Carrefour: Entities require the presence of black people in management – 05/12/2023 – Market

The aggression and humiliation suffered by a black couple accused of stealing a can of milk from a Carrefour store in Salvador is not an isolated case.

Based on several cases of racism reported by the press over the past two years, a second public civil action against Carrefour was filed in the São Paulo court by anti-racist entities on April 12. This has an unprecedented demand: the parties demand changes in the direction of the company, with the inclusion of Afro-Brazilians with racial literacy in the Board of Directors.

Unprecedented in Brazilian law, the measure is the main one that the entities intend to impose on the French retail group through judicial means, in addition to demanding, again, that the sum of R$ 115 million be allocated to affirmative actions for the black population .

In 2021, Carrefour had been the defendant in the first lawsuit filed by the entities Educafro and Centro Santo Dias due to the murder of João Alberto Silveira de Freitas, known as Beto Freitas, by the chain’s security guards, in Porto Alegre. The company reached a legal agreement with the entities to allocate R$ 115 million to the black community.

However, according to the lawyer responsible for the two actions, Márlon Reis, the company refuses to present the receipts to the black movement and human rights entities. “We don’t know how this money is being used, there is no transparency with civil society”, he says.

unprecedented action

According to Márlon, no action has ever asked for what is being asked for now. This is because the previous action called for the development of racial equity measures by Carrefour.

Among them, several that served to prevent the repetition of cases of hatred and social discrimination, such as training for the entire security team and employees, alerts and reporting channels. A series of measures that would serve to change the company’s profile in the way it deals with black people, explains the lawyer.

However, he says, this did not work and the “proof of this is that the facts are repeating themselves”. The lawyer has already sued former Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet for racism, when he uttered racist words against Lewis Hamilton in an interview with a YouTube channel.

“In the petition we filed on April 12, we have five cases documented, but we know that there are many more. These are just the ones that came out in the press. I myself am black, my girlfriend too, and we were followed in a Carrefour”.

Márlon claims that the asset protection culture at Carrefour is “racial profiling”, which assumes that people represent a danger because of the color of their skin. According to him, security is mobilized around containing this “risk” for the company.

Because of this, the professional argues that, in this new action, it was the group he represents that decided not to ask for team training anymore.

The Beto Freitas case did not change the company’s culture, according to a lawyer

For the lawyer, the demands of the previous action did not work because they did not change the company’s culture. “They assumed a series of commitments to put an end to an image crisis and not to really change as a company. The public discourse was one (“Let’s not forget”), to say that the Beto Freitas case would change the company’s profile, but they quickly forgot about it after the indemnity was announced. They thought that solved it”, he observes.

Now, explains Reis, “our gaze has turned to what we understand to be the cause. This is not a crisis. structural. The proof of this is in the company itself: when we look at the Board of Directors and the board of directors of Carrefour in Brazil, we see only white people. They did not create a universe of diversity at the top of the company. How they may want to achieve an armed security guard who is there at the end if they don’t do anything themselves?”, he asks. “That’s why now we want to change who does it. We say that Carrefour’s direction has to be merged, putting people who know the pain of being black in a racist country like Brazil”, he says.

structural racism

For Reis, it is not a matter of blaming a single company for the structural racism that exists in Brazil. “Structural racism needs to be faced with measures, including punitive ones. In the case of Carrefour, especially, a precedent fact that involved death and they continue not to adopt new policies. Structural racism is endemic, but that is not an excuse for companies not to act “, concludes.

The core of the argument, he explains, is that any black person in Brazil runs a potential risk if they are going to carry out a consumption activity at Carrefour. “It’s not about those people, it’s how the chain deals in Brazil with a majority of the black population, which is subject to these flaws arising from a deformed internal culture of the company. That’s why we treat this as a collective demand. And not only the black people. We are a diverse, plural country, it is in the Constitution, so it is in everyone’s interest that no one be treated with discrimination for any reason”.

For the political scientist president of the association SOS Racismo, Dominique Sopo, “Carrefour remains in the eye of the hurricane in Brazil because the company clearly did not understand the extent of the problems existing in its stores in the management of its teams and in its culture of governance”.

