African Daisies, black women workers in the municipal public service of Porto Alegre

threads and weaves of structural racism

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of black female workers in the municipal public service of Porto Alegre, highlighting their life stories and professional trajectories, in the context of structural racism, in the post-1990s period of the 20th century. For research purposes, the study’s problematization came from the professional trajectories of black workers in the municipality, who work in the areas of education, health and social assistance. The methodology used had the historical-dialectical materialism as a theoretical-methodological contribution, where an exploratory and analytical descriptive research was carried out, with the application of the information triangulation technique. As well, oral history was used to listen to stories and trajectories in the context of structural racism, which directly affects black women throughout their lives, with issues related to class, gender and race. Six black women public servants from Porto Alegre, ac-tivists of the antiracist struggle, were interviewed. The document analysis technique was also used on black public servants in the Porto Alegre City Hall. As a result, it was found that of the total public servants in Porto Alegre, 6.11% are black servants. And among female servants, 10.29% are black. It is verified that the threads and plots of structural racism, having as protagonists the black women public servants of Porto Alegre, point out the intertwining between class, race and gender, demonstrating the forms of struggle and resistance of black women in their socio-historical time. The results show the historical inequality of black women workers in capitalist/racist society and the intensification of this post-2016 coup. Structural racism is particularized in the work, in the reality and experience of black women public servants of the city hall, where it was found that all black female servants surveyed suffered and do suffer racism in their workplaces in different ways. It is concluded that the social struggles experienced by black workers who serve the municipality, especially with regard to the forms of organization and resistance against structural racism and institutional racism in the municipal public service, strengthen resistance as a central aspect of the struggle for human emancipation, which is permanent and in a continuous historical process, and in the bed of struggle.