Signed in 2003, Law 10.639 makes teaching AfroBrazilian history and culture compulsory in primary school lessons. Training programs to educate teachers on this material have proliferated in the state of São Paulo and elsewhere in Brazil. This paper illuminates non-elite Brazilians' lived, personal engagements with ideas of racial inequality by way of these training programs. Participants in these classrooms did not express direct rejection or acceptance of these ideas but rather relied on personal experiences to negotiate their conceptions of racial identity and racial inequality that deviate from traditional ideas of racial democracy. As Brazil takes further steps to consider race when facilitating access to resources and confronting racial inequality directly, it is imperative that the everyday iterations of this shift are understood. [Brazil, race relations, Law 10.639, teacher training]
In this article, I examine how popular and alternative media depict Afro‐Brazilian girlhood and young adulthood. In discussing representations of Black girlhood in Brazil I draw attention to the importance of Brazilian and Afro‐Brazilian culture to understanding the empowerment of Black girls. In Brazil, girls of African descent operate in a national context that centers narratives of whitening, racial mixture, and the denial of Blackness as a category. Additionally, Black girls experience aesthetic standards that value Whiteness and their general invisibility in public culture, which can contribute to low self‐esteem. The recent rise of MC Soffia, a Black girl MC, and short films by Afro‐Brazilian women demonstrate that cultural traditions and acts are central to Black girls' empowerment.
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