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Racism and discrimination in Portugal – The path we travel
In time and in history the relationship of Portugal with women and men from the most different places has been a constant. The frame that displays these relations needs an urgent adaptation that allows this diversity to live together in their differences and specificities in a way guided for the rights, freedoms and guarantees of each person, perfectly assured in the Constitution.
Globalization, the new communication tools as well as a deeper awareness of minorities has led to the strengthen and multiplication of social, cultural and political movements disruptive towards the standards of an obsolete, addicted and structurally racist system.
The sphere of structural and institutional racism
The practice of discriminatory behaviour at the scale of interpersonal relationships has long been known as racial discrimination therefore configuring what we all understand as racism. Never the less is this understanding exclusive when we address and debate discrimination and racism? Is this the most harmful and worrying form of racism?
When in a given territory there is the perception of a stagnant social lift for certain groups, a permanent under-representation or negative representation and a watertight socio-economic condition for these same groups what we see is a country where racial discrimination is poured into the legal, political and social structures on a macro scale, identified as institutional and structural racism.
In these cases, an effective governmental position in these matters is urgent, with the implementation of effective political measures, which allow and accelerate a process of transition to a country where all people belong historically, identitarianly and/or genetically.
Text written by Angella Graça , who has a degree in International Relations from the Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Lisbon. Born in July 19th 1989, in Saint-Denis, France, has Cape Verdean and Portuguese nationality. She is the President of the Board of the INMUNE – Institute of the Black Woman in Portugal.
