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 For approximately a year now I have been a subscriber to Rede Globo Internacional channel that is available through Dish Network. As I wasn't able to visit Brazil in all of the year 2005, I thought it would be nice to be able to take a peek into a big slice of Brazilian culture on a daily basis.
While I had taken in a bit of Rede Globo's TV programming on my previous five trips to Brazil, while there, watching television is something that I only did in the first part of the morning or in the waning hours of the night. After watching Rede Globo programming for over a year, I can say that I can understand why the television giant has the fourth largest television market behind the big three of the United States, I can also say I understand why so many Movimento Negro activists have claimed that watching TV in Brazil is like watching television in Sweden. For a country that proclaims its pride in being a mixed race nation, one could never tell from watching its television programming. Where are all of the faces of five centuries of mestiçagem? In his study of the history of race in Brazilian movies, NYU professor Robert Stam concluded that Brazilian cinema "projected a vision of Brazil as a tropical branch of European civilization." (1). After a few months of research, I would have to say that this also applies to Brazil's television programs as well as its mainstream print media. To be fair, I can't say with any certainty that the majority of the faces that I've seen on Rede Globo aren't genetically of mixed race, but I can say that the overwhelming majority of those faces look more European than anything else. To put it more bluntly, it's almost a complete blackout.
This is not to say that I don't enjoy some of Rede Globo's programming. Most of the programs are quite professional looking, colorful, entertaining and features a charismatic line-up of personalities. While I can't say that I am an avid watcher of some of Rede Globo's popular novelas (Bang Bang, America, etc.), I am a fairly regular viewer of variety shows such Domingão do Faustão, Programa do Jô, Altas Horas, and Caldeirão do Huck. Novelas such as JK and America were important because they portrayed the live of one of Brazil's most important political figures (president Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira) as well as the struggle of the Brazilian immigrant trying to make it in the US. But the role of television in the lives of people around the world is more than just that of entertainment. It informs, educates and gives a view of the news, people and events that affect our lives. Television can shape one's opinion and influence the way that one sees the world. The television can act as both a mirror and an eye. The television can not only reflect how we believe the world to be, how it is, but also how we desire it to be. It is both fantasy and reality. Taken from this point of view, which is it that Brazilian television is attempting to show? Perhaps it is both. And for my analysis I will take a look at the fantasy as well as the reality.
As I have written and many of us already know, at the end of the slave era in Brazil, elites believed that in order for Brazil to be taken seriously as a progressive country, its people had to become whiter. This whiteness was to be achieved in two ways; the mass importation of Europeans from various countries and through the process of race mixing. As African descent peoples outnumbered white Brazilians by a ratio of about three to two near the end of the 19th century, predictions were being made as to how long the whitening (embranqueamento) process would take for Brazil to be hailed as a white nation. Looking at Brazil's population today, it doesn't appear that the predictions were quite right. If one were to believe census reports, whites make up 54% of the Brazilian population with the majority of the remaining 46% being a mixture of Brazil's original three people: the Indian, the African and the European. Again, that is if one were to believe census reports.
