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O GOVERNO do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, depois de votada por aclamação na Assembléia Legislativa, adotou em 2001 uma política de cotas para "negros e pardos" nas suas instituições de ensino superior. Na trilha da preparação da III Conferência Mundial das Nações Unidas de Combate ao Racismo, Discriminação Racial, Xenofobia e Intolerância Correlata que teve lugar em Durban, na África do Sul, em 2001, esta política e aquelas decretadas pelo governo federal não foram objeto de um amplo debate público. Este debate começa agora fracamente depois dos fatos consumados. Os autores analisam os caminhos dessa mudança de rumo radical do paradigma racial brasileiro através da descrição de cartas de leitores ao jornal O Globo. Estes leitores, os nossos "nativos", são ponto de partida para avaliar as dificuldades e as conseqüências que uma tal política de Estado impõe à população brasileira, especialmente àqueles que, longe do poder das elites, serão obrigados a se definir "racialmente" para serem tratados desigualmente na luta por vagas no serviço público e na universidade.
IN 2001, a law obliging the institutions of higher learning of the State of Rio de Janeiro to reserve 40% of all places for "blacks and browns" was passed by acclamation and without debate. Along the path of the preparations for the III United Nations World Conference against Racism, which was held in Durban in 2001, this policy and other similar ones decreed by the federal government came into being without ample public debate. Ex post facto this debate is now only beginning. The authors analyze the sequence of this radical change in Brazil's racial paradigm through a description of readers' letters published in the newspaper O Globo. These readers, our "natives" lead us to evaluate the difficulties and the consequences that this government policy imposes on the Brazilian population, especially those poorer citizens, who, far from the power elites, will now be obliged to define themselves "racially" in order to be treated unequally in the battle for places in the civil service and public universities

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In the contemporary world, "race" narratives are so multifaceted that at times, different views of the concept appear mutually incompatible. In recent decades biologists, especially geneticists, have repeatedly stated that the notion of race does not apply to the human species. On the other hand, social scientists claim that race is highly significant in cultural, historical, and socioeconomic terms because it molds everyday social relations and because it is a powerful motivator for social and political movements based on race differences. In this paper we present the results of an interdisciplinary research project incorporating approaches from genetics and anthropology. Our objective is to explore the interface between information about biology/genetics and perceptions about color/ race in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We argue that the data and interpretation of our research resonate far beyond the local level, stimulating discussion about methodological, theoretical, and political issues of wider national and international relevance. Topics addressed include the complex terminology of color/race classification in Brazil, perceptions about ancestry in the context of ideologies of Brazilian national identity, and the relationship between genetic information about the Brazilian population and a sociopolitical agenda that turns on questions of race and racism.

This essay reflects on the social significance of growing interest in sickle cell anemia and other illnesses associated with the black body in Brazil. I explore the discursive network that has taken shape around the disease within the social context of its production. I first summarize anthropologist Melbourne Tapper's analysis of the United States program to fight sickle cell anemia in the 1970s, shortly after blacks attained victories in the civil rights movement. Tapper (1999) argues that one of the consequences of this policy was the creation of a responsible black citizenry. In the late 1990s, the Brazilian government developed a program (Programa de Anemia Falciforme) that counted on the heavy participation of black activists and that also contributed to the formation of a "responsible black community". My argument is that sickle cell anemia becomes much more than an illness to be eradicated. The discourse surrounding it is a powerful element in the process of naturalization of the "black race" (and, by logical and political complement, the "white race") in a country that until recently imagined itself a biologically and culturally hybrid nation.

Durante uma cerimônia conduzida por uma congregação zionista em Moçambique, para restaurar a fertilidade de um casal mediante o apaziguamento de um espírito enraivecido, foi-me dito que os brancos eram imunes a este tipo de problema pois estavam livres dos espíritos revoltados e da feitiçaria, sendo portanto mais capazes de cooperar entre si. Tal criticismo da "cultura africana" é disseminado entre muitas igrejas protestantes, em particular os Zionistas e Pentecostais, enquanto a Igreja Católica, através de sua noção de enculturação, tenta manter-se próxima à "tradição africana". O artigo examina os significados ligados à "tradição africana" e suas antinomias, "modernidade" e "civilização, em uma tentativa de demonstrar a ampla distribuição do desejo de controlar os males da feitiçaria e da bruxaria, assim como a inveja e ambição que as movem. O artigo se encerra com uma reflexão sobre a maneira como a análise antropológica falhou em considerar o sofrimento que tais crenças refletem e engendram.
During a ceremony conducted by a Zionist congregation in Mozambique to restore the fertility of a barren couple by appeasing an angry spirit, I was told that whites were immune from these kinds of problems since they were free of angry spirits and witchcraft and more able to co-operate among themselves. Such criticism of "African culture" is widespread among many Protestant churches, in particular the Zionists and Pentecostals in general. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, through its notion of enculturation, attempts to become closer to "African Tradition". The article examines the meanings attached to "African Tradition" and its antinomies, "Modernity" and "Civilization", in an attempt to demonstrate the widespread existence of a strong desire to control the evils of witchcraft, sorcery, and the jealousy and ambition that move them. The article ends with a brief reflection on the way in which much classical anthropological analysis of witchcraft and sorcery has failed to take into account the suffering that such beliefs reflect and engender

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