Participating in the 13th Biennial of the National Union of Students (UNE), the Minister of Racial Equality, Anielle Franco, said today (3) that she intends to develop policies to support black students and said she is asking for BRL 100 million for the projects of this first year. The folder’s budget is yet to be defined.
“We’re going to fight for this, if we’re going to make it, I don’t know. But we are the majority of the population, 54% of Brazilians are black. And many young people from the periphery need our help. This budget is the dream, but with what we have, we will work well, ”she said.
The minister classified racial quotas as the greatest reparation law for the black population ever implemented in the country. At the same time, she expressed concern about student dropout. “Young people who don’t have the conditions end up leaving the university”, she lamented.
According to Anielle, the policy of racial quotas needs to be accompanied by measures aimed at permanence. She stated that it is in the plans of the Ministry of Racial Equality to discuss a scholarship policy for black students and other student assistance measures.
Biennial
Considered the largest student festival in Latin America, the UNE Biennial features a program of cultural activities and debates on art, education, politics and science. Anielle participated in a table that discussed the construction of Brazilian identity.
The minister was moved by shouts of order from students in memory of her sister Marielle Franco, councilor of Rio de Janeiro murdered in 2018. The reasons for the crime have not yet been elucidated. “I don’t know why they killed my sister, but I know that whoever had the cruelty to order the murder of a black mine did not imagine how much noise we would make”, she said.
Born in Complexo da Maré, in the north of Rio de Janeiro, Anielle also remembered her origins and said that her sister was the one who often took her to volleyball training. It was for the sport that she won a scholarship to study in the United States at the age of 16. She stayed in the country for over 12 years, where she studied Journalism. Back in Brazil, she graduated in Letters from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).
With a master’s degree in ethnic-racial relations, Anielle is currently a doctoral candidate in Applied Linguistics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). With a career linked to academia, she assesses the impact of quotas. “At UERJ, I had only one black teacher. Among the students, we were 5 in a class of 60. Today we are occupying places where our presence was historically denied”.
racial democracy
Black students participating in the UNE Biennial defended the debate as central to the student agenda. Aline Dourado, student of Vernacular Letters at the State University of Southwest Bahia (UESB) in Vitória da Conquista (BA), considers that Brazil still has a false racial democracy and that employment and income policies should aim at equality. For her, quotas are fundamental.
“Each time a black person graduates from university it is a revolution in their family. But they have to enter and they have to stay. It is very important to have student assistance policies, so that people do not drop out of courses. Brazilian society advances when black people move forward,” he said.
Social sciences student at the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), Kariny Lopes, says that the struggle of the black population is for dignity. “The country is extremely racist. And this racism often deprives us of basic rights such as the right to come and go and the right to life. Sometimes we don’t have the right to be in an educational space, in a leisure space “, he criticized.
*Contributed by Nanna Pôssa, TV Brasil reporter.