In reality, no one can say what the country's racial composition really is. There are those who believe that very few Brazilians actually match up to what North Americans or Europeans would accept as white. There are those who believe that the country is made up of a majority of African descent people of varying phenotypes. Just to get an idea of how daunting a task of getting an accurate count of who is what, a recent study showed that 30% of the people in a survey who self-declared themselves to be pardos (mulato or mixed race) were identified as pretos (black) by the interviewer. In a similar twist, 30% of those who self-declared themselves to be brancos (white) were identified as pardos by the interviewer (2). Back in 2004, I remember walking the streets with one of the daughters of my host family in Bahia. She was light-skinned, but considered herself to be black (negra). I asked her if she had ever dated a white guy before. She said no. As we continued walking the streets, she gave the typically Brazilian kiss on each cheek to a guy I thought would be considered white by Brazilian standards (although not American). As we continued walking, she told me that the guy had been her boyfriend once upon a time. I then reminded her that she said that she had never dated a white guy before. She confirmed that she hadn't. And "what about that guy", I asked. She then stopped walking as she turned to me to make her point. "Listen, I spent a whole year living in Germany, so I KNOW what real white people look like." Thus, when one speaks of race with Brazilians, it is necessary to understand what their social constructions of whiteness and blackness are. Depending on the person's social conscious/construction, someone like singer Caetano Veloso could be considered white, mestiço or what some call "Brazilian white." (3)
It is this complex manner of classifying individuals by race that became a hot topic when the idea of quotas for Afro-Brazilians to get into Brazilian universities became a highly-debated question on forums and Internet sites. All over the web, people argued about to define who was black or white. To be truthful, it was more intriguing to me to know who was considered preto/negro (black) and who was considered pardo/mulato (generally, a person of mixed African descent). After all, how mixed would a person have to be to be considered mixed? One drop of non-African ancestry? Can a person still be considered white if they had a considerable percentage of African or Indian ancestry? Then we have to consider the idea that Brazilians supposedly define themselves more by appearance than by ancestry. (4) I won't linger on these often debated topics here but some of these questions and ideas will periodically appear throughout this essay. There is one specific idea that I've always found to be a contradiction in the Brazilian imagination: if everyone claims to be mixed, why do the majority of people declare themselves to be white on census forms? If everyone is indeed mixed and are proud of this mixture, shouldn't ALL Brazilians declare themselves to be pardos or more accurately, mestiços? Looking at Brazilian television through the lens of Rede Globo led me to investigate the intricate details, contradictions and complexities of whiteness from the Brazilian perspective.
Over the past few years, many people have denounced what they consider to be an imperialist American idea of race-based Affirmative Action policies as well as a US-modeled bipolar scheme of racial classification. While I agree that the history of racial mixing is deeper in Brazil than in the US, the bottom line is that the color of success and power in Brazil is white or something that is close to white. In this line of reasoning, one is either white or they are not. This is not simply the idea of an American who is trying to impose his views on an entire country; it is the way Brazil chooses to see itself and the way it wants to be represented to the world. When one takes an honest look at the racial hierarchy that Brazil has set up for itself, this becomes unquestionably true. Take Rede Globo for instance; anyone who has access to this channel should try this test. Imagine that you are watching this channel from outside of Brazil and the channel was said to be representative of Brazil's racial composition. Would you get the idea that Brazil was a mixed race country? Count for yourself how many non-white faces you saw on the network for that week. Ask yourself, when you did see non-white faces on the channel, how were they portrayed? Were they musicians? Soccer players? How many non-white news anchors did you see? How many program hosts? Were the non-white actors in subservient positions? Maids, slaves, sex objects? Did they provide comic relief? These are some of the typical roles portrayed by non-white people when featured on the Rede Globo channel.
Preto/Pardo, Negro/Mulato: Is there really a significant difference?
These roles appear to be so deeply ingrained in the Brazilian conscious that they hardly strike people as being demeaning. Perhaps this is why so many voices from the Brazilian black women's movement have voiced objection to the portrayals of black women being beat up and raped in the miniseries JK. (5) Regardless of attempts of Brazilian intellectuals to paint a picture of Brazil's slavery era being less violent than that of the US, the fact remains that the history of mestiçagem has in reality been the continued rape and sexual exploitation of black women. One of the progenitors of the famed Brazilian "racial democracy" myth, Gilberto Freyre himself tells us that "it was the bodies of the black girls, sometimes 10-year old girls...that freed white women from sexual assault." (6) As a matter of fact, the virginity and chastity of white women during the colonization of Brazil was protected through the prostitution of the black female slave. This exploitation of the black female body is a legacy that has continued today in several ways. Take for example the flyers and catalogs featuring brown-skinned Baianas that are given to European male tourists who come to Brazil in search of "ethnic" prostitution and sexual commerce (7). This representation of afrodescendente women proves that the words of French anthropologist/sociologist Roger Bastide still hold true today. Having devoted a part of his career to the study of Afrocentricities in Brazil, Bastide, speaking on miscegenation, wrote that the extramarital affairs that were common in Brazil "effectively reduced an entire race to the level of prostitutes" (8).
