LAW 10.639/03 AS A PARTIAL RUPTURE OF THE CURRICULAR PACT OF WHITENESS: EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISPUTES, INSTITUTIONAL RECONFIGURATIONS, AND THE LIMITS OF BRAZILIAN EDUCATIONAL REFORM

Abstract

This article analyzes Law 10.639/03 as an intervention that places pressure on, without fully rupturing, the curricular pact of whiteness historically sedimented in the Brazilian educational system. It argues that the mandatory teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture does not constitute a mere thematic expansion, but rather a political-epistemic fissure that displaces Africa and the Black population from a position of absence to the center of the formative narrative. Drawing on Brazilian racial critique, decolonial thought, and curriculum studies, the article demonstrates that the law operates simultaneously as a disruptive force and as a mechanism of containment, insofar as its institutionalization is traversed by processes of folklorization, depoliticization, and bureaucratic resistance. The analysis of Opinion CNE/CP No. 03/2004, Resolution CNE/CP No. 01/2004, and the National Common Core Curriculum makes it possible to understand how the curricular pact of whiteness, though formally displaced, is reconstituted within contemporary normative language. It is argued that the transformative effectiveness of the legislation lies less in its juridical formalization than in its capacity to sustain concrete struggles against white sovereignty over school memory.