Is Brazil Color-blind? Not quite, but Americans can learn from its ideal of ‘racial democracy’
The United States is undergoing radical changes regarding how Americans look at race, but it is not the only nation to wage this ideological war. Brazil has recently placed itself under a microscope as it struggles with how race and ethnicity have an impact on the lives of its citizens.
According to Brazil’s 2010 census, 50.7 percent of the population identify as mixed or black (Afro-Brazilian) and 47.7 percent register as white. Yet according to The Society for the Study of Economic Inequality or ECINEQ, the disposable income of Afro-Brazilians is approximately 58 percent that of whites, and they make up the vast majority of Brazil’s poor. Approximately 37 percent of all of Afro-Brazilians live beneath the poverty level.
Additionally, young Afro-Brazilians are killed far more often by the police. A study by The Washington Office on Latin America found that 327.6 of Afro-Brazilians living in the city of Maceio are killed per 100,000 people. compared to the white statistic of 24.3. Specific cities such as Recife show similar statistics with black fatalities being 185 compared to the whites at 13.9.
“There is much division in Brazil,” said Diogo Oliveira, a 41-year-old Afro-Brazilian immigrant living in Miami. “Darker-skinned Brazilians are horribly discriminated against but so many ignore the suffering like it is not even there.”
Brazil’s racial inequality can be traced back to their history. When the Portuguese invaded Brazil, they enslaved and subsequently decimated the native population. As a replacement they turned to African slaves. When the slave trade ended in 1850, approximately 3 million Africans had already been forced into Brazil for enslavement. When slavery itself did end for Brazil in 1888, it was the last country in the Western hemisphere to do so.
Under the belief that whites were the superior race, Brazil’s government would later create a method known as mestiçagem or “racial mixing” in an attempt to “whiten” the country. The government paid the passages of Europeans to immigrate to Brazil in order to promote interracial children in the nation.
However, Brazil would later embrace the idea of not being simply white or black but instead a mixture of several races which they would later call a “mestizo” or someone of several racial backgrounds. This thought led to Brazil’s declaration of being a racial democracy.
“With racial democracy came a belief that racial mixing is good, that there is no black or white or brown and that all Brazilians are effectively Brazilian,” said Professor Mark H. Harvey, Associate Professor of Sociology at Florida Atlantic University. However, Harvey added, this ideology is not necessarily beneficial to the nation. “What Racial Democracy does is suppresses any consciousness of there being any racial differences.” Harvey went on to state that this may lead citizens to think that since everyone is the same, surely everyone is treated the same too.
While parts of the nation may have embraced the idea of there being no differences between race, it may simply be a mindset.
“The racial identity and inequality remain in reality, but ideologically they are taped over by the ideas that there is no race in Brazil and that we are all Brazilians,” said Harvey.
However, recently actions are being taken in order to combat racial disparities in Brazil, such as the implementation of Affirmative Action in the early 2000s. This made it so that all universities must reach racial quotas, with three states even approving laws that required 40 percent of new students admitted to be of Afro-American descent.
However, it is the identification process that determines whether someone is considered black that leads to one of Brazil’s more controversial topics. In order to apply for Affirmative Action, one must be named as being black by a “racial board.” These boards were created by Brazil’s government in order to identify who among the population is eligible.
Not much is known about how the boards determine race but many believe it to be entirely based on physical appearance and nothing else. In the PBS Documentary, “Brazil in Black and White,” identical twins applied to be registered as Afro-Brazilian in order to increase their likelihood of being accepted into college. They both had their photos taken which were sent to a board for review.
In the end, one became registered as black, while the other had his application denied: he was labeled as white. “This highlights a fundamental problem with identifying people racially in that it is highly subjective,” said Harvey.
Some Brazilians argue that there’s far less racism in their home country than in the US. Take Fabiola Sousa, a Brazilian immigrant who came to the United States as a young adult. “Brazil is not like it is here in the States,” said Sousa. “Brazil is a place where people may be suffering, but it’s not because of what you color you are.”
Others agree that racism definitely exists in Brazil. Taylla de Paula, a resident of Brazil who lives in a predominately Afro-Brazilian city named Salvador, says anyone who argues that the country is color-blind is actually blind to reality. “It’s surreal to think it does not exist,” Paula said in an interview conducted via Facebook Messenger. “I do not think you can ask someone about racism who does not live here.”
Change is certainly afoot in Brazil and it likely has to do with people turning toward recognizing racial inequality instead of ignoring it. “Brazil can claim they do not have race, but the data indicates race is a very significant source of inequality,” said Harvey. “We’re stuck with race. We can’t get around it, we can’t get rid of it so we have to go through it.”
