Remote Learning and the Deepening of Racial Inequalities in Brazil

Abstract

In this essay, we seek to support the thesis that the lethality of the pathogen that produced the Covid-19 Pandemic is not only expressed in its power of death against material bodies, but also in the subjective violence perpetrated against racialized groups, notably the form and educational content that was provided to these groups during the period of social isolation. This thesis is confirmed above all when the type of education that is intended for racialized people is an education that is even more precarious than what they have historically had access to. As a result of the woven analyses, we explain that the Brazilian State, during the Covid-19 Pandemic, institutionally implemented a “class racism” and deepened the educational inequalities between racialized and non-racialized people. Although this constitutes an insurmountable abyss, within the limits of the capitalist structure, mitigations of this abyss of inequality are possible and, in an immediate character, desirable. Indeed, if they exist, it is necessary to recognize their limits within this structure and not settle for the least worse when we could enjoy the best.