“I think this new action is very positive, which demands that the Justice interfere in the matter, it is necessary to shake up the organizations if we want things to change, mainly because racism is based on prejudices, on routines, and that has to change. racism is to implement devices, practices, change the organization of companies”, says Sopo.

“Mobilizing the different social actors”

“Of course, if you ask anyone, they will say they are against racism. But it is in practice that we see this. Military in any country, is trying to change society. So, when we have cases of racism like that anchored, it is need to simultaneously mobilize the different social actors”, says the political scientist.

Despite this, Sopo thinks that, in France, a court intervention in a company to place black people in positions (management or otherwise) would be unthinkable, since the French Republic is founded on universalism and does not carry out a census based on skin color .

For lawyer Márlon Reis, the fact that France does not talk about races and that Carrefour is a French company may influence the company’s culture, “of denying racism”.

Resident in France, artist, researcher and activist Fabiana Ex-Souza, who organized a demonstration in front of Carrefour’s world headquarters in Massy, ​​France, in 2020, in protest against the murder of João Alberto Silveira de Freitas, considers this new public civil action is very important for several reasons.

“I believe that it is necessary to have transparency on how this compensation money is being used and how affirmative actions are being put into practice. And today, demanding the representation of black people with racial literacy in leadership positions represents a struggle for us, a conversation that we need to put in Brazilian society, which is the professional ascension of black people in Brazil”, he says. For Fabiana, “the more there are black people in leadership positions, the more we will see structural changes”.

Blacks as suspects

“Carrefour has a problem of structural racism, that is, if it treats black bodies this way it is because orders come out from somewhere that make black people be treated as suspects in their supermarkets. The case of Beto Freitas was not a case isolated, there are several complaints”, he underlines.

According to the researcher, racial literacy allows white people to understand that racism has to be fought collectively. “We all need to be anti-racists, this fight belongs to all of us, to the entire Brazilian population.”

Living in France since 2010, Fabiana lives and reflects on racism every day: “I ask myself if I have a choice to be an activist or not, both in France and in Brazil, because being a ‘racialized’ person, or you fight violence that you face in everyday life or you end up becoming mentally ill. These everyday cases of racism take us to a place of pain and anger, so being an activist is protecting yourself. It is deciding to face the world to live well, to love yourself”.

For her, putting this “Ex” before her last name was remarkable: “I carry the name of the colonizers, enslavers, so I put this ‘Ex’ as a decolonial act. Decolonizing the family name is, in my case, an artistic proposition and poetic, and as a place of mental healing”.

Fabiana compares the fights in Brazil and France: “I believe that the fact that there are no official racial statistics here in France harms the anti-racist fight. When we expose a case of racism, when we talk about ‘race’ here, the the French always counter by saying that this does not exist, that everyone is the same, that this is in their heads, and that, if we denounce them, it is us who are being racist. This is brutal, this way they treat our fights here. That is, there is racism here, but talking about race is prohibited within the French Republic”, he analyzes.

Carrefour’s response

Contacted by RFICarrefour’s press office replied:

“The Carrefour Group reiterates its commitment to the fight against racism, and informs that, in the last two years, it has implemented more than 50 anti-racist actions. These actions are aimed at employability, professional development and Afro-entrepreneurship. complaints in its stores, the company immediately initiates a thorough investigation and, based on the results of the investigation, takes strict measures within its anti-racist policy.

After signing the TAC in 2021, the Group allocated BRL 115 million to initiatives aimed at education and income generation for black people. Among the projects involved are an English-speaking scholarship call, a scholarship call for scholarships worth R$68 million and the internalization of internal security at the Group’s stores. In addition, 100% of our employees received training in racial literacy.

In the continuous process of evolving its protocols, the Group analyzed its internal processes and took the decision to implement the following new measures, as of last April 12th:

• Interruption of the circulation of prevention inspectors in Atacadão stores. These employees will be available to customers at fixed and predetermined points, in front of the cashier or in rooms with closed-circuit television;
• Improvements in the camera monitoring process to maintain a safe environment for customers of the Group’s networks;
• Review of training for its store teams in partnership with the Zumbi dos Palmares University;
• Increased visibility of reporting channels.

The Group reinforces its commitment to the fight against racism for its 150,000 employees and society as a whole.”