‘They thought I was white because I was fluent in English and French’: how racism hinders black careers in Brazil

“I felt that my career was being limited by my skin tone. I heard that it didn’t fit my profile. Or that I wouldn’t be someone they would promote”, recalls Luana Génot.

Luana says she doesn’t have the best memories when she was looking for a job in the communications field. But instead of just getting angry, she decided to do something about it: she is now executive director of ID_BR (Instituto Identidades do Brasil), an NGO that helps companies change their culture around black employees.

However, Luana’s professional beginnings were very different. She started modeling when she was still a teenager and living in Rio, and her fashion career has taken her all over the world, from London to Paris, via South Africa.

The work might seem glamorous at first, but she says she felt left out because of her skin color, as clients often couldn’t imagine someone like her representing their brands.

When she stopped modeling and returned home, she encountered the same obstacles.

‘False racial democracy’

More than 50% of Brazilians define themselves as pretos or pardos, according to the Census.

However, data from 2016 shows that blacks hold only about 6% of managerial positions and are paid an average of 44% less overall.

“Here there is this myth of racial democracy in which everyone, regardless of skin tone, can be welcome. And this is false”, says Luana. “The message to me was that this paradise doesn’t exist. We need to build it.”

That’s exactly what she’s trying to do with her institute — to help Brazilian companies be more “actively anti-racist,” in her own words.

She sees how companies benefit from attracting and retaining black talent who wouldn’t be able to enter the corporate market otherwise.

“This is not a favor for blacks. Companies need these blacks to think about products and services that serve the Brazilian majority.”

top change

Things have started to change in recent years. Affirmative action found fertile ground in Brazil. State institutions and public universities set quotas for black workers and students.

But for some people, quotas aren’t enough to make a difference. Just over a year ago, Luiza Trajano, owner of Magazine Luiza, Brazil’s largest retailer, decided to open her coveted management trainee program only to black candidates.

Trajano, who is white, started working at her family’s small gift shop in Franca, São Paulo, which opened in 1957. She took over the business in 1991 and turned it into a retail giant, selling everything , from moisturizers to MacBooks. She says concerns about her own unconscious bias toward racism motivated her to implement affirmative action at her company.

The businesswoman remembers that at her birthday parties or at her house there were never black women present. And she felt like she needed to do something about it.

Trajano found that 52% of the people who worked for Magazine Luiza were black, but at the managerial level this number was limited to 16%.

Every year, Magazine Luiza reserved some spots in the management trainee program for blacks, but no one applied.

Everything changed when the company decided to open a call exclusively for blacks. The result was surprising: 21 thousand applied for 20 vacancies. The company also ensured that new trainees received the same salaries as their white counterparts.

“Now when you look down the halls of the company, you see a lot more black employees than before. It seems to me that they feel like they belong there, regardless of their position,” Trajano tells the BBC.

lack of representation

Attempts to improve the recruitment and promotion of black employees are only one side of the coin. Access to education can be difficult for many young black people.

Alabe Nujara, who currently works for the NGO Instituto Guetto, in São Paulo, was one of those responsible for the successful campaign to implement quotas for underprivileged students in federal institutions. When, in 2009, he became the first in his family to enter university, he saw no one there who looked like him.

But despite being a successful student and activist, Nujara found it very challenging to be a black man trying to pursue a career in public relations. His impression is that blacks have much more chances in international companies based in the country.

When he finally got a job with a French company, he says people were constantly surprised that he was black when they first met him. The idea in phone calls and emails was that someone in his position, fluent in French and English, should be white.

And this anecdotal evidence is echoed in research by Graziella Moraes Silva, a Brazilian professor of sociology and anthropology who currently works at the Graduate Institute in Switzerland.

Back in her home country, she researched the experiences of black professionals in Brazil.

Moraes Silva found that, for many, the first time they felt good about being black in their careers was in the United States.

“Which, I think, says something about the kind of recognition these people weren’t getting in Brazil,” she says.

The professor points out that Brazil —the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888— sought to project the image of a country of mixed descent, where the color of a person’s skin does not matter.

For Luana Génot, there is a genuine belief that the kind of change she is working towards is achievable in her life.

“I work to no longer exist,” she says jokingly.

“In 50 years, I want to walk through companies and see more black professionals as managers, as directors. I don’t want this fight to be necessary anymore.”