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RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SAO PAULO 000662 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
STATE PASS TO USAID LAC/AA 
STATE FOR WHA/BSC, WHA/PDA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV SOCI SCUL EAID KPAO ELAB BR
SUBJECT: SAO PAULO ACTIVISTS DESCRIBE AFRO-BRAZILIAN CHALLENGES 
 
REF: SAO PAULO 602; SAO PAULO 601 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Key human rights and antidiscrimination contacts 
spoke with visiting Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission 
(EEOC) Acting Chairman Stuart Ishimaru October 20 in the run-up to 
the Joint Action Plan Against Racism (JAPER) meeting in Salvador 
October 21.  While all saw improvements in education, labor and the 
legal arena for Afro-Brazilians, the contacts stressed that the 
community still faced multi-level social marginalization.  Ishimaru 
pressed our interlocutors to develop more demographic data so that 
they could know exactly where, in hard numbers, Afro-Brazilians 
stand in today's Brazil.  End summary. 
 
 
 
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND ITS FRUITS 
 
 
 
¶2. (U) Executive Director of the Research Center on Labor Relations 
and Inequality (CEERT) Maria Aparecida Silva Bento, CEERT Legal 
Counsel Daniel Teixeira, CEERT Education & Public Policy 
Coordinator Billy Malachias, and CEERT Communications head 
Rosangela Malachias told Acting Chairman Ishimaru the ongoing 
debate over affirmative action in Brazil could be more robust and 
inclusive.  They noted that the experts the media consults on this 
issue are often white persons.  Teixeira lamented that, unlike the 
U.S., affirmative action has barely had time to provide 
quantifiable data and already Brazilian critics are clamoring for 
its end.  The first crop of Brazilian university graduates who have 
benefited by affirmative action programs are now entering the labor 
market.  CEERT members want to see how they will fare.  (NOTE: 
Private sector contacts often claim there are not enough qualified 
Afro-Brazilian graduates to hire. END NOTE.)  At the request of the 
banking sector, CEERT recently conducted a massive study to 
increase diversity in the sector.  They discovered most 
Afro-Brazilians worked among the lower ranks and earned less than 
white colleagues. 
 
 
 
LATE TO THE GAME: UNIONS AND ANTI-DISCRIMINATION POLICIES 
 
 
 
¶3. (SBU) Labor sector representatives stated that unions had only 
begun to focus on racial inequality in the last decade as labor 
leaders realized that the issues unions champion (wages, health 
care, working conditions) overlap with race.  To better address 
racial issues, the three major labor unions in Brazil, Union 
Movement (FS) General Union of Workers (UGT) and Sole Center of 
Workers (CUT) with the help of the AFL-CIO and the Interamerican 
Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT) created the Interamerican 
Institute for Racial Equality (INSPIR) in 1995.  INSPIR takes 
three-pronged approach to labor/race issues.  It promotes 
anti-discriminatory policies within unions, promotes anti-racism in 
collective bargaining and tries to influence public policy.  In 
response to Acting Chairman Ishimaru inquiry about the demography 
of unions, INSPIR reps conceded that, although there are some black 
union leaders, none of the major labor federations (CUT, UGT, FS) 
know the racial demographics of their own organizations. 
 
THE LIMITS OF LEGAL RECOURSE 
 
 
 
¶4. (SBU) Although Brazil has a stringent anti-racism law, known as 
Cao's Law (Lei Cao), contacts told Acting Chairman Ishimaru that 
Brazilians do not know their rights, police are unaware of how to 
enforce anti-discrimination law, and prosecutors are unsure of how 
to or unwilling to prosecute offenders.  (NOTE: In Brazil it is 
illegal to call someone a racial epithet or perform any racist act. 
END NOTE.)  Brazilian Bar Association representative Alvarenga 
noted that police, prosecutors and judges find the punishment for 
 
SAO PAULO 00000662  002 OF 003 
 
 
racism disproportionately high in relation to the crime.  Thus, 
racist crimes are often registered as slander (injuria), which 
carries significantly lighter sanctions.  Further obscuring the 
effectiveness of the law is the fact that there are no official 
numbers for cases prosecuted under Cao's Law. 
 
 
 
TROUBLE RISING TO THE TOP 
 
 
 
¶5. (SBU) Even well educated Afro-Brazilians like Brazilian Bar 
Association Black and Anti-Discriminatory Issues Commission (CONAD) 
representative Marco Antonio Zito Alvarenga told Acting Chairman 
Ishimaru that he had trouble rising to the highest ranks of 
mainstream professional organizations.  A group of black lawyers, 
led by Zito, noted the lack of Afro-Brazilian representation among 
the bar association's board of directors and the State and Federal 
Council and expressed hope more Afro-Brazilians would be selected 
in the upcoming association elections. 
 
 
 
FORWARD MOVEMENT 
 
¶6. (U) Nevertheless, contacts highlighted some positive signs in 
Afro-Brazilians' struggle for equal opportunity under the law. 
CEERT created the Education for Racial Equality Award in 2001 to 
recognize teachers who address race in the classroom in innovative 
ways.  The first contestants were mostly Afro-Brazilian but now 
many teachers of Caucasian and other racial backgrounds submit 
projects and win the award, according to Billy Malachias.  The 
unions' interest in inserting language about racial equality into 
collective bargaining agreements represents another step forward. 
Similar clauses on gender issues that started as part of public 
sector unions' collective bargaining agreements later became 
national law.  While the Cao's Law has implementation issues, 
people do file and win cases, as with the black receptionist whose 
employer called her "monkey."  Sao Paulo courts found him guilty of 
racism and awarded a $3,600 judgment in the receptionist's favor in 
¶2007. 
 
 
 
BANKING ON PRE-SAL 
 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The Afro-Brazilian community hopes to exploit the 
recently discovered oil reserves off Brazil.  Rosana Aparecida da 
Silva of CUT's Anti-discrimination Secretariat was adamant about 
keeping pre-salt monies in Brazil.  According to her, a 
nationalistic approach would keep natural resources and technical 
jobs in Brazil and generate jobs as well as monies for public 
policies to help marginalized groups like Afro-Brazilians. 
 
COMMENT: THE NEED FOR HARD NUMBERS 
 
 
 
¶8. (SBU) Sao Paulo anti-discrimination organizations stressed the 
need for consistent and constant pressure in order to bridge the 
huge gaps Afro-Brazilians face in labor, education, healthcare and 
equal access to the law.  One constant theme was the absence of 
demographic information relating to Afro-Brazilians.  Ishimaru 
repeatedly asked about the numbers of Afro-Brazilians in 
government, education, labor, the legal profession, etc.  In 
response, the contacts had rough guesses or, as in the case of 
INSPIR, could not provide numbers.  In addition to legal, social, 
and political hurdles, the inability to quantify where 
Afro-Brazilians stand in terms of inclusion, remains a fundamental 
impediment to applying affirmative action policies to maximum 
effect. 
 
SAO PAULO 00000662  003 OF 003 
 
 
¶9. (U) EEOC Acting Chairman Ishimaru cleared on this cable. 
White