Racial democracy
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Racial democracy ( pt, Democracia racial) is a term used by some to describe
race relations Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in the ...
in
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. The term denotes some scholars' belief that Brazil has escaped
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
and
racial discrimination Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
. Those 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 that, while
social mobility Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society ...
of Brazilians may be constrained by many factors,
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
and
class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...
included, racial discrimination is considered irrelevant (within the confines of the concept racial democracy).


Overview

Racial democracy was first advanced by Brazilian sociologist
Gilberto Freyre Gilberto de Mello Freyre (March 15, 1900 – July 18, 1987) was a Brazilian sociologist, anthropologist, historian, writer, painter, journalist, congressman born in Recife, Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. He is commonly associated with other ...
in his work ''
Casa-Grande & Senzala ''Casa-Grande e Senzala'' ( en, The Masters and the Slaves, italic=yes) is a book published in 1933 by Gilberto Freyre, about the formation of Brazilian society. The '' casa-grande'' ("big house") refers to the slave owner's residence on a sugarca ...
'' (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 Portuguese imperialism prevented the emergence of strict racial categories. Freyre also argued that continued
miscegenation Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
between the three races (
Amerindians The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Ame ...
, the descendants of African slaves, and whites) would lead to a "meta-race", i.e.', a " postracial race" or a "race beyond race(s)". 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
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Over time, his theory would become widely accepted both among Brazilians of all stripes and many foreign academics.
Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
researchers in the United States would make unfavorable comparisons between their own country and Brazil during the 1960s.
Michael Hanchard Michael Hanchard, often published as Michael G. Hanchard, is an American political scientist, currently the Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the director of the Marginalized Populati ...
. ''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, 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.
Michael Hanchard Michael Hanchard, often published as Michael G. Hanchard, is an American political scientist, currently the Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the director of the Marginalized Populati ...
, a
political scientist Political science is the science, scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of politics, political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated c ...
at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, 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 ("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ex ...
.
France Winddance Twine France Winddance Twine is a Black and Native American sociologist, ethnographer, visual artist. and documentary filmmaker. Twine's research has made significant contributions to interdisciplinary research in gender and sexuality studies, racism ...
's 1997 ethnography also appears to support those contentions. Hanchard compiles a great deal of research from other scholars demonstrating widespread discrimination in
employment Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any othe ...
,
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, and
electoral politics An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections ma ...
. The seemingly paradoxical use of racial democracy to obscure the realities of racism has been referred to by scholar
Florestan Fernandes Florestan Fernandes (22 July 1920 – 10 August 1995) was a Brazilian sociologist and politician. He was also elected federal deputy twice. Life and career Fernandes came from a poor family with his mother being a "washerwoman". In youth he to ...
as the "prejudice of having no prejudices". That is, because the state assumes the absence of racial prejudice, it fails to enforce what few laws exist to counter racial discrimination, as it believes that such efforts are unnecessary. In 2015, North American anthropologist John Collins argued that shifting engagements with collective memory, genealogically-based accounts of ancestry, and even UNESCO World Heritage programs have articulated with efforts by the Black Movement, academics, and progressive government actors to undermine claims about racial democracy in ways that increasingly lead Brazilians to self-identify as Black.


Gilberto Freyre on criticism

The life of
Gilberto Freyre Gilberto de Mello Freyre (March 15, 1900 – July 18, 1987) was a Brazilian sociologist, anthropologist, historian, writer, painter, journalist, congressman born in Recife, Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. He is commonly associated with other ...
, after he published ''
Casa-Grande & Senzala ''Casa-Grande e Senzala'' ( en, The Masters and the Slaves, italic=yes) is a book published in 1933 by Gilberto Freyre, about the formation of Brazilian society. The '' casa-grande'' ("big house") refers to the slave owner's residence on a sugarca ...
'', 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 The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
to have been an "exemplary democracy" whereas
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
and
racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
were present throughout most of the history of the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. "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 Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...
, 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 Geographically, the U.S. states known as the Old South are those in the Southern United States that were among the original Thirteen Colonies. The region term is differentiated from the Deep South and Upper South. From a cultural and social s ...
".


See also

*
Assimilado Assimilado is the term given to African subjects of the colonizing Portuguese Empire from the 1910s to the 1960s, who had reached a level of "civilization", according to Portuguese legal standards, that theoretically qualified them for full right ...
*
Casta () is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish America, Spanish Empire in the Americas it also refers to a now-discredited 20th-centu ...
*
Colonial mentality A colonial mentality is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by people as a result of colonization, i.e. them being colonized by another group.Nunning, Vera. (06/01/2015). Fictions of Empire and the (un-making of imperi ...
*
Colorism Discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism, or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and/or discrimination in which people who share similar ethnicity traits or perceived race are treated differently based on the social implications th ...
*''
La Raza Cósmica LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
'' *
Lusotropicalism Lusotropicalism ( pt, Lusotropicalismo) is a term and "quasi-theory" developed by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre to describe the distinctive character of Portuguese imperialism overseas, proposing that the Portuguese were better colonizer ...
*
Mongrel complex "Mongrel complex", or alternatively "mutt complex" ( pt, complexo de vira-lata, lit=street dog complex, mutt complex), is an expression used to refer to a collective inferiority complex reportedly felt by many Brazilians when comparing Brazil an ...
*
Multiracial democracy Multiracial democracy is a democratic political system that is multiracial. It is cited as aspiration in South Africa after apartheid and as existing for the United States. See also * Cultural mosaic * Ethnopluralism * Intercultural relations * ...
*
Pardo ''Pardos'' (feminine ''pardas'') is a term used in the former Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas to refer to the triracial descendants of Southern Europeans, Amerindians and West Africans. In some places they were defined as ne ...
*
Race in Brazil Brazilian society is made up of a confluence of people of several different origins, from the original Native Brazilians, with the influence of Portuguese colonists and people of African descent. Other major significant groups include Itali ...
*
Racial hierarchy A racial hierarchy is a system of stratification that is based on the belief that some racial groups are superior to other racial groups. At various points of history, racial hierarchies have featured in societies, often being formally institut ...
*
Racial hygiene The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal ...
* Racial whitening in Brazil (''
Blanqueamiento Blanqueamiento, branqueamento, or whitening, is a social, political, and economic practice used in many post-colonial countries in the Americas and Oceania to "improve the race" (''mejorar la raza'') towards a supposed ideal of whiteness. The ...
'') *
Racism in Brazil Racism has been present in Brazil since its colony times and is pointed as one of the major and most widespread types of discrimination, if not the most, in the country by several anthropologists, sociologists, jurists, historians and others. The ...
*'' Racism in a Racial Democracy'' *
Rainbow nation Rainbow Nation is a term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to describe post-apartheid South Africa after South Africa's first fully democratic election in 1994. The phrase was elaborated upon by President Nelson Mandela in his first month of ...
*
Religious harmony in India Religious harmony in India is a concept that indicates that there is love, affection between different religions in India. The Indian constitution supports and encourages religious harmony. In India, every citizen has a right to choose and practi ...
*
White privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With roots ...
*
Whitewashing (beauty) Whitewashing in beauty is a phenomenon in the intersection of the fashion industry, digital photography, mass media, marketing and advertising. It describes a situation in which the skin tone of non-white people – when depicted in magazine cover ...


References

{{Racism topics Multiracial affairs in Brazil Race in Latin America Brazilian cultural conventions Race and society