It seems that no matter where one goes in the world, there are educational, social, political and economic disparities among people of color. Moreover, these disparities are along color gradients. That is, the darker you are, the hell you face.

Unfortunately this is true,I live in the UK and its no different here, Only GOD can save us from this wicked system and HE will.

I never cease to be fascinated by the denial of those benefiting from the status quo.

I really likes this documetnary. Sucks that none of them got into the universtity but like iolanda said one day she will study there :]
i am in favor of affirmative action, yes it might bring out the difeerences but w/out it inequallity wil persist. hopefullye verything works out for the good :]

Why not change the quota to an economic based quota? This would take the wind out of the racial discrimination argument, but would have the desired effect of giving opportunities to the have-nots, who are mostly black.

I agree–that an economic based quota may deflect some of the dimensions of a color oriented racial dynamic; however, we continue to coexist with the remnants of colonial societies in the Americas where the functions of government/corporate/media politics are not to help, but to hinder the well fare of its constituents.

In this case, that objective seems to be working in order to confuse people and the effect is more chaos and division in contrast to organization and unity.
I

I agree with D… education discrimination feeds on socioeconomic discrimination, and vice versa. Because socioeconomic class and ethnicity are so intricately woven in Brasil (as in many countries in Latin America and the world), perhaps establishing an affirmative action system based on poverty vs. ethnicity would help to a) not only promote more justice for the victims of racial discrimination but b) also be of benefit to those students who are poor but not black and thus fall through the cracks of the quota system…

The lady professor who was against affirmative action on the basis it would create a segregated country was in hard-core denial. Just look at the school designed for students to pass the test; not a black soul among them — except the janitor.

I’m glad they included the part with the model and the newsstand. In México we have the same problem. The darker skinned, more Native American-looking actors get the role of the maid or the driver or the comedic relief on television, but you ask most Mexicans, and they’ll say racism is not a problem in the country. It is a systemic and subliminal kind of racism where the ideal for beauty leans heavily toward European aesthetics in the media in a society without people understanding it is presented as such. It is simply ingrained in the society that darker skin is equated as ugly and lighter skin as the ideal.

I think that in regards to the educational opportunities there should be some affirmative action in regards to the poor and not the black since 2/3 of the poor are blacks either way. Yet there should still be some affirmative action for companies, it is a disgrace that some banks only hire 2% afro-brazilians.

The problem is that the poverty dennies the better future… Threats this like a colour-skinned issue althought a economic issue is do hte wrong thing for a while expecting that one day “maybe”, we can come back and restart the right process… There’s so many white persons that are deeply poor… Why we must denied that the really problem is don’t offer eqqual opportunities between poors and richies… We don’t want one country more divided; we want one country equal

When will this be over? This systemic inequality will continue to be a problem. When the ones that benifite still denies everything and blames the other.

I’m a brazilian, white guy that studies in a public university, in my course there are 60 students, just one is black, but I’m against the quotes-system, is easy for me telling that, I had the best opportunities that a young could have, however I believe that everybody should be able to debate a spot with me, black, white, yellow, pink, orange, doesnt matter the color, these porr “black” people that we have just seen are winners, absolute majority of slum people quit their school at elementary, for me is a way to mask the big and real problem, here have a big contrast but, the solution have to start from childhood until the university, why we have to wait who’ll be the winners, I think and hope that in the future every black, or other color, can have the same opportunities that I had.

Just to say a few words, I’m, as Marco, against the affirmative action, at least racial affirmative action, affirmative action based on economy is a whole other thing. Yes, I am white with family in the (upper) middle class, and a Brazilian who migrated when very young, having visited the country regularly since.

1: Affirmative action is a system who leaves certain groups with a better chance, unfairly leaving the rest, that have done better off (either if it’s because they can afford a good school or not) with a worse chance. The problem will not be solved by affirmative action, the employers will later on assume that all black people have only gotten in because of affirmative action, and not because they deserve it. The roots of the problems, are, as they brought up in the documentary, further down, with bac public schools that leave smaller chances to the ones not born in a wealthy family. What I think needs to be done is to either give the poor people a better chance in public schools or disallowing private schools (giving everybody more equal chances), where I prefer the first chance. And to do that, the first thing to do is to remove the corruption, which needs a whole series of documentaries to get a clear picture of, because without the corruption they could well spend a few extra billions in the public school system.

By the way, some people say that two thirds of the poor population is black affirmative action is the way to go, that’s 67%, when they claim 40 to over 70% of the actual population actually is black. And at some point they said 54%, what about the rest of the 33% who are poor, who obviously have the same problem?

I think that any affirmative action program needs to address economic conditions, racial disparities, and gender inequalities. I don’t know if the race based affirmative action strategy will work in Brazil if people have to take some picture to prove their black, what will be next. The media plays a huge role in shaping peoples idea on racial identification and overall perception of this issue.

Along the same lines as Michelle, I’m amazed at the sheer denial of some people reaping the benefits of maintaining the status quo.

