Procon opens space for complaints of racism this Tuesday

Procon (Foundation for Consumer Protection and Defense) opens this Tuesday (22) a physical space for its branch specializing in racism complaints: Procon Racial, an initiative in partnership with Universidade Zumbi dos Palmares.

The service, announced in November last year, did not yet have its own location. Before, it was necessary to file a complaint at any Procon unit or on the agency’s website, in a specific tab. Now, it will be possible to go to its headquarters, located at the partner educational institution, which is located on Avenida Presidente Castello Branco, downtown São Paulo.

Complaints through the website continue to be accepted.

The inauguration of the unit comes after several attacks on black people in commercial establishments – cases that gained prominence and generated protests.

In November 2020, on the eve of Black Awareness Day, João Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40, was beaten and killed by two security guards at a Carrefour supermarket unit in Porto Alegre. The black man died under the eyes of witnesses. The video of his murder ran across the country and sparked a wave of protests.

Another recent case occurred at a Zara unit in Fortaleza, where delegate Ana Paula Barroso, who is black, was expelled from the store. For her, the motivation was racism — the company denies it.

The Procon Racial initiative is part of a series of measures promoted by the university and unified in the Zero Racism project. One of them is the Acolhe Empresarial platform, which will allow those who seek Procon Racial to contact psychologists, social workers and lawyers through artificial intelligence.

Another of the measures is a letter of principles that companies of any size can join. They will need to complete training stages to, at the end, receive a seal of a safe place against racism.

The idea, says the dean of the Zumbi dos Palmares University, José Vicente, is to go beyond the actions taken by the victims and invite companies to be part of the effort.

“Most of the time, who is making this effort to identify, register and denounce is the government itself, NGOs and interested parties, when the problem affects and produces damages for all”, he says.

“It doesn’t matter if you are poor or rich, if you are on the hill or on the asphalt, if you are an ordinary person or a qualified authority. Consumer relations in Brazil are structured on top of social relations that, in turn, presuppose a of suspicion in relation to black people”, says Vicente.

“Every time the black aesthetic appears in these environments, that danger button is automatically activated.”