Human rights, racism and racial quotas: the construction of antirracist democracy from recognition and consideration

Abstract

Democracy and Human Rights are two categories debated in the fields of Social Sciences in modernity. However, both have reached a level of exhaustion due to the abstract and restrictive perspective in which the debate was placed, especially in the bias of liberal political philosophy. The updating of the debate needs the element of race in the composition of modern societies, especially in those where slavery is an important component of understanding the process of social formation and, consequently, changes in the organization of society and its operation with the democratic states of law. The perception of slavery as a determinant element in the arrangement of Brazilian society implies in the observance of its effects for the social actors. There is, therefore, a need for epistemological reorganization in order to provide another look at the treatment of individual and collective identities of social actors. In this context, the importance of taking into account the recognition and consideration as necessary elements for the debate on the construction of an antiracist democracy and, at the same time, a reinterpretation of human rights from the empiria, instrumentalizing and making feasible such demands through of affirmative action policies such as racial quotas.