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 As Brazil’s new mayors take up their positions it is worth reflecting on the state of Brazilian democracy and that commonly maintained fiction, that of ‘racial democracy’. The idea is based on the notion of harmony between Brazil’s different races; that unlike South Africa and the American South there have never been any tensions between them.
It’s not really true though. Prejudice does exist and blacks find themselves commonly in the poorest stratum of society. But the myth persists; aided by the lack of legally mandated segregation under which black Brazilians lived.
Even under slavery many blacks were free. The result of this has been a relatively weaker black consciousness movement.
It hasn’t been helped by the fact that in Brazil race is seen more as a continuum, from white to black and every shade in between.
So, unlike the US where race is a sharp dichotomy (you’re either black or white), in Brazil you can be white, ‘dusty white’, ‘coffee with milk’ and ‘light-brown’ – before you even get to the blacker end of the spectrum.
The result is that no one knows how many Brazilians are actually black – it could be 10%. Or it could 70-80%.
However, the racial democracy myth has proved enduring. It has meant that attention has been diverted elsewhere to explain why black Brazilians suffer the most social and economic deprivation.
Marxists, unsurprisingly, claimed it was down to class. But that failed to explain, as the social scientist Carlos Hasenbalg has suggested, why the opportunities for white and non-white Brazilians are not the same.
In one analysis he showed that non-white involvement in the economy tended to be concentrated in the unskilled and unpaid sectors, meaning less income and consumption levels.
This inequality as perpetuated over time, constantly reinforcing their position at the bottom of the economic pile.
Hasenbalg’s findings showed that if a white and a non-white person found themselves in the same lowly position, the white person had a better chance of escaping, through social mobility, education and job opportunities.
For the non-white, more often than not, his or her position would remain the same, no matter what. Race then, can be seen as both cause and effect in this respect.
So what’s to be done? The logic of Hasenbalg’s study would seem to be the provision of opportunities for non-whites, including better education and job prospects. But one thing he failed to show in his findings was where the poor lived.
Brazil has been caricatured as two countries: the industrialised Southeast, with the engine of the country’s economy in and around Sao Paulo – and Rio and Porto Alegre to a lesser extent; and the impoverished, rural Northeast – the source of many of Brazil’s internal migrants.
A quick glance at he two region’s demography also shows that the south tends to be white, in the north the population is overwhelmingly non-white.
If the Northeast is to develop the necessary jobs and social opportunities, which non-whites will need to escape their economic position, then it’s going to need the redirection and redistribution of resources to make it happen.
This is a challenge to the current government, especially so after the election results. While the main opposition, the PSDB, swept the cities of the richer states, the governing PT saw its mayoral candidates triumph in seven state capitals in the North and Northeast, including Recife and Fortaleza.
At the end of November, Marta Suplicy, the former PT mayor, blamed Lula’s economic policy for her defeat in São Paulo. This was followed by the party’s national directorate inviting the Finance Minister, Antonio Palocci, in for a chat about the direction the government is taking.
He was helped by a letter signed by the PT’s new mayors claiming they were happy with that line.
Social policies like the bolsa escola (where parents are paid a sum to send their children to school instead of having them work), Zero Hunger and the Family Health Program were cited as some of Lula’s achievements, along with the government’s control of inflation and drive for economic growth.
All very well, but hardly a departure from the previous Fernando Henrique Cardoso government (1995-2002), which failed to systematically change the fortunes of non-whites in the North.
A northeasterner who migrated to São Paulo as a child himself, Lula must be aware that to a large extent the fate of his government will be based in large part on the perception of those like him in the Northeast who voted for his party colleagues as mayors. They will expect the government – and the mayors – to enact measures to lift them out of poverty.
As the new mayors settle down to their already full in-trays in their offices they will recognise that they have a popular mandate to make the necessary changes.
But having adopted an orthodox economic policy and an acceptance of the market (this month saw votes on the government’s first set of public-private partnerships), the question must be how it’s going to be done.
Only if the government and its mayors can square that circle and provide meaningful reforms, which will improve the prospects of the Northeast’s non-white population, might we start to see a truly ‘racial democracy’.
Guy Burton was born in Brazil and now lives in London. A postgraduate student at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, he has written widely on Brazil both for Brazzil and on his blog, Para Inglês Ver, which can be read at http://guyburton.blogspot.com. He can be contacted at gjsburton@hotmail.com.
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Thirdly, the word "preto" refers to the colour black, not someone's ethnicity, and is only used in that way as a derogatory term by white people, so please don't use it to try to sound well informed. Black people use the term "negro" as in the commonly seen T-Shirt design in Brazil "100% Negro".
If you didn't make a wording mistake--unpaid for underpaid--, than I'm assuming you are suggesting that slavery in Brazil is still widespread. Is that so?
In fact, we have heard news of slavery in contemporary Brazil, however, one thing is saying that this country is still plagued by this scar, whatever its size, and another thing is saying that blacks in Brazil usually do unpaid word.