Cida BentoWriter
The researcher and writer Cida Bento believes that it is necessary to be aware of possible reactions of resentment from white people in institutions that start to promote equity projects. “Why do they only hire black people now, are they so worried about bringing up this topic, about only reading these books?”, he says.
One of the great experts on the relationship between race, racism and psychology, Cida spoke to Estadão about the case of Escola Vera Cruz, a private school in São Paulo where actress Samara Felippo’s daughter had her notebook stolen by colleagues who wrote a racial slur on the pages, in addition to tearing out pages of school work.
“They shouldn’t be expelled. There should be work with these children. They should stay at school and learn there,” says Cida. “Understanding how serious what she did was, doing a routine action for a certain period of time at school. The school has to learn and be mobilized from this.”
Regarding the difficulty for students who are victims of racism to live with their classmates, Cida says that it is necessary to focus on the work of building equity policies. “It’s really difficult, but we live every day. Coexistence is important. You can’t remove all the racists from institutions”, she adds, who also works on racial discrimination in the job market.
‘Coexistence is important. You can’t remove all the racists from institutions’, he says Photograph: TV Cultura
The school, in the west zone, was one of the first in the capital of São Paulo to implement an anti-racist project. In 2020, they created scholarships, hired black professionals, made changes to the curriculum and raised R$4 million from parents. The program has inspired other private schools in recent years.
For her, it is necessary to closely monitor, with “systemic analysis”, how the issue impacts people. “This exercise that white people can do when implementing every little thing, in everyday life, makes people move forward. And there’s no point in just becoming an expert after listening to lectures about racism.”
Cida also advocates creating “listening channels, accepting complaints of discrimination, situations of tension” to understand “how the school’s thermometer is doing”.
The mother gave a statement this Tuesday, 30th, to the police, criticized the school and asked for the expulsion of the two 14-year-old girls. Vera Cruz suspended the students, but the families involved communicated their decision to take their daughters out of school.
See below the main excerpts from the interview.
How do you see the case of racism that happened at Vera Cruz and how should schools act in general?
I have been following private schools in São Paulo a lot and it is important to work with these children and teenagers because they are the ones who will occupy positions as parliamentarians, businesspeople, judges. They come from these schools, right? I have this concern about the education that these children and teenagers are receiving.
It is important to have more systemic action, for a school to not just give lectures. It has to involve several dimensions. Schools buy books, toys, take care of teacher training. The theme of equity must be included in everything. And also listening, as you are working on this topic, what it is raising among students and teachers. I have never entered an institution where everyone agreed with the treatment of this topic. People are uncomfortable, but there are employment relationships… You need to closely monitor how you are impacting people.
You say that white people might be uncomfortable with giving preference to hiring black people?
Exactly. Sometimes the person turns on the ‘whiteness pilot’ in the sense that, although the school begins to change its perspective, looking at the curriculum, at its relationships, white people are the people in decision-making places and are affected in different ways. levels. Resentment appears.
Why do they only hire black people now, are they so worried about bringing up this topic, of only reading these books? (They think) ‘now everything is racism, everything is black’. You need to be aware of this reaction. And it’s not just white people, it’s male people, cisgender people, people without disabilities, how they react when you focus on a certain group.
And how to do this?
You are not going to remove that wonderful teacher from school, but who does not accept discussing this, who thinks it affects the meritocratic system. He remains at school. But how are you going to bring this theme and create spaces for it? Create monitoring committees, find out about everything that happens, committees that can accept complaints of discrimination, situations of tension and gauge the school’s thermometer.
White people begin to understand racism, but the big challenge is when they bring it into their daily lives. Someone who works in management and has to include this topic in the leadership training course.
I worked with a ‘head hunter’ for a large institution in São Paulo and she was a white woman. She felt like she was betraying the other white women when she was bringing black women, because the job was an affirmative job, it required English. There were black women with fluent English, but there were white women who had lived in the United States and Europe and knew the culture. She thought that the institution could have much more if it hired white women. You saw in her a feeling of pain.
It is necessary to understand the processes that white people go through, that men go through when discussing gender, because it is part of what you have to work on within the institution. You need to bring it to management, go hire a supplier for something, bring diversity, take a look at the list of suppliers that the school has so you can bring in female suppliers, black suppliers, small businesses owned by people with disabilities.
Let’s start exercising this. Do you have black teachers, black scholars? How do you begin to evaluate and understand their true integration into the school, how does the curriculum bring this about? In toys, in music. This exercise that white people can do when implementing every little thing, in everyday life, makes people move forward. There’s no point in just becoming an expert after listening to lectures about racism.
Is discussing whiteness also important?
The theme of whiteness is important, as is masculinity and people without disabilities. Because a certain hierarchy circulates in the imagination of all of us, which is reflected in children’s relationships as well. There is a black person, an indigenous person, on the step below, on the step below where I, a white child, am. The challenge of thinking about inequality and difference has to be exercised every day because everything children learn on television and in everyday life is contrary to this.
Should there be expulsion of the girls who committed the racist act at Vera Cruz?
They shouldn’t be expelled. There should be work with these children, they should stay at school and learn there at school, make some routine contribution in this field. For example, let’s do research to bring storybooks about black princesses to our library or do some type of activity that they would develop over time, book reviews, research about toys. And involve all teachers and managers in systemic action. It is very important that you create learning processes for children. Understand how serious what she did was, doing a routine action for a certain time at school. The school has to learn to be mobilized based on this and not expel the child.
Actress Samara Felippo has said that it is very difficult for her daughter to live with attackers at the same school.
It’s really difficult, but we live every day. Young people live with the police, they are not even victims of racism, they face summary execution. He got distracted and if anything the police killed the young black man. I’m talking about an extreme case. But coexistence is important. You can’t remove all racists from institutions. So, yes, there is a lot of work involved in building equity policies and it is very challenging for those who committed racism and for those who suffered it. Regardless of the differences, it’s not the same thing, I don’t want to relativize it because it was very difficult for the girls to do, tear up and write a horrible expression. But where this comes from is the big question.
Like this?
My experience is that some very dissatisfied people do this within institutions. They have violent actions at times. They are very uncomfortable with that issue that has come up all the time and they have not been able to move forward in a territory of equity. That’s why I’m saying that I think the discussion of whiteness is important, the white reaction within an institution. The outbreaks of rebellion regarding the treatment of this topic, at some point it explodes. I don’t want to discourage any institution, it has to move forward with this, but it is necessary to have a systemic strategy, to have someone monitoring it for regular, semi-annual listening sessions, you know, to see what the organizational climate is like on this in order to be able to anticipate it as well.
And how do you see the role of the Ministry of Education and the education departments?
There is specific legislation about this, which guarantees the full development of all children, thinking about different identities. But there needs to be more campaigns about this, more materials made available, more training processes that can be accessed by teachers. And more instruction on how a school can act systemically, such as, for example, with spaces for complaints of discrimination, received and followed up. More information about how management can deal with this, how pedagogically you can deal with it. Racism is a non-bailable crime, people need to understand what that is. It happens in many private and public schools, but it needs to advance faster in the MEC and in the education departments.
I think anti-racism is the main pillar of democracy. In a way, this is what society has to face, it’s not just this school, it’s all of them, it’s the parliaments, the Judiciary, the companies. They have to stop being monolithic, they have to have equity policies and they have to learn to live with diversity while seeking equity.
Tags: listening lecture Cida Bento racism Samara Felippos daughter
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