Interview Analysis Vol. I: It's not about what you look like, it's about where you're from

One of the most interesting aspects of my research and interviews in Salvador was the race debate. If you are not familiar with Brazilian racial politics and history, I will give you a very brief overview. Though it is far from everyone, there are a great number of people in Brazil who believe that racism doesn't exist in Brazil. When racism is brought up, it is almost always used to define the racial climate in the United States, but not in Brazil. Many of the Brazilians I have spoken to over time have come up with some pretty creative answers to direct questions. Why are the majority of those who live in Brazil's favelas mostly black? Well according to many, the favelas are “completely” racial diverse and thus race has no part in defining who is there. Why is there so much opposition to racial quotas in University education? Because there shouldn't be any sort of quotas in education because those who deserve to be in the best universities are there because of hard work, and conversely those who aren't haven't worked hard enough to be prepared. Now I don't want oversimplify the issue, but these opinions are out there and strongly felt among many, not too different from what we have in the U.S.

To the relevance of my research, the question of race and student performance was one that I knew was going to be a difficult and interesting one for many of my interviewees because their views on race are very much colored by their experiences and upbringings. Some avoided the question, giving short, one-sentence answers to express how much race depended on the success of the children they taught (as a professor), oversaw (as a school administrator) or observed on paper (as a government official). I found myself frustrated in a few interviews because in my opinion (and particularly in Brazil) race plays a significant role in just about every facet of history and life; however, it is sometimes the most obvious things that are most difficult to openly observe and acknowledge.

The title of this post refers to two of the more vocal interviewees on the issue of race and educational performance; while in my heart and mind I came into each interview with my own opinions about the major issues, I was very much impressed with the clarity and thoughtfulness of each interviewee's argument.

The first is the current Vice-Director of Escola Profesor Bernardino Moreira, a privately funded school in Nordeste, a favela located near Salvador's city center. She graduated from college in the area of Pedagogy and Educational Discipline and has worked at the school for 15 years. Though in describing herself she did not give her age, my guess would be that she is in her early 40s.
On the question of whether she believed that a student's racial background played a role in their performance she responded it may play a role, however she argued that in her experience the most significant variable is the students' socioeconomic background. Put differently, she noted that the students who go through her school have been burdened by the fact that they live in a favela, in particular Nordeste, which has a reputation as one of Salvador's most dangerous. She noted that many students, when completing applications for jobs or schools oftentimes gave their place of residence as Amarlinaha, a neighborhood nearby which has a much better reputation.

“But this prejudice is not racial, it is based on the violence that occurs in Nordeste and as a result the reputation that the neighborhood receieves. Many (outside of the community) believe that to come from Nordeste means that you are some sort of theif and unfortunately, very few come from the outside to get a better perspective. This is hardest for the students to face, and I believe they suffer because of it.”

The essence of her argument was that it is not how the individual is affected prejudice based on race, but rather prejudice based on where they are from. I pressed her a bit in asking more specifically about the determining variable in the students' performance within Bernardino Moreira and she noted that it was a combination of parental involvement and the lack of safety in the community (more on that later). In reference to race, she posited that it could be an issue when the students move to another school—Bernardino Moreira goes until 8th grade—however, it has never been a major factor of the performance of the students currently enrolled.
She rejected race as the determining factor because of the diversity within Nordeste, where a large number of inhabitants self-identify as pardo or mixed. In fairness to her argument, the ability to pinpoint the racial element is made very difficult as a result of Brazil's complex racial history and how many are conditioned to identify as neither black or white, but somewhere in between. That said, it troubled me that the element of race was able to be so easily dismissed. Her argument is not so different from the argument used by many in the U.S.--that class trumps race in dealing with major inequalities—however, the complexity, once again is Brazil's color-based racial hierarchy.

The second interviewee is a school teacher with a doctorate in Anthropology and African Studies. He is 36 and is actively involved—both religiously and as an anthropologist—in Candomble, a religion most popular in the state of Bahia (in comparison to Brazil's other states) which has it's roots in African tribal religion. He is black.
While I conducted the interview in the same way as I had done all others, it was difficult to get away from the issue of race because he believed—in contrast with the previous interviewee—that race has a very large part to play in disparities in student performance. In the interview he drew upon his experience as a teacher and particular as a teacher of History. He began teaching when he was 24 and immediately noticed how History textbooks—as well as set curricula—focused on a Brazilian history that did not include the African influence.

“But my students, who are black, are in their Portuguese class where the teacher continues to talk about Camões or Castro Alves, or any other white poet or author and fails to mention many black poets, black songs, proverbs or national literature. In the history class, they learn of Africa only reference to slavery and there is no discussion of what those people were before slavery; they had nations...they were warriors, kings and priests.”

He noted that he could see the black students in his classes less interested and gaining much less from this education. He also noted that it was most obvious in his History classes, but was a constant theme in all of the classes he taught, whether it was Music, Language Arts or Visual Arts.
His major argument centered on the fact that Brazil has a history of racism and coupled with that racism is avoidance of racial confrontation. Today, this racism is masked by classism, which many use to explain the inequlities that currently exist. Stepping away from my set questions, I asked him his view on Affirmative Action in Brazil's system of higher education (http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,9959,1012157,00.html)and he quickly responded that he is completely in favor of it, largely because he believed that quotas are emergency measures for the current and growing racial inequality.

“It is not as if this is an ideal means of changing the course of race relations in Brazil, but it has become necessary in order to begin to make change.”

I found myself impressed with his response—I had heard about these quotos and as was troubled by how they would be enacted in Brazil's framework of color-based racial hierarchy—as no one I had spoken with had phrased it in that exact way, though I still had doubts. That said his perspective was a valuable one, and in all honesty, one that I could relate to as a black male living in a society that attempts to avoid the racial component whenever possible.