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 Continuing with the theme of "those racists Americans", most people are familiar with the heinous crime of lynching that terrorized the African-American community in the past century. What many of us don't know is that in the years that lynchings were most prevalent, 1882-1968, 27.3% of all lynching victims (1,297 of 4,743) in the US were white (1).
Another little known fact is that lynching is not a rare occurrence in Brazil. In a report that compiled 751 reports of lynchings (linchamentos) or attempted lynchings between the years 1990 and 2000, 714 people were lynched, 312 fatally, and of the data in which the race of the victim was recorded, 75.6% of the victims were black (2). As the race of the perpetrators may not have been documented in each crime, there is no need to conclude that all of these cases were racially motivated, but the possibilities cannot be ruled out. As a matter of fact, according to historian Warren Dean, writing about Brazilian plantation systems between the years 1820 and 1920, "violence against the freed (slaves) was a daily thing, and when suspected of raping a white woman, they were lynched" (3). Lynching in order to protect the "honor" of white women is a well-known American historical fact, but how many of us knew that this type of hate crime happened in the history of Brazil's "harmonious" race relations?
When most people think of the crimes committed in Nazi-era Germany, most think of only Jews. Little attention is given to the 250,000 white Germans, mentally handicapped and political opponents that were also exterminated (4). When analyzing these crimes against humanity by what are perceived to be two of the most racist countries in world history (the US and Germany), two interpretations immediately present themselves; either Brazil treats its black population as bad or worse than two of history's most racist regimes, or none of these three states were racist at all. The bottom line here is that the existence of whites living in poverty or being victims of atrocities does not necessarily mean that a society is not racist.
When one studies social problems it is necessary to ascertain facts and reasons.When a person is a victim of discrimination, it is usually because they possess some quality that is thought to be against the norm. In the society in which we live (Brazilian and American), some of these ostracized groups include women, homosexuals and blacks. It would not be rational for one to acknowledge that one can be stigmatized for their gender, sexual orientation and class but not their race, color or ethnic group. If there were some deranged lunatic fitting the description of what TW Adorno called an "authoritarian personality" strongly believed in the accepted social hierarchy of white, middle-class male, Christian heterosexual and he proceeded to kidnap five people and kill them because of their non-membership in this group, would it be impossible that his victims could be female, gay, poor white, black, or Muslim? As we know the social hierarchy in Brazil also places the middle-class white, male, Christian heterosexual at the top of the pyramid, there are those who want to maintain the status quo at any cost. In all of the countries mentioned above, the authoritarian element is not above exterminating those in the group who may look like them in physical appearance but not possessing other important attributes of belonging to the clique.
One of those attributes is mentality. For example, while the portrayal of extremely racist whites dominated the media and subsequent documentaries about the American Civil Rights era in the 1950s and 60s, one rarely heard about those whites who risked or gave their lives in the struggle for racial equality. Historian David L. Chappell documented how these types of whites contributed to the Civil Rights struggle for his book Inside Agitators. According to Civil Rights leader and former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, Andrew Young, "If it hadn't been for the kind of white southerners you (Chappell) are talking about, the South would look like Beirut looks today"(5). In 1965 white Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Daniels was killed in Lowndes County, Alabama, by a KKK sniper. Viola Liuzzo, William Moore, Reverend Bruce Klunder, Reverend James Reeb, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman are but a few names of whites who were killed because they stood up against people who looked like them in the defense of people who did not look like them (6). As Glenn Feldman points out, in the defense of white supremacy, "the color of victims made little difference" to the KKK and their supporters as they attacked blacks as well as whites in their wave of terrorism in late 1940s Alabama (7). As one observer noted, "Nobody cared much what the KKK did to Negroes until the night-gowned riders started beating up...white men and women" (8). With this in mind, I wonder what the reaction would be if Rio's military police started attacking and killing residents of the overwhelmingly white neighborhoods of Ipanema and Copacabana.
The "there are poor whites too" argument also doesn't consider the fact that, historically, it was and remains the (visibly) African descendent that elites wanted to rid Brazil of. It is the African descendent that elites hoped to make disappear through continuous mixtures with lighter/whiter-skinned people. Poor whites who are victimized by corrupt, violent police experience this oppression because of their class, social behavior that is associated with the "other" or other reasons, but not because they are white. This point wasn't lost on one of the people Caco Barcellos interviewed for his book, Rota 66: - I don't know how I am still alive, Caco. They only kill young, poor mulatos like me. - Take it easy. Young and poor, yes. But they also kill whites. - Only if they are accompanying a negro or pardo. - You're exaggerating. - You only say that because you are white (9).
