Every time an educational system has to admit new slices of society, the power structures suffer a shock. That's why, in Brazil, there is much ado about almost nothing: this year (2003), for the first time, a Brazilian public university adopted an Affirmative Action quota system, copying the USA system. The elites are nervous and organizing to fight to prevent a possible social earthquake. It may be "almost nothing", but in Rio de Janeiro, everything that happens, quickly becomes national news. The new quota system is at only one university, the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, but the fallout is as volatile as the highest point on the Richter scale.
Brazilian society, with a population of 175 million, has an interesting history with respect to racial issues. It was the last nation in the world to abolish slavery (1888); is the most racially mixed society in the world (65 million are mulattos); has the second largest black population in the world, after Nigeria (67 million Brazilians are of African descent); its racism is so subtle and diffuse that the country is wrongly known as a "racial democracy"; its Congress approved a law making racism a crime, but even official data can not hide the social, political, and economic frustration of its black people (Cahn, 22).
The difficult social climate in Brazil is not new; on the contrary, it has persisted for a very long time. For example, in 1600, in a region named Palmares, a group of 40 enslaved Africans rebelled, went to the mountains, and created a large community which existed for almost 100 years, fighting against and defeating the Brazilian army many times. In the 1830s, the Males, a contingent of slaves bought in Muslim countries, organized so many revolts that they were considered "too dangerous....
