Brazil: Afro-descendents celebrated while racist school book distributed

The competitive society and prejudices generate a violence that must be combated by school. Teaching how to live together is fundamental, knowing oneself first in order to know and respect others in their diversity. The best way to resolve conflicts is to provide forms of searching for common goals and projects, through cooperation, so that instead of fostering the confrontation among opposing forces, diversities are added up in order to strengthen collective building (Jacques Delors, UNESCO, MEC, Cortez Editora, Brasil, São Paulo 1999).

According to Delors, the transmission of knowledge about human diversity, as well as the acquisition of awareness about similarities and the interdependence among all human beings on the planet, constitute fundamental elements of education. However, nearing the beginning of the UN International Year of Afro-Descendants, the Ministry of Education in Brazil (MEC) rejects the consideration of the National Council of Education (CNE), which was grounded on the laws that regulate national education. The deliberation refers to the distribution of the children’s book ‘Caçadas de Pedrinho’ (‘Pete’s Hunting’) by Monteiro Lobato, which was originally published in 1933. It propagates a stereotyped vision about blacks and the African universe, presenting black characters as subservient and of little intelligence, a book in which there are even allusions to animals like the monkey and the vulture when it refers to the black woman character. Passages of the book state: ‘Antie Anastácia, having forgotten her severe arthritis, climbed, just like a coal monkey’.[1]

Black social movements have been demanding substantial action from the Brazilian state in terms of public policies geared towards education about socio-ethnic relations. White social movements and the elite, on the other hand, refuse any and all measures that seek to combat racism and its by-products in Brazilian society. There are also progressive sectors which struggle for the rights of women, gays and indigenous people, but unfortunately they are silent in the anti-racism struggle.

As is predictable in such debate, the researcher, university faculty and CNE adviser responsible for the deliberation, Nilma Lino Gomes, whose intellectual and professional training does not lag behind whites, is mocked in spite of the fact that she acquired her doctoral degree from the University of São Paulo and a post-doc from the University of Coimbra (where she was advised by Boaventura Sousa Santos, currently one of the most prestigious intellectuals in the world). Despite her intellectual trajectory, she has been perceived by racists on duty as an incompetent professional who is practicing reverse racism that only reinforces the obsession for the continuity of racist structures in our society. Monteiro Lobato, who was born in the 19th century and was a firm believer in eugenics, is simply described in mainstream discourses as a classic reference. It is certainly a classic choice of the national elite, which from the heights of their prepotency and arrogance believe that their rights are untouchable and should not be subject to any criticism or consideration.

The MEC has the duty to combat any type of discriminatory situation against any racial group. Hence, what we should consider in this dispute is the fact that the Edict PNBE/2010, established by MEC/FNDE, has established as a goal that ‘the texts must be ethically adequate, and prejudices, moralisms and stereotypes shall not be admitted.’ However, we have a minister who defends the unrestricted distribution of a book that is inappropriate, perceiving it as adequate for the education of children who are fully engaged in the socialisation process.

Considering that the erudite individuals who administer MEC have read Jaques Delors, Paulo Freire, Edgar Morin and so many others whom they love to cite, there may not be any naivety claims from the MEC directing team. Yet they have accepted the favourable deliberation that authorised the purchase and distribution of this book in public schools, whose content goes against the edict established by them. What should be at the centre of this debate is the fact that MEC announces a policy that is in consonance with what is established in the legislation, and also with the demands from organised social movements, on a national and international level, and yet in practice allows the non-fulfilment of its edict.

As it breaks the edict, MEC opens a precedent for other publishers whose work has been excluded for propagating stereotypes to also demand the distribution of the excluded books. Why only Lobato´s racial stereotype? How about if the MEC also distributes sexist literature? How about texts with manifestations of anti-Semitism? Would society react then?

However, for the time being, conservative sectors and/or those at peace with the consequences of racial discrimination in this society once again masterfully seek to invert the debate, in such way that the major problem becomes the so-called ‘reversed racism and the radicalism of black social movements’. What should be at the centre of the analysis is swept under the carpet: the crushing of the goals of combating and dissemination of stereotypes and prejudices in the guidelines established by the PNBE and the MEC.

Let us be really coherent and anti-racist; let us recognise the non-observation of the criteria established in the EDITAL of the PNBE/2010, insist on that issue and demand that the MEC provide a proper response. What has it actually been accomplishing? How much has it invested? And how consistent and effective are their accomplishments, above all in comparison with what the ministry has been investing in other issues of diversity and historically discriminated groups? If the MEC had any respect for us, we would have been informed about the fulfilment of the goals for the implementation of the 26th article of the Guidelines Law and Basis for Education (LDB) (Law # 9394/96).

That legislation refers to the mandatory teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture, which meets requirements established in international treaties such as the Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) and the Action Plan resulting from the III World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances (2001), both under the auspices of UNESCO. From the books selected by the PNBE 2010, how many favour gender relations? How many promote positive knowledge about the history and culture of indigenous peoples?

