Publications | Articles by BFC/A Staff
A new paradigm of race: Visit to Brazil prompts the question: Can mixing everyone up solve the race problem?
by Audrey T. McCluskey
Bloomington Herald-Times
August 29, 2004
Courtesy of: BFC/A
If Tiger Woods lived in Brazil he would not have had to coin the word "Cablanasian" to describe the multiracial mixture of caucasian, black, and Asian that makes up his lineage nor face derision from those of us who thought he was trippin' (being silly, unreal). As my husband and I saw on a recent trip, in Brazil race-mixing is the rule, not the exception, with the majority of its 170 million people being visible incarnates of the slogan that officials like to tout: "We're a multiracial democracy. We're not white, or black, or Indian, we're all Brazilians."
Skeptical, but being swept along by the stunning beauty of the country and its people, I did begin to wonder if (contrary to learned opinion) Brazil had solved its race problem by just mixing everyone up. British scholar Paul Gilroy recently said that Brazil and South Africa - a country that I also visited recently and will invoke later - present "a new paradigm of race" that is more subtle and flexible than the U.S.'s old "one drop" (of black blood makes you black) rule that equates whiteness with mythical purity.
That question stayed with me in Rio de Janeiro as we experienced the intercultural blends of appetizing foods, danced to hypnotic music, observed - while walking on sandy beaches - the color and feature variations within families, and had the privilege of attending a Candomblé worship service that is far more racially diverse than what I am likely to see in any religious service in America. Candomblé is based upon the religion of the Yoruba people, brought over by West African slaves and thinly masked by Catholicism.
My wonder grew as I took a beginner's capoeria lesson (a dance of acrobatic defiance derived from the movements of revolting slaves that, along with samba, are expressions of Brazilian identity) from a young woman who, except for speaking Portuguese, is a dead ringer for my cousin in Miami.
In Salvador, over 50,000 rabid fans from different social origins squeezed into a soccer stadium and made us, who are used to clearly marked exits, really nervous by standing in sweaty closeness the whole game, cheering and blocking all escape routes. We wondered what, if anything - skin color, previous condition of ancestral servitude, admiration of soccer skills - linked us to these warm, colorful people?
So, eschewing popular tourist trappings such as funny-looking hats and dangling jewelry, we hoped our skin color would provide anonymity as we struck out on our own. No such luck. Street entrepreneurs pounced on us from all four directions. When we befuddledly asked a Brazilian who had traveled in the U.S., how could they pick us out as Americans without even hearing us talk, she laughed and said, "Oh, they know. It's your walk, your confident attitude, your shoes. They know."
Well, that was one of many revelations during a 10-day visit. The trip also confirmed a revelation from other international travel, including a trip to South Africa a month earlier, and to Cuba a couple of years ago: African Americans, despite an insistence upon proclaiming our African heritage, are seen in other parts of the black world as Americans first, soul sister or brother second. I was experiencing, up close, this "new paradigm" of race, and it had a lot to do with the familiar divide between the haves and those who are still waiting for theirs. South Africa shows that. In 10 years of democracy it boasts of several black billionaires - and millions more who are impoverished and restless.
Long before the visit, Brazil held a place in my imagination because of its history. This country with a larger land mass than the continental United States, was the last in the New World to abolish slavery in 1888, followed by the mass importation of Europeans to "whiten" the country. Despite the ideal climate and vast reserves of precious metals and minerals, descendants of slaves continue to reside at the bottom economic tier. In this "rich country full of poor people" the elite live a separate existence in gated communities, a few kilometers and worlds apart from the favellas - the teeming ghettos - spotlighted in the recent award-winning City of God.
One of the world's most unequal societies, with the largest number of people of African descent outside of Nigeria, Brazil has adopted black culture as its national identity. Yet its preoccupation with color categories as a substitute for race leaves dark-skinned people poor and excluded from power. Race is such an illusive concept in Brazil that a civil rights movement of the American kind that transformed our country and made it a beacon for dispossessed people everywhere is difficult to coalesce.
There are many reasons to visit Brazil including, I'm told, great golf, and I recommend it.
But if it is democracy that you're seeking, racial and otherwise, I would also recommend this: stay home and vote.
Audrey T. McCluskey teaches in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, and directs the Black Film Center/Archive. Among her recent publications is the annotated catalog, Imaging Blackness, 1915-2000: Posters from the BFC/A Collection.
