Racial democracy
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Racial democracy (Portuguese: democracia racial) is a concept that denies the existence of racism in Brazil. Some scholars of race relations in Brazil argue that the country has escaped racism and racial discrimination. Those researchers cite the fact that most Brazilians claim not to view others through the lens of race, and thus the idea of racial discrimination is irrelevant.
Many sociologists and anthropologists, however, view the idea of racial democracy as myth or ideology that seeks to validate the ideal that Brazil is a place where people of all races can participate in society equally. They instead emphasize the compelling evidence of inequalities motivated by racism as well as cultural, social, and political structures that privilege white Brazilians.
(Some content in this edit is translated from the existing Portuguese Wikipedia article at pt:Democracia racial; see its history for attribution.)
Overview
Racial democracy as an ideal was first advanced by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre in his work Casa-Grande & Senzala (English: The Masters and the Slaves), published in 1933. Although Freyre never uses this term in the book, he did adopt it in later publications, and his theories paved the way for other scholars who would popularize the concept.
Freyre argued that several factors, including close relations between masters and slaves prior to their legal emancipation in 1888 and the supposedly benign character of
Freyre's theory became a source of national pride for Brazil, which contrasted itself favorably vis-a-vis the contemporaneous racial divisions and violence in the
In the past four decades, after the publication in 1974 of Thomas E. Skidmore's Black into White, a revisionist study of Brazilian race relations, scholars have begun to criticize the notion that Brazil is actually a "racial democracy". Skidmore argues that the predominantly white elite within Brazilian society promoted racial democracy to obscure very real forms of racial oppression.[3]
France Winddance Twine's 1997 ethnography also appears to support those contentions.[4]
Hanchard compiles a great deal of research from other scholars demonstrating widespread discrimination in
Gilberto Freyre on criticism
The life of Gilberto Freyre, after he published Casa-Grande & Senzala, became an eternal source of explanation. He repeated several times that he did not create the myth of a racial democracy, and that the fact that his books recognized the intense mixing between "races" in Brazil did not signify a lack of prejudice or discrimination. He pointed out that many people have claimed the United States to have been an "exemplary democracy" whereas slavery and racial segregation were present throughout most of the history of the United States.[6]
"The interpretation of those who want to place me among the sociologists or anthropologists who said prejudice of race among the Portuguese or the Brazilians never existed is extreme. What I have always suggested is that such prejudice is minimal ... when compared to that which is still in place elsewhere, where laws still regulate relations between Europeans and other groups".
"It is not that racial prejudice or social prejudice related to complexion are absent in Brazil. They exist. But no one here would have thought of "white-only" Churches. No one in Brazil would have thought of laws against interracial marriage ... Fraternal spirit is stronger among Brazilians than racial prejudice, color, class or religion. It is true that equality has not been reached since the end of slavery ... There was racial prejudice among plantation owners, there was social distance between the masters and the slaves, between whites and blacks ... But few wealthy Brazilians were as concerned with racial purity as the majority were in the Old South".[6]
See also
- Assimilado
- Casta
- Colonial mentality
- Colorism
- Czechoslovak myth
- La Raza Cósmica
- Lusotropicalism
- Mongrel complex
- Multiracial democracy
- Pardo
- Partus sequitur ventrem
- Race in Brazil
- Racial hierarchy
- Racial hygiene
- Racial whitening in Brazil (Blanqueamiento)
- Racism in Brazil
- Racism in a Racial Democracy
- Rainbow nation
- Religious harmony in India
- White privilege
- Whitewashing (beauty)
References
- ^ Gilberto Freyre. The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization. Samuel Putnam (trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
- ^ a b c Michael Hanchard. Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
- ^ Thomas E. Skidmore. Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
- ^ France Winddance Twine (1997). Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil. Rutgers University Press.
- ISBN 978-0-8223-5320-1.
- ^ a b "A importância de Gilberto Freyre para a construção da Nação Brasileira - Parte II - Instituto Millenium". 11 December 2009. Retrieved 14 October 2017.