions to combat racism and promote citizenship.

The seminar focused on the quota law and legal instruments to mitigate ethnic and racial inequalities and promote the rights of traditional populations of African, black, gypsy, indigenous and quilombola origin. The seminar also presented the main advances and challenges in implementing the policy to promote racial equality in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro and was divided into two panels.

The opening was attended by the coordinator of Promotion of Racial Equality, Ana Patrícia Oliveira, the president of Comdedine, Fátima Malaquias, and Maria Thereza Khal, coordinator of the Archives of the City. The event highlighted the relevance of the theme in the house that reverberates the ancestry and history of black people in Rio de Janeiro, aiming to make Rio an anti-racist city, in addition to talking about the challenges and advances of racial policy in the city and in the country.

The first panel, on the Advances and challenges of the 20 years of the Policy for the Promotion of Racial Equality, was attended by Prof. Dr. Douglas Leite, from UFF, Mejitó Cleber de Gbèsén, from the Dangbè Cultural Center, and Jorge Freire, from the Moreira Salles Institute, with the mediation of Prof. Leonardo Mattos, from Cepir/Segovi.

The speakers discussed the establishment of the Racial Equality Statute, approved 20 years ago at the federal level, as an anti-racist policy, which still faces barriers to implementation in cities today. They also discussed experiences of affirmative action and management of racial equality policies, which require instruments and metrics to guide these policies and to become permanent applications in these institutions.

The next panel, about 20 years of the State Quota Law, was attended by Prof. Dr. Carlos Medeiros, from UFRJ, and Prof. Dr. Elielma Machado, from
UERJ, with mediation by Maria Thereza Kahl.

There was discussion about precedents for policies of historical reparation and reservation of places and the veiled racism in opposition to the reservation of quotas for blacks in universities; the processes of implementation of the reservation of places, the positive changes visible in universities in the last 20 years and the threats to the quality of public education that were not confirmed; the challenges of reformulating entrance exams and the educational institutions themselves to promote the inclusion of these students and promote their permanence, with policies based on analyses with an ethnic-racial perspective; the relevance of maintaining an agenda of democratization of access to university in Brazil.

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November 23th, 2022

Appointments: General City Archives Executive Coordination for the Promotion of Racial Equality City Hall of Rio Segovi Rio de Janeiro Seminar on the Promotion of Racial Equality