Racism and prejudice against descendants of African enslavement continues to infiltrate politics and its implications for education in North-Central-South America and the Caribbean. Brazil with the largest African-descent population in the Americas established national policies to address inequities in life-course and educational opportunities. These include a court-approved affirmative action in higher education policy and national policy to incorporate African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture in the K-16 curriculum. This paper examines the implications and challenges of these policies for public discourse on education and race and the complexities of instantiating the necessary infrastructures to implement successfully these policies. Analyses distinguish higher education challenges from those in the K-12 sector and connects the conundrums of implementation in cross national comparisons of similar efforts in other countries where legacies of racial inequalities play out in education.
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