cotton plantations) was central to the development process in the United States; again, like Brazil, African-Americans have languished at the bottom of the economic ladder in the United States since their enslavement up to the present day. In 2011, the wealth holding of the typical African-American family was 5 per cent of that of a typical white family, and the unemployment rate among African-Americans was 16 per cent, compared to 8 per cent among whites (Darity and Hamilton, 2012, p. 2). All this is clearly a continuing legacy of slavery, postslavery institutionalized racial discrimination, and continuing post-affirmative action illegal discrimination.  
When it comes to state policy that addresses the legacy of slavery and injustice, Brazil and the United States are very different. For example, the United States Supreme Court ruled against the use of racial quotas for university admissions, but its counterpart in Brazil ruled in favour in 2012, and the President, Dilma Rousseff, signed a law (the same year) requiring all federal universities to have the racial make-up of their students reflect that of their state location (Reid, 2014, p. 183). Affirmative action in the United States, as defined by Executive Order 11246 of 1965, 'is designed to rectify existing discrimination by making sure the employment process operates in a way that is fair to all candidates, regardless of race or sex. In the area of higher education, affirmative action can ensure that blacks today have a fair opportunity to compete for all educational benefits'. (Fleming, Gill and Swinton, 1978, p. xxi). Thus, by law, state policy in the United States does not address the cumulative effects of slavery and post-slavery institutionalized racial discrimination. Having done little to address the problem for many decades, since the 1990s the state in Brazil has designed programmes, such as bolsa familia (family grants), to address the lingering effects of past injustices (Neri, 2009, pp. 221-269).