As a matter a fact, in direct opposition to the idea that miscegenation proves the absence of racism, Bastide points out that the relationship between the dominant and the dominated actually makes prejudice more visible. (9) As the woman of color (i.e. negra or mulata) is considered a simple object of sexual desire and not a future mate (10), the underlying sexual valuation of the negra or mulata woman emphasizes another form of discrimination (11) because the negra or mulata is ultimately considered inferior to the white woman. (12) Perhaps this is part of the reason one so rarely sees so many of Brazil's afrodescendente soccer stars married to women of color. This ideal of the Brazil's afrodescendente women having value only for work or sex permeates every realm of Brazilian society, including its literature. Speaking of Brazil's world famous author Jorge Amado, Teófilo de Queiroz Júnior affirms that Amado exalts mulatas "physically, without conceding respectability to them or recognizing their value for matrimony." (13) Lest we still have confusion as to what type of women we are speaking of when we say mulata, a verbal exchange between an American journalist and a Brazilian cab driver should clear this up. Charles Martin was riding in a cab in Rio de Janeiro when the cab driver (who was white) asked if he'd had the chance to know Brazil's mulatas. Martin tells the story this way:
"As I had been asked so many times by so many people about the country's mulatas, this time I answered differently. I told him that I did know some, but that I knew some in the U.S. as well. He said the two were different. I said that the essential distinction I saw was national culture, and that in either place, the women simply were black women. The driver insisted no. I asked: what is the mulata? She is not white. She is not dark black. "Thus, she is like many black women in the U.S. (but here, they have not been seen as a particular sexual class since the old formal balls of New Orleans where quadroons and octoroons were gathered to become long- or short-term mistresses to white men of means). "The driver, somewhat exasperated, insisted that there was a difference and that the Brazilian women were not black. I said that surely "mulata" meant something far more specific than "non-white." He wasn't talking about Japanese women, for example, was he? No, he was talking about women who were black. "Disgusted, the driver conceded that, yes, black blood was the special ingredient that made the mulata. He went on to say that the difference between Americans and Brazilians is that Brazilians made use of a polite term, mulata, while Americans used gross ones, such as black." (14) Note again the repugnance associated with the term black. Brazilian painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti gained famed for his portrayals of the mulata. In an interview he once explained his fascination with this type of woman:
"I've always had an immense passion for the mulatas. Her plasticity, the sensuality inherent in the black race and that sad look enchanted me. (15) Thus, as I have argued before, the term mulata is but a certain type of afrodescendente woman. She is usually not as dark as say, Sudanese model Alek Wek, but her complexion can span from the light-brown color of actress Camila Pitanga to the medium brown complexion of singer Paula Lima. The key here is that she is considered to be sensuous and very attractive. Thus, as I wrote in a previous article, mulata carries a certain sexual connotation in its description of the negra-mestiça: she is considered more attractive than the preta woman but her status as an inferior has historically given white men the "license" to exploit, degrade and abandon her.
In some ways, the term mulata is similar to the term "brown sugar" that has been applied to African-American women. Millions of music fans are no doubt familiar with the infamous Rolling Stones song of the same name, an ode to slave era sexual relations. The term also recently caused a stir in Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip in which George W. Bush was made to call Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brown sugar bringing to the fore "the painful stereotype of the black woman as a hot-blooded minx," (16) For those who don't have the cultural background to understand the difference between a preta and a mulata, the difference can be sometimes subtle, sometimes more obvious. A good example could be found on the 1970s CBS sitcom Good Times, in which actress Ester Rolle played Florida Evans (preta) while Bern Nadette Stanis played daughter Thelma (mulata).
