{"id":49258,"date":"2016-09-29T20:17:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T20:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=49258"},"modified":"2016-09-29T20:18:47","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T20:18:47","slug":"for-affirmative-action-brazil-sets-up-controversial-boards-to-determine-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=49258","title":{"rendered":"For Affirmative Action, Brazil Sets Up Controversial Boards To Determine Race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/parallels\/2016\/09\/29\/495665329\/for-affirmative-action-brazil-sets-up-controversial-boards-to-determine-race\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>For Affirmative Action, Brazil Sets Up Controversial Boards To Determine Race<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/parallels\/\">Parallels: Many Stories, One World<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\">National Public Radio<\/a><br \/>\n2016-09-29<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/people\/4462099\/lourdes-garcia-navarro\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Lulu Garcia-Navarro<\/strong><\/a>, South America Correspondent<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/player\/embed\/495665329\/495882783\" width=\"100%\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>When the test scores came out, Lucas Siqueira, 27, was really excited. His high mark on the Foreign Service exam earned him a coveted position at <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brazil\" target=\"_blank\">Brazil&#8217;s<\/a> highly competitive <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itamaraty.gov.br\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ministry of Foreign Affairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They hire 30 diplomats a year and thousands of people sign up,&#8221; he says in fluent English from his home in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bras%C3%ADlia\" target=\"_blank\">Brasilia<\/a>, the capital.<\/p>\n<p>It was, he says, a great day.<\/p>\n<p>Siqueira considers himself to be mixed race, known in Brazil as <em>pardo<\/em>, or brown.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I consider myself to be a very typical Brazilian and I&#8217;ve always been very proud of it. In my dad&#8217;s family, my grandfather is black, my grandmother has Indian and white roots. And on my mother&#8217;s side they are mostly white, mostly Portuguese,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>How he defines himself matters because he was required to self-identify on his application. In 2014, the government introduced a quota system for federal jobs. The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Affirmative_action\" target=\"_blank\">affirmative action<\/a> regulations require that 20 percent of all government positions be filled by people of color \u2014 either black or mixed race.<\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"302\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/parallels\/2016\/09\/29\/495665329\/for-affirmative-action-brazil-sets-up-controversial-boards-to-determine-race\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2016\/09\/27\/brazil-9-27-16_sq-36566345957f67767f2b9274bd88da86ff5301f6-s1400.jpg\" width=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small>Lucas Siqueira identified himself as mixed race on his application for a job at Brazil&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itamaraty.gov.br\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ministry of Foreign Affairs<\/a>. The government decided he wasn&#8217;t, and his case is still on hold. As part of the affirmative action program in Brazil, state governments have now set up boards to racially classify job applicants.<br \/>\n<em>Courtesy of Lucas Siqueira<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>The problem came once the announcement of the appointments was made public&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<strong>Wide disparities<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The legacy of the period can still be felt today. Even though the majority of the population is of African descent, only 5 percent of Afro-Brazilians were in higher education as recently as 10 years ago. Because of affirmative action, that number is now 15 percent. Vaz says these are hard won gains, but there is a long way to go.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Only 5 percent of executives are black in Brazil, politicians, diplomats, all things, so the black people don&#8217;t access the space of power in my country. This is the real issue we have,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p>In the U.S., race is still largely determined by parentage because of the history of the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=3208\" target=\"_blank\">one drop rule<\/a>,&#8221; where white institutions historically deemed a person black if they had even one drop of black blood.<\/p>\n<p>In Brazil, he says, the criteria is different. Skin tone matters more than race, because so much of the population is mixed&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire story <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/parallels\/2016\/09\/29\/495665329\/for-affirmative-action-brazil-sets-up-controversial-boards-to-determine-race\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. Download the story <a href=\"https:\/\/ondemand.npr.org\/anon.npr-mp3\/npr\/me\/2016\/09\/20160929_me_for_affirmative_action_brazil_sets_up_controversial_boards_to_determine_race_.mp3?orgId=1&amp;topicId=1127&amp;d=314&amp;p=3&amp;story=495665329&amp;t=progseg&amp;e=495882392&amp;seg=11&amp;siteplayer=true&amp;dl=1\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Affirmative Action, Brazil Sets Up Controversial Boards To Determine Race Parallels: Many Stories, One World National Public Radio 2016-09-29 Lulu Garcia-Navarro, South America Correspondent When the test scores came out, Lucas Siqueira, 27, was really excited. His high mark on the Foreign Service exam earned him a coveted position at Brazil&#8217;s highly competitive Ministry [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2850,83,21,1467,8,26],"tags":[22731,25075,25074,20684,2309,2833],"class_list":["post-49258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-audio","category-brazil","category-latincarib","category-law","category-media-archive","category-politics","tag-affirmative-action","tag-leizer-vaz","tag-lucas-siqueira","tag-lulu-garcia-navarro","tag-national-public-radio","tag-npr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49260,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49258\/revisions\/49260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}