Racial discrimination and miscegenation: the experience in Brazil

In 1888, Brazil, with a majority black and mixed-race or mulatto population, was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. For more than three hundred years of slavery in America, the country was the largest importer of African slaves, bringing seven times as many African slaves into the country as the United States. Another vital difference was the degree of racial mixing or combination. resulting in a giant component of a tall sex ratio among its colonists. Unlike family colonization in North America, the Portuguese settlers in Brazil were primarily men. As a result, they occasionally sought out African, indigenous, and mulatto women as components, so miscegenation or combination of races was not unusual. Today, Brazilians are sometimes proud of their mixed-race history and continue to have much higher intermarriage rates than the United States. Miscegenation and intermarriage reestablished fluid race relations and, unlike in the United States or South Africa, there were no fluid race relations. – express legislation or policies, such as segregation or acomponentheid, throughout the 20th century. It is for these reasons that Brazilians considered their country a “racial democracy” from the 1930s until recent years. They believed that racism and racial discrimination were minimal or nonexistent in Brazilian society, unlike other multiracial societies in the world. In the past, a relatively narrow view of discrimination only identified particular component manifestations of racism or race-based legislation as discriminatory, so only countries such as South Africa and the United States were actually considered racist. Furthermore, there was little formal discussion of race in Brazilian society, while other societies were obsessed with race and racial difference. At the time of abolition, Brazil’s population was predominantly black or mixed race until the 1930s, when Brazil encouraged and welcomed gigantic numbers of European immigrants in their search for new resources of hard work. of work. In the context of the clinical racism of the time, which considered a non-white population problematic for its long-term development, the Brazilian government encouraged European immigration while blocking Chinese and African immigrants. The developing population of European descent was also expected to combine with non-whites, further “whitening” the Brazilian population. The 2000 census shows that approximately 40% of the national population is brown or mixed race, while five% are black and 54% are white; Less than 1% are considered Asian or indigenous. These statistics are largely based on personal identity, and in Brazil race or color is sometimes decided through appearance. Many other people considered white, of course, may have African or indigenous ancestry, but their appearance defines their elegance and attention in society. Of course, there is ambiguity in the elegance of Americans who transcend the boundaries of color. Today, the majority of Brazilians of all colors recognize that racial prejudice and discrimination exist in the country. Based on statistical research from censuses, surveys and other evidence, we know that racial inequality is maximum and that racial discrimination in the hard labor market and other spheres of Brazilian society is not unusual. Non-whites suffer the most from human rights violations, compounded by widespread police violence. On average, black and brown Brazilians (mulatto or mixed race) earn part of the income source of the white population. In particular, the middle class and elite are at most entirely white, so Brazil’s well-known melting pot only exists between the middle class and elite. Non-white Brazilians were rare at the country’s more sensible universities until affirmative action began in 2001. Most discrimination in Brazil is sophisticated and includes slights, assaults, and many other dishonest practices, while consciously blatant racism and overtly targets specific Americans, especially in the form of racial slurs, it is not atypically identified as racist. Although Brazil’s anti-racist legislation focuses on these types of incidents, which have long been considered un-Brazilian, sophisticated individual and institutional practices maintain and reproduce racial inequalities. Racist thinking tactics, in which racial hierarchies are considered natural, are said to be as culturally ingrained in Brazil as they are around the world. In societies such as the United States, sociologists have also discovered how racism persists and reproduces racial inequality, despite the end of race-based legislation and the decline of componenticular or blatant racism. There is sufficient statistical evidence to show that racial inequality in Brazil is due in part to persistent discrimination, despite the long-standing absence of race-based legislation or its undoubtedly milder form of racism. Sociological studies on mobility show that black and brown Brazilians, whose parents worked in specific occupational or class groups, are less likely to enjoy upward mobility than whites from the same occupational or class backgrounds. Furthermore, econometric analyzes based on human capital models reveal that Brazilians of color, that is, blacks, earn approximately 20 to 25 percent less than whites of the same origin, depending on age, professional experience, level of schooling, level of completion, region, social level. origin and market of hard work. The characteristics are taken into account. Another study shows that siblings of other skin colors, a common phenomenon in a mixed-race country like Brazil, have other levels of schooling, and darker siblings are more likely to drop out of school than their white siblings. In this study, all points except discriminatory redress on the basis of race (by teachers, parents, etc. ) are strictly taken into account. The consistent findings on social mobility, the econometric investigation of income sources and the comparison of the educational levels of siblings of different skin colors demonstrate persistent racial discrimination. These quantitative effects do not deserve to be surprising, given the way race is talked about and constituted in Brazilian society and given the whitewashing ideology of Brazil’s past, founded on the clinical racism of the time. Despite the long-standing and recent absence of race-based legislation in Brazil and the population’s long-standing denial of racism, Brazilians are not surprised when others make racist jokes or comments. Television and advertising make Brazilian society, at most, entirely white; In reality, middle elegance is at most entirely white, revealing a glass ceiling that disproportionately excludes non-whites. The prestige of the middle class in Brazil is increasingly based on school education, making school admission the most appropriate place for race-conscious affirmative action. Miscegenation occurs at most exclusively among the lower, ordinary class, while the middle class, which promotes miscegenation and opposes affirmative action, rarely revels in it. Marriages are more common between people of the same class; for the middle class, this often means they are among white people. Largely due to the inadequacy of anti-racist legislation to address persistent social racism and as a reaction to the black social movement in a recently democratized country. In Brazilian society, several universities and other public establishments have begun to impose racial quotas. Following the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, many major universities are now mandated to admit a consistent percentage of non-white students. These policies constitute a new step in Brazil’s efforts to fight racial inequality; However, they are not without controversy, as a backlash has recently begun. Critics say policies based on elegance and universal reforms, such as increased public education, would have the same effect without the need to define Brazilians based on race or color. Proponents of racial quotas argue that race-sensitive solutions, as well as universal policies, are mandatory to reduce the high levels of racial inequality in Brazil, and that before affirmative action, there was not much interest in remedying inequalities. racial. The end of the “racial democracy” way of thinking, a national debate on race and racism and the beginning of serious political attempts to reduce racial inequality constitute a new point for Brazil.

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