In a country where the continuous disregard for human life seems so blatant, and the value placed on those lives so low, it amazes me that anyone would be shocked that racism could be a motivating factor. This low value and mark of negativity associated with darker skin color and/or non-European features are certainly present in the minds of the military police. When communicating with each other through walkie-talkies, the police often describe perceived suspects as having the "standard color"(10). The standard color that these police are speaking of is not white. One police officer made that very clear when he made a comment to journalist Gilberto Dimenstein. According to this officer, "every black man in a new car is a suspect. And if he runs, I shoot him" (11). Notice this officer didn't say every poor man in a car. Thus, whether a black man is of lower or middle class status, he remains a suspect. As for poor whites, they may indeed be poor, but they are still white.
Racist Past, Racist Present
Since the colonization of Brazil, the African and African descendent have been recognized as "other" and voices representing the elite have expressed their view that the disappearance of the African descendent would be best for a better, whiter Brazil. If America's views toward a racialized hierarchy and its population of African descent can be summarized by statements by its elites, Brazil must also be judged in the same manner. Let us make a comparison of how our leaders viewed people of African descent.
"Racial crossing not only obliterates the outstanding qualities of the first but is a stimulus to reawakening the primitive attributes of the others.... And, whether an amalgam of the white with blacks or Indians or of both the latter, the mixed-blood is not just an intermediary but a decadent, lacking both the physical energy of his savage forebears and the intellectual height of his superior ancestry" (12).
- Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909). Brazilian engineer, writer and essayist
"Compare our present-day Brazil of slavery with the ideal fatherland which we Abolitionists uphold: a country where everyone is free, where, attracted by the free nature of our institutions and the liberty of our government system, European immigration could bring, continuously, into the tropics a stream of lively, energetic, and wholesome Caucasian blood..." (13)
- Joaquim Nabuco(1849-1910). Brazilian politician and writer
"I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind." (14)
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). Third President of the United States
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races... I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race" (15).
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) Sixteenth President of the United States
As one can plainly see, the forefathers of both Brazil and the United States deemed persons of the white race as superior to those of African descent. One must also note that da Cunha also relegated the person of mixed-race to subordinate status.
As students of the social sciences are well aware, the average Brazilian continues to insist that the position of the black Brazilian is due to class discrimination as opposed to racial discrimination. I would agree that class discrimination exists in both American and Brazilian societies, but the fact remains that race, color or racially distinctive physical attributes are one of the main signals of one's presumed class status. Thus, for the person of African descent in both countries, their status as being black is intricately intertwined with their presumed status of being poor. The association of poverty with blackness is one of the main social prejudices that deters the possibility of equal treatment.
The casual observer may be fooled into thinking that class trumps race in Brazil, but again, with closer analysis, the myth is debunked. Consider for instance the case of Arivaldo de Lima Alves, a 37 year old Afro-Brazilian with a Ph.D. in anthropology and a professor at a Brazilian university, who was asked if he wanted to earn some small change by helping to unload a truck (16). Or the much publicized case of the late Flávio Ferreira Sant'Ana, 28, of São Paulo. Five members of São Paulo's military police riddled Sant'Ana's body with bullets thinking he was the man that had recently assaulted a local businessman. After shooting Sant'Ana, the police placed a gun in his hand to give the appearance of a shootout. Afterward it was discovered that Sant'Ana was actually a dentist and did not commit this crime. The question one must ask is, if Sant'Ana were white what are the chances that he would have been killed? Minister of Justice Márcio Thomaz Bastos confirmed what he judged to be the "presence of prejudice" in which "the negro is always a suspect" (17). Black engineer Luiz Claudio Rosa is the vice-president of the Brazilian branch of telecommunications company Lucent Technologies, yet and still when he arrives in any place where people of Brazil's economic elite usually appear, he is consistently mistaken for a security guard or the driver/chauffeur of some wealthy businessman (18). What assumption is similar in all three of these examples? The socially-constructed ideology that equates blackness with poverty or lower class status. If experiences of discrimination of Brazilian blacks were simply class-based, it would be true that once they overcame the odds of attaining higher education and white-collar employment, their firmly established middle-class status would be recognized. These three examples expose the roots of Brazil's socially recognized/enforced racial hierarchy. Even when blacks achieve middle-class status, the association remains the same.