The more albino looking you are the better your life will be. Thanx to European colonizers they have internationalized grouping people by color. It is those who have Albinism that set out to oppress others and hoard means to those who look like them. The fact is those with Melanin don’t set out to collect ways and prevent others from getting them. Therefore they are always in the losing end. Hoarding is built in those with Albinism. We have to approach it from this viewpoint.

hmmm yea albinism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinism

who knew the unknown side affect of this disorder was racism.

But what about the Movie Industry and it’s constant Portrayal of People With Albinism as being eather Evil Villans or Mystical “Freaks”?Negative Portrayal of Persons with Albinism without a Counterbalance of “Normal”or Heroic caractors is discriminatory and hurts REAL PEOPLE With Albinism!!

Brazil is a mix of 2 types of indian; one darker ; other lighter;; and african and portuguese; for the most part;; and is error to say dark skin of Brazilians is Afro; when it more usually from indian; or combination of both

I am quite surprised to notice (on the video) that Mr Humberto Adani’s secretary is quite Danish-like-Brazilian…??? I do not fully disagree with an affirmative action on social mobility in my beloved Brazil, though. Just tired of hipocrisy and the prospect of empty flourished-civil-rights-speech-like-polititians…the very reason why I left my country

The brazilian black scholar that talks about statistics of black people in universities is clearly feeding on the US inspired afirmative action idea that says that every social disaquality is based on race. “If you’re not good in school and you can’t get to university than it’s because you’re black”, “If people talk back at you at a shopping mall then it’s because you’re black”. I was really glad that I saw in this documentary Iolanda’s example. She’s not willing to use her race as an excuse or as an advantage for her performance in life. It’s also important to mention that the exam taken is the same for everyone. And since intelegence is not measured by race, that means that if you work hard, the chances are the same. My opinion is that he 98/2 number has to do far more with cultural and social factors than with race.

Brazil have taken a giant step for mankind,one day they will be one of the greatest nation’s on the face of the earth. I want to be a part of their future!

Brazil would better be served by an economic affirmative action policy because unlike the US ,Brazil’s racial population is much more homogeneously mixed than the US’s. To me Us citizen even the people calling themselves white in the doc. would not be considered white here in the US.Brazil has to determine what is white and what is black from a regional insular perspective because to me they were all shades of black. Finally to even the playing field for blacks in Brazil ,I think an economic affirmative action policy would best serve the black dichotomy of Brazil which would include the blacks as well as the poor.

Lmao! Just watched that piece on Brazil ! The funniest thing is that 99% of those people in the video that were calling themselves white would NEVER be accepted as white by whites here in the USA! Hilarious

Walk down the hallways of the government buildings. Look at the pictures of the officials. Walk into the best schools in the country. Walk into the banks around the country. Walk into the companies across the nation. Then walk the favelas and shanty towns.

In the United States we simply stopped the b.s. and got to the point from those who thought (and still think) they can send out their talking heads to pretend color isn’t the deciding factor. We stopped wasting our time with their (the lighter peoples) promises and their reassurances. They will send their talking heads out to talk in circles forever and continue the same pattern that is OBVIOUS. “Whites” pay people an actual salary to waster our time. Stupid reassurances that everything is okay.

If anything, Brazil makes the exact point of blacks (a political block) in the U.S. You’re “mixed”, “multi-racial”, “dynamic”, bla, bla, bla and the patterns are the same in Brazil as in the United States, the African continent, France you name it. The same pattern. The darker the lower your status in the society (with the exeption of Africa where the whole continent is suppose to exist in poverty).

The media literature, the official government literature, the corporate literature all speak of Brazil as this multi-cultural heaven, but everybody at the top looks the same. Yet when the darker-skinned people say “we want our lives and status to improve” the lighter skinned people THREATEN racism will increase and there will be a retaliation by the “whites”.

JUST LIKE IN AMERICA, FRANCE AND ELSEWHERE in the U.S. we just stopped pretending and publically, verbally, directly and outwardly stated what the “whites” pretend is some sort of secret to out maneuver those dark people…

Yea I’m black … what’s your point?!

Likewise, the darker brown people of Brazil should stop wasting their time debating the obvious. How to deal with it, and the violence they promise, should be the debate.

After watching this video it just reaffirms the idea and notion that racism exists on a global level. The one thing in the U.S. is that 99% of the time you can visibly tell who is black or white but, in Brazil you determine by the shade of black or lack of whiteness i.e.,blonde hair blue eyes. What we all have in common wherever people of color are especially the darker more melinated people is that at the very top of the socio economical, political, educational and financial institutions is the European. And, even more disturbing is the fact that the European as a whole is grossly outnumbered and the minority on the planet.

As far as the NAACP is concerned it is still an organization with a black face and white purse, so I don’t think that it will help that much for Brazil. So called blacks have been fooled all over the globe with making civil rights a priority when we as Men and Women have a God given birthright of Freedom, Justice, Love and Peace. It seems that the European power structure in Brazil is controlling and telling the people of color who they are, black or white thereby creating a system of division amongst the people. Wherever you have the European you will have this problem because he is outnumbered on the planet and because he knows that he will be eliminated by the more melinated people he must put himself as the standard by which all should be measured to validate and maintain his rule.

Whats funny is the loud lawyer fighting for black rights has a white assistant, so much for that pyramid analogy he mentioned!