Prejudice And Racism In Brazil

Introduction

One of the most prevalent reasons or factors that appear to have shaped racism in these countries is the economic divide between ethnicities as a result of its historical roots. Historically speaking, Africans were employed as slaves in countries such as Brazil, United States, and Mexico, although the extent of the racism exhibited varied between each country and depended on different factors. Brazil was one of the last countries to abolish slavery in 1888, shortly after Cuba abolished slavery in 1886 (Gates, 2011:16). Brazil claimed that it was one of the first to establish itself free of anti-black racism and scholars such as Gilberto Freyre’s declared it was “racially democratic”, although due to economic and cultural factors,
With such a high mixed population, the extent of racism cannot be solely blamed on prejudice today, but overtime has been shaped by a multitude of factors. In the analysis of the text, it is evident that in the case of Brazil, one of the most inherent reasons why racism still exists is because of the economic dispersion of wealth. Firstly, the slavery exhibited in Brazil was far different than many other countries due to lack of laws or sexual intimacy between the slaves and their owners, reflecting the cultural differences and creation of “browning in Brazil”(Gates, 2011:20). Secondly, the large ethnic diversity of its population never disrupted cultural practices, but instead was embraced, although segregation appeared to only exist in an economic sense. Thirdly, because of the visibly high mixed and African populations, the promotion of education to more Africans has been used as a method of reducing racism and promoting the economic development proportionate to the population. Based on the following points, the implications of slavery in Brazil have eased into a more culturally inclusive society, but the effects of racism exist in an
To this day, extensive poverty still exists primarily among blacks (Gates, 2011:46). The social inequality exhibited is an informal view of racism shaped on the economic factors and the inability to provide of affirmative action in reducing poverty after the abolishment of slavery. The wealthy are able to remain wealthy, although the poor struggle to break the poverty barrier. For example the lack of access to education and the associated costs are barriers for the poor, how can one pay for school if they can’t get jobs and they “don’t have jobs because they have not had access to education” – it’s a never-ending cycle (Gates, 2011:52). The affirmative action to promote education to the poor was only recent, in 2003 the State University of Rio de Janeiro set aside 20% admission for black students, giving them the chance to access education and levelling the social inequality (Gates, 2011:54). The hope of this was based off of the attempts in the United States, giving the advantage of black children to “grow up and become engineers, lawyers, and doctors in relative proportion to their percentage in the population”(Gates, 2011:54). Through the use of quotas the “blacks [could] succeed in numbers proportionate to their share of the population… and then, perhaps, social equality could follow” (Gates, 2011:54-55). Despite the attempts to