FOOTNOTES
1. Lynching Statistics. http://www.berea.edu/faculty/browners/chesnutt/classroom/lynchingstat.html 2. Souza, Lídio de e Menandro, Paulo Rogério Meira. Vidas apagadas: vítimas de linchamentos ocorridos no Brasil (1990-2000). www.fafich.ufmg.br/~psicopol/pdfv2n4/Capitulo%204.pdf 3. Warren Dean. Rio Claro: um sistema brasileiro de grande lavoura (1820-1920). Rio de Janeiro : Paz e Terra, 1977) cited in Uma História NãoContada: Negro, racismo e branqueamento em São Paulo no pos-abolição by Petronio Domingues (Editora Senac Sao Paulo, 2004) 4. "Hitler, Adolf," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2004.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761556540_3/Hitler.html. "Holocaust," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2004. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761559508/Holocaust.html 5. Chappell, David L. Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement. John Hopkins University Press. 1994. 6. While this paper focuses on racial inequality in Brazil in comparison to the US, I must also point out the fact that, in general, white and black Brazilians DO seem to have more affection across racial lines than in the US. In some regions, one will see black and white Brazilian friends and families who have grown up together show genuine love and care for each other. It is for this reason that I am so disappointed in the extreme racial inequality that exists in the country. Of course this love and affection between the races begins to dwindle the further up the economic ladder one goes. One, because elite whites are very territorial and two, afrodescendentes are rare in economically privileged neighborhoods. Poorer white and black neighbors often live side-by-side, different from the US where even the poor whites and poor blacks are segregated. Yet and still, even amongst the poorest blacks and whites, there exists an overall belief in white superiority that rears it head from time to time. 7. Feldman, Glenn. "Soft Opposition: Elite Acquiescence and Klan- Sponsored Terrorism in Alabama, 1946-1950." Historical Journal, Volume 40, #3, September 1997. 8. Ibid. 9. Barcellos, Caco. Rota 66. Record 2003 10. "elemento suspeito da cor padrão". Amar, Paul E. "Reform in Rio: Reconsidering the Myths of Crime and Violence". NACLA, Volume 37, Issue 2, September/October 2003. Leitão, Miriam. "Rosa de Alabama." O Globo. October 30, 2005. Reproduced in Diário de São Paulo, October 30, 2005. Available online July 26, 2006. http://www.sc.gov.br/clipping_governo/coluna_int.asp?str_data=30/10/2005&str_ retorno=clipping.asp&cd_coluna_desc=35931. 11. Dimenstein, Gilberto. O cidadão de papel: A infância, a adolescência e os Direitos Humanos no Brasil. São Paulo, Ática, 2000. 12. Santos, Sales Augusto dos. "Historical Roots of the "Whitening" of Brazil ". Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2002. 13. Ibid. 14. Taken from Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, originally published in 1787 as quoted in Of Racism and Remembrance by Aaron Garrett. http://www.common-place.org/vol-01/no-04/garrett/ 15. Taken from the Sixth Debate with Steven A. Douglas at Quincy, Ill., Oct. 13, 1858, Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln as quoted in Abraham Lincoln: Dark Side of a Liberator by David Sztybel, Ph.D. http://sztybel.tripod.com/lincoln.html 16. Alvez, Daniel. "Preconceito sem fim". Correio Braziliense. http://www.fetecpr.org.br/service/noticias/default_ver.asp?varid=4569. 17. Prado, Antonio Carlos. "O dentista tiradentes". http://www.terra.com.br/istoe/1793/brasil/1793_dentista_tiradentes.htm 18. Melo, Liana. "Igualdade racial é blefe".http://www.terra.com.br/istoe/1672/economia/1672_igualdade_racial.htm
This is part two of a multi-piece article.
Mark Wells holds a bachelor's degree in Anthropology from the University of Michigan-Dearborn and is currently working on a Master's Degree in Social Justice at Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan. He can be reached at quilombhoje72@yahoo. © 2007 Mark Wells
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Yeah it's true quite a number of white people got lynched. However I find it a leap for you to compare Rio's police to the KKK. My black grandfather was chased out of the south - as he tells it - by the KKK. He had to flee because they were going to kill him for defending his black mother against an insult from a white men. As a matter of fact exactly how old are you? In your 20's or 30's? Because black men of the "Baby Boomer" generation that were raised down in the U.S. South as children tell me of how they can vividly recall their mothers having to move out of the way as white people walked by. Hell, my black great uncle who fought in WWII couldn't even go in "white only" facilities in the U.S. South after returning from European theaters of war, while German POW's were being held in the U.S. Southern states and allowed to walk around and eat in the white restaurants while my uncle and other black veterans that fought against them couldn't.