In short, there are millions of African-American women who regard themselves as black women who would be considered mulatas in Brazil. In 1970s Brazilian advertisements, American singers Donna Summer and Diana Ross were often referred to as mulatas. (17) To be more specific, a mulata is an attractive woman of African descent possessing some physical markers of miscegenation, either immediate or distant. A mulata can have light to medium brown skin with shoulder length or longer hair.
The concept of hair texture and length is an important attribute when defining whether a woman is negra or mulata. Anthropologist Nilma Lino Gomes has done extensive research on the significance of hair in the construction of black identity in Brazil. She notes how a negra can instantly become a mulata by simply changing her hairstyle. Hair weaves and extensions have become more and more popular amongst Afro-Brazilian women as the price becomes more affordable. Gomes herself notes that when she wears her own hair in its natural state or in braids, white and black men refer to her as crioula, negra or negona. When she wears the weave, men call her morena, morena linda (pretty brown-skinned girl) or mulata. (18) As I reported on my first trip to Bahia in 2000, some black women feel that wearing a weave is the only way for a black woman to attract a man. (19)
I will also analyze this significance of hair through a nasty little fight that occurred on the fourth installment of the popular reality show Big Brother Brasil back in 2004. On one episode of Big Brother Brasil 4, two female participants, Solange and Marcela, got into an altercation that led an exchange of verbal insults. As the argument ensued, Solange Couto (black girl), told Marcela Queiroz (white girl) that she had a "droopy butt (bunda caída)". Marcela, in turn, replied "at least I don't have that nappy hair!" (20) Later, Queiroz was eliminated from the show, and in her opinion, it was because of her fight with Couto. Days later, she would proclaim herself "not a racist" because in the heat of the argument, she had attacked Couto's weak spot, knowing that it would bother her. In defending the idea that she was not racist, Queiroz mentioned that she didn't say anything about Couto in reference to her color. (21)
Apparently, Queiroz didn't know that, historically, in Brazil, as in the rest of the world, skin color, as well as hair texture, has been used as targets against the afrodescendente as a mark of his/her inferiority in comparison to the universally-accepted European beauty standard. On the other hand, it appears that Queiroz had to know this for the simple fact that she used it as a means of insulting her opponent. In the verbal insult, a person will always attack a socially unacceptable attribute of the other person. Typical insults have to do with a person's physical appearance or ethnic origin.
While I am on the subject of Big Brother Brasil 4's Solange, I would also like to bring to the fore the virulent attacks she received from viewers of the show who proceeded to post their opinions online. During the run of the show's fourth installment on Rede Globo, there appeared an online blog called "Eu Odeio a Solange (I Hate Solange)". On the infamous blog-page, next to a photo of a seemingly frustrated Solange, appeared a photo of a cartoon monkey standing on top of the letter "e" in Solange's name. To make matters worse, there was also a photo of the trademark character of Assolan (22), a nationally-recognized Brazilian brand of steel wool scouring pads used to scrub dirty dishes. On the blog, Solange's name was fused with that of the scrubbing pad to create the word Assolange. So what does the Assolan product have to do with Solange from the reality show? Another widely used insult against the Brazilian afrodescendente is the idea that they have "cabelo de bombril" or steel-wire hair.
Insults such "cabelo de bombril" or "nega do cabelo duro (23) (black woman with the hard hair)" are insults so common that one can readily reference them online with a simple Google search. The point here is, terms such "cabelo de bombril" or perhaps even more common, "cabelo ruim (bad hair)" are so deeply ingrained, recognized and accepted in Brazilian society that it doesn't always appear to be an insult. From the non-racist argument, how could it be racist if everyone accepts it to be true? Whites, as well blacks themselves will use the term from time to time. Thus, in the eyes of the country, Queiroz can legitimately stake a claim when she lamented that she "was not racist in any moment" and that now "everybody with bad hair ("cabelo ruim") will file a lawsuit." (24) In recent years, racist ideas and opinions that have been posted online on Brazilian websites have been more closely monitored and the blog-page entitled "Eu Odeio a Solange" was shut down soon after it was discovered.
