BETWEEN CURRICULAR OBLIGATION AND RELIGIOUS SILENCE: RELIGIOUS RACISM AND THE LIMITS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF LAW 10,639/2003 IN BRAZILIAN SCHOOLS

Abstract

This article examines religious racism as a practical restriction mechanism for the implementation of ethnic-racial relations education in Brazilian schools. The documentary starting point is the letter issued by the Ministry of Racial Equality in July 2026, which formalized before São Paulo authorities a case of embarrassment suffered by educators while carrying out activities linked to Law 10,639/2003, and a police action that, in Manaus, interrupted a Tambor de Mina ceremony, mentioned in the same note as a distinct but related episode. Based on documentary analysis of official sources, the text reconstructs the normative trajectory that goes from the promulgation of Law 10,639/2003 to the National Curricular Guidelines for the Education of Ethnic-Racial Relations, through the National Policy for Traditional Peoples and Communities of Terreiro and African Matrix, established in 2024, to the reporting instruments currently available to civil society. It is argued that resistance to the teaching of Afro-Brazilian religions and cultures cannot be understood only as a manifestation of interpersonal intolerance between subjects in equivalent positions, but as an expression of structural racism, anchored in centuries of racialization and institutional persecution, which simultaneously affects the production of knowledge, social memory and the epistemic legitimacy of knowledge of African origin. The article analytically distinguishes teaching about Afro-Brazilian religions from school religious practice, discusses the limits of secularism often invoked to justify curricular silencing and situates teaching freedom as a relevant category for understanding the episode analyzed. It is concluded that recent regulations reduce institutional impunity in the face of episodes of religious racism without eliminating the daily vulnerability of teachers who, when complying with current legislation, remain exposed to embarrassment, unfounded denunciation and delegitimization.