Racial democracy

Racial democracy (Portuguese: "Democracia racial") is a term used by some to describe race relations in Brazil. The term denotes some scholars' belief that Brazil has escaped the racism and racial discrimination of other countries, most notably the United States. These researchers contend that Brazilians do not view each other through the lens of race, and do not harbor racial prejudice towards one another. Because of this, while social mobility of Brazilians may be constrained by many factors, gender and class included, racial discrimination is considered irrelevant.

Racial democracy was supposedly first advanced by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre in his work "Casa-Grande & Senzala" (English: "The Masters and the Slaves"), published in 1933. However, Freyre never uses the term anywhere in the book, though he did adopt it in later publications. Freyre argued that several factors, including close relations between masters and slaves prior to legal emancipation in 1889 and the supposedly benign character of Portuguese imperialism prevented the emergence of strict racial categories. Freyre also argues that continued miscegenation between the three races -- Amerindians, the descendants of African slaves, and whites -- would lead to a "whitening" of the former two groups, creating a distinct and superior "meta-race". [Gilberto Freyre. "The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization". Samuel Putnam (trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press.]

Freyre's theory became a source of national pride for Brazil, which contrasted itself favorably with the racial divisions and violence then taking place in the United States. Over time, racial democracy would become widely accepted among Brazilians of all stripes and many foreign academics. Black researchers in the United States would make unfavorable comparisons between their own country and Brazil during the 1960s.Michael Hanchard. "Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988". Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.]

In the past four decades, beginning around 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. [Thomas E. Skidmore. "Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought". New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.] Michael Hanchard, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, has argued that the ideology of racial democracy, often promoted by state apparatuses, prevents effective action to combat racial discrimination by leading people to ascribe discrimination to other forms of oppression and allowing government officials charged with preventing racism to deny its existence a priori.

Hanchard and others further argue that Freyre's very notion that "whitening" is essential to the creation of a new, superior race is racist in itself. He further compiles a great deal of research from other scholars demonstrating widespread discrimination in employment, education, and electoral politics. The seemingly paradoxical use of racial democracy to obscure the realities of racism has been referred to scholar Florestan Ferdandes as the "prejudice of having no prejudices." That is, because the state assumes the absence of racial prejudice, it refuses to enforce what few laws exist to counter racial discrimination, believing such efforts to be unnecessary.

ee also

*Demography of Brazil
*Ethnic groups in Brazil
*Race in Brazil
*Lusotropicalism

References