(Returning to the previous discussion....)
While the use of the term mulata may denote a certain type of afrodescendente woman in the eyes of some, it can also inhibit the development of a specifically black identity. As the actual meaning of mulata denotes a woman of mixed African/European ancestry, it also represents a step closer to the white ideal and, just as important, a step away from blackness. By referring to all attractive afrodescendente women as mulatas (or morenas), Brazilian society erases the possibility of the terms negra/negro being synonymous with beauty. As a result, many would-be negras in fact reject the term negra. Referring back to the cab driver incident, who would want to be called something "gross" like "negra"?
The terms mulata and negra have not only sexual connotations, but also represent a certain "place" in Brazilian society. For instance, traditionally, middle-upper class white Brazilian families have often "adopted" young negras or mulatas from lower class backgrounds and trained them to take care of the household, cook the meals, and help in raising the children. As these girls grew older, they were also to serve as sexual initiation of the young boys in the household. This type of arrangement caused a controversy in 2003 when Rede Globo aired its soap opera Mulheres Apaixonadas. In protest against an episode in which the character Carlinhos (Daniel Zettel) attempted to lose his virginity to the (black) domestic servant Zilda (Roberta Rodrigues), the Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Domésticos (Syndicate of Domestic Workers) went to court to try to prohibit the episode from airing because they felt that the episode's content would put the wrong idea about domestic workers into the minds of adolescents watching the program. (25) Still today, in many middle-upper class homes, one will find young, primarily afrodescendente girls working while the children of these families attend school. (26)
So what does the rape of black (and Indian) women have to do with the programming on Rede Globo? Brazilian television, like American or French television, is a vision of how the nation envisions itself. What is problematic about the Brazilian situation is that, while the US and France both have significant minority populations, non-whites in Brazil could arguably make up the majority of the population. While mestiçagem is promoted as the Brazilian answer to racial conflict, the overwhelming whiteness of Brazilian television represents the Brazilian ideal. In other words, mestiçagem is a necessary transition into whiteness. In the predictions of intellectuals in the early 20th century, it was the complete disappearance of the Indian, negro AND the mestiço that signified the triumph of whiteness; if not genetically, at least phenotypically. This obsessive march to whiteness has had dire effects on the psyches of those who do not fit this ideal. Thus, while many continue to point the finger at the US for its shameful race relations or for supposedly imposing its racial classifications on the Brazilian, they ignore the psychological healing that millions of non-whites, as well as near whites, may need. This psychological damage starts early in adolescence when a child somehow realizes that they are not deemed to be valuable because of their skin color or some other physical attribute.
Footnotes 1. Stam, Robert. Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture. Duke, 1997. 2. Ramos, Alberto and Marina Oliveira. "Sem medo de revelar a cor". Correio Braziliense. May 9, 2002. 3. Some people with whom I discussed race spoke of this idea of "Brazilian white" in reference to a person that they knew would most likely not be considered white on a global scale or even in Brazil's most southern states but could be considered white in some social circles or regions of the country. 4. For a more thorough look at this idea, see my previous essay entitled "How Is Brazil Racist? Let Me Count the Ways". Brazzil. April 2003. Available online July 13, 2006. http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/3542/29/ 5. Rufino, Alzira. "Resultados da reunião sobre o caso de violência contra a mulher em JK". Etnia na TV. http://www.eticanatv.org.br/pagina_new.php?id_new=152&idioma=0 6. Westphalen, Cecília Maria. "A Mulher no Universo de Casa-Grande & Senzala".