On 17 April 2008, the interview to Brazil Agency, after receiving criticisms of retrocession on the policies to combat racism, the director of the Department of Education for Diversity and Citizenship at the MEC Armenio Schmidt, confirmed the interruption of the distribution of didactic materials and training programmes for teachers in the ethnic-racial area in 2007. According to him, the interruption was only external and it occurred due to a change in MEC´s financial system. For the director, such suspension was justified by the fact that the MEC was in 2007 ‘building a new form of induction to policies as it relates to municipalities, which was the programme of Articulated Action’. According to him: ‘During the last year [2007] really there were no publications and training for teachers. However, in our evaluation, there has been a retrocession, because that is going to enable a new propelling as it pertains to the Law [10.639]. Now states and municipalities will be able to request formation for teachers in their region, and the MEC will produce more publications and in larger numbers’.[2]

In 2010, aside from not perceiving any strengthening of the policy or the reestablishment of the publications and a consistent and systematic training of teachers, we catch the MEC in the act, allowing the distribution of a book whose content propagates stereotypes and prejudices against blacks and the African universe, which is a blatant disrespect of established norms.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the current president, in the beginning of his mandate, evinced in the field of education the importance of combating racism, promulgating Law 10.639/03, which as has already been mentioned, altered LBD. The law made mandatory the teaching of history and Afro-Brazilian cultures in basic education. Such alteration was readily attended by the CNE, which under the responsibility of the advisor Petronilha Beatriz Gonçalves e Silva elaborated the national guidelines for the teaching of race relations and Afro-Brazilian history and culture (CNE/CP 3/2004), whose homologation was signed by the minister of education, at that time Tarso Genro. However, even though he counts on the approval of 83 per cent of the population and has during his mandate visited the African continent several times and delivered long speeches about the need for the recognition of the value of Afro-descendants in the formation of our national state, the president closes his mandate by allowing an accentuated decline in the elaboration and implementation of anti-racist policies in the field of education.

If we could recognise in 2003 the fact that the combat to racism, even if timidly, had become part of the Brazilian political agenda, in 2010 we must denounce the lack of commitment with this struggle. – a lack of commitment that may be realised in the accentuated reduction of the budget for education in race relations and by the diminishment of the staff who worked in the General Coordination for Diversity and Educational Inclusion/SECAD/MEC, the secretariat responsible for the implementation of initiatives geared towards ethnic and racial diversity.

We, black citizens who have worked for long years for the election of president Lula, expected more. We expected more both from the president as well as his executive team which administers Brazilian education. We expected at least throughout that during these years the team had understood the far-reaching impact of racism in our society. We expected that they would put forth vehement statements on behalf of the combat of racism in the realm of education, respecting the principles of social justice and regardless of the groups in power. It seems like the promises of partnership and the attending of our considerations were false.

What we may have in response, beyond the silence of the whole secretariat of education, literacy and diversity, is the standing from the minister, who does not see racism in this literary work, positioning himself favourable to its unrestricted distribution, which we know will contribute to the formation of new racist individuals, along with other elements in the everyday school interactions, as has been the case in the past. Unquestionably, the discourse from the minister reflects his own race, class and gender. The most ironic thing is to know that in the 21st century, Brazil is being perceived as a country that advances economically while it conversely regresses in terms of human rights for the black population.

Many admire Monteiro Lobato. I admire Luiz Gama, who used the pages in the press to defend the freedom of the enslaved and stated, summarising our current daily resistance: ‘In fact, I tell you here, affronting the law, that every slave who murders his master is practicing an act of legitimate defence’. Knowledge is the weapon that we have available in struggling to defend our history, our existence, as well as the future of our sons and daughters. This is an unequal struggle, and therefore a dishonest one. But even if many prefer silence, we will proceed struggling and denouncing this perverse form of racism that endures in Brazilian society.

We need your help. If you want to collaborate on behalf of the Afro-Brazilian human rights, please send your protest right now to the following email:

MEC - [email][email protected]; [email][email protected];

CNE - [email][email protected], [email][email protected]; [email][email protected]

Brazilian Association of Black Researchers - [email][email protected]; [email][email protected]

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* Eliane Cavalleiro has a PhD in education from the University of São Paulo and has published ‘From the Silence of the Household to the Silence of the School: Racism, Prejudice and Discrimination on Children’s Education’ (2000) and ‘Racism and Anti-Racism in Education: Rethinking our School’ (2001).
* The author would like to thank Raquel Luciana de Sousa for assistance with translation.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Such piece was selected by the National Library Program in School – PNBE/2010 for 6 year old children, which aims at ‘summoning publishers to register literary works geared towards children under child´s education (daycare and kindergarden), and for students in their initial years of primary education. The edict asserts that: ‘The texts must be ethically adequate, and prejudices, moralisms and stereotypes shall not be admitted’. (Brasil. Edict PNBE 2010. Brasília: MEC/FNDE, 2010).
[2] Brazil Agency. Researcher points to retrocession in the policy of combating racism in schools. Available in: http://verdesmares.globo.com/v3/canais/noticias.asp?codigo=216721&modulo=450 Accessed on: November, 2010.