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A Southern Brazilian talks about race in Brazil...
That explains all...
A Southern Brazilian can only talk for Southern Brazil.
And Southern Brazil is the smaller region of the five Brazilian regions.
Brazil is not the South. The racism that is so strong in the South is not representative of Brazil.
Brazil is SURELY a great racial democracy, and one of the least racist countries in the world. The Southern Region is just the little exception in a big country.
How many are mixed? You have to consider that there are probably those who avoided mixing with those considered not to be White.
99% are mixed.
Even in the South.
For a single reason, that I will explain to you now with a little fictional story:
Hans (fictional character) was a German peasant who migrated to Southern Brazil in the year 1895. In Brazil, Hans married Frida, a German woman who arrived in Brazil in 1891.
Hans and Frida had a son in 1897, and named him with a Portuguese name, Olavo.
Olavo was raised in a racist home, and was educated by his parents to avoid marriage with "non-whites".
When Olavo was 23 years old, in the year 1920, Olavo met a girl called Teresa Miranda Alves, that looked "white" to him. Olavo then married Teresa Miranda Alves, a woman with Portuguese surnames and Portuguese ancestry, that looked white, and had four kids with Teresa.
But what Olavo didn't realized, is that his wife was not REALLY white. She just LOOKED white.
Teresa Miranda Alves, as every Brazilian of Portuguese descent, was mixed race. One of her eight great-grandparents was an indigenous man who was converted to Christianity by the Spanish Jesuit priests in one of the "missiones" that existed in Southern Brazil when the region was still disputed between Portugal and Spain. Another one of Teresa's eight great-grandparents was a "mulata", a half-white half-black woman, who happened to be a domestic slave and had sexual relations with the young son of the slave owner, in the region of Minas Gerais, and from that sexual relation was born one of Teresa's grandfathers, a man who later moved from Minas Gerais to the town of Laguna, in Santa Catarina.
So, Teresa was also a descendant of black and indigenous people, as every Brazilian of Portuguese descent.
But Olavo didn't know that, and she looked white, so Olavo married her, even when he was educated in a racist environment, and was decided to not marry with non-whites.
That means that all of the four kids that Olavo had with Teresa are mixed-race Brazilians, even if one of them has a blonde hair.
And that's how "pure whites" completely disappeared in Southern Brazil.
Genetic studies show that one third of the population of Southern Brazil has mitochondrial DNA from non-European haplogroups. Since everyone has 4 grandparents, the probability that at least one of your grandparents has mitochondrial DNA from a non-European haplogroup is very high (since that's the case for one third of the population of the region). And if one of your grandparents is undoubtedly a descendant of non-Europeans, then you are not pure white, since you are descendant of all the ancestors of your grandparent.
And yet many Brazilian blacks do not agree with you.
Maybe your views are just as out of step as the Brazilian southerner who you condemn.
Oh and by the way this festival is organized by an AfroCuban.
And there is this contradiction. A white Brazilian can have VISIBLE non white ancestry and yet none would dispute that they have a right to identify as white. But yet a mixed looking person self identify as black and all of you will jump out and call them misguided as the on going diatribe against American blacks and how they self identify indicates.
And yet many Brazilian blacks do not agree with you.
Maybe your views are just as out of step as the Brazilian southerner who you condemn.
Oh and by the way this festival is organized by an AfroCuban.
And there is this contradiction. A white Brazilian can have VISIBLE non white ancestry and yet none would dispute that they have a right to identify as white. But yet a mixed looking person self identify as black and all of you will jump out and call them misguided as the on going diatribe against American blacks and how they self identify indicates.
Interesting that you mention such. In Brazil, identity can also be influenced by and based on what culture and/or community you are raised in. For example famous Brazilian celebrity Taís Araújo identifies as black, even though she has a mixture of African, Austrian, Portuguese among other things in her ancestral lineages. So if a mixed Afrodescendant is raised in or among the black community and feels closer attachment with such and they mutually embrace and are raised in the black culture then by all means that person is black.
Interesting that you mention such. In Brazil, identity can also be influenced by and based on what culture and/or community you are raised in. For example famous Brazilian celebrity Taís Araújo identifies as black, even though she has a mixture of African, Austrian, Portuguese among other things in her ancestral lineages. So if a mixed Afrodescendant is raised in or among the black community and feels closer attachment with such and they mutually embrace and are raised in the black culture then by all means that person is black.
The biggest difference between Brazil and the USA is how complex identities might be.
In the USA blacks and whites are basically the same culture, which both groups have contributed and utilize without thinking. Yes some differences in style, which are often more regional and less racial. So physical appearance determines race, with modifications made if some one has recent biracial ancestry.
In Brazil there are no ethnoracial identities, other than being white, for those who seek the prestige that whiteness brings. Some one wondered if a poor white Brazilian cared much about being white, when clearly he enjoyed no social prestige. Among the most bigoted people in the USA are whites who are poor and feel socially excluded.
So there is more fluidity in Brazil. So a senator, who might be described as mulato, will, for political purposes call himself black...this because he is advocating improved socio economic access for darker Brazilians and cloaking that within a "black" context. This in an attempt to deflect discussion away from skin color identity issues to facing the fact that there is little difference in status or in how the state treats darker mulatos in comparison to blacks.
Clearly a white person from Salvador will feel differently than one from the southern ;parts of Brazil, where African influences are minimal, seen as alien, and as a possible explanation as to why the North East is less developed. Because she can participate in the African cultural aspects of Brazil without suffering the stigmas of being seen as black.
Its hard from a US person to understand, given that identities are more fixed and so less complicated. I do not think that a white from arguably the most "African" part of the USA, NOLA, differs much from those from Minnesota in terms of their attitudes to race or culture.
This fluidity is often used by Brazilians, who wish to avoid the issue, as evidence that racism is minimal in Brazil. Facts are that the tremendous upward mobility that at least 1/2 of black America has enjoyed over the past 60 years hasn't happened in Brazil.
Tais Araujo is part of an emerging group of mulatos in Brazil who self identify as "black" in order to ensure that issues of racism are raised, and also to suggest that, even though she isn't seen as black she is hardly immune from skin colorism. Not necessarily now as he has made it, but many others like her, or in a situation when she encounters some one who doesn't know who she is.
Mala represents a way of thinking that has become outmoded. The last THREE presidents have conceded that there are issues of racism which must be addressed, hopefully in a way that suits Brazil and not blindly copying what they THINK is happening in the USA.
Don't know if you are in NYC but if so there will be a series of films which address this issue on December 14 sponsored by the African Diaspora Film Festival. Raca being one of them.
Last edited by caribny; 11-29-2013 at 11:27 PM..
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