http://nmnt.fgf.org.br/artigos/a_mulher.html 7. Dias Filho, Antonio Jonas. "As Mulatas que não estão no Mapa." Cadernos Pagu (6/7), Núcleo de Estudos de Gênero - Pagu/Unicamp, 1996 8. Bastide, Roger. "Dusky Venus, Black Apollo", Race (1961) as quoted in Carl Degler's Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States. University of Wisconsin Press, 1971. 9. Bastide, Roger and Fernandes, Florestan. Negros e Brancos em São Paulo. Companhia Editora Nacional, 1959 10. Ibid 11. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Ianni, Octávio. Côr e Mobilidade Social em Florianópolis: Aspectos das Relações entre negros e brancos numa comunidade do Brasil Meridional. Companhia Editora Nacional, São Paulo. 1960. 12. Ibid 13. Queiroz Júnior, Teófilo de. Preconceito de Cor e a Mulata na Literature Brasileira. Editora Ática, São Paulo. 14. Martin, Charles. "Brazil: Such Nightmares, Such Dreams". Black Renaissance. December 31, 1998. Vol. 2, Issue 1 15. City News de São Paulo from November 7, 1971, as quoted in Queiroz Júnior, Teófilo de. Preconceito de Cor e a Mulata na Literature Brasileira. Editora Ática, São Paulo. 1982 16. Bernard, Michelle D. "Brown Sugar - Its not so sweet". Independent Women's Forum. April 30, 2004. [Available online June 2, 2006]. 17. Daniel, G. Reginald. Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths? 2006 Penn State University Press. 18. Gomes, Nilma Lino. Sem perder a raiz: Corpo e cabelo como símbolos da identidade negra. Autêntica Editora, 2006. 19. Wells, Mark. "Down in Black Bahia". June 2002. Available online July 23, 2006. http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/6704/39/ . For an in-depth discussion on the politics of hair amongst black women in Brazil see Nilma Lino Gomes's Sem perder a raiz: Corpo e cabelo como símbolos da identidade negra (Autêntica Editora, 2006). Her description of the maintenance and importance of hair weaves reminded me much of what I saw in observing my friends, the sisters Danielle and Fátima, in my "Down in Black Bahia" essay. 20. WEBTAL. "Juliana e Marcela estão no "Paredão" desta Terça-Feira." March 22, 2004. Available online. January 26, 2006. http://www.webtal.com.br/noticia.php?cd=735 21. Terra. "Não sou racista", diz Marcela. March 24, 2004. Available online. January 26, 2006. http://exclusivo.terra.com.br/bbb4/interna/0,,OI283352-EI2533,00.html 22. www.assolan.com.br/ 23. The term "Nega do Cabelo Duro" was also a popular Carnaval song from the 1940s written by the team of David Nasser e Rubens Soares. The song has been recorded countless times over the years including a version by the Rock/Rap group Planet Hemp. 24. Terra. "BBs "lavam roupa suja" e Cris leva prêmio extra." April 12, 2004. Available online. January 26, 2006. http://exclusivo.terra.com.br/bbb4/interna/0,,OI292209-EI2533,00.html 25. Mattos, Laura. "Domésticas entram na Justiça contra novela". Folha de S. Paulo. September 22, 2003. [Available online June 1, 2006] http://observatorio.ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/artigos/asp23092003993.htm 26. see France Winddance Twine's Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil. Rutgers University Press, 1998.
This is part five 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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it is not *only* racism, it is also the laws of capitalism, you get what market demands and rich Brazilians are mainly white,
no denying that and TV channels ae about money not inner beauty. Still nowadays since tv does shape and mould people's psyche to such a large extent, tv should definitly make an effort to portray non-white Brazilains not just as maids, football players and muscicians, let alone "bandidos", but in a more positive way.This would be a major step forward or a beginning of change in one of the states with the world's highest "gini index" (=inequality rate) and where this gini index is (by coincidence?) 100% color-based..
I'd add that the comparison with Sweden was totally wrong as it is actually quite the opposite, as interestingly Swedish tv has
lots of non-swedish looking people featured in tv programs as an effort to represent the new genetations.But that's Nordic
democracy, not colonial Portuguese culture (read below)...
2) Quotas...in principle they are not nice, but in practice it is unquestioanble that quotas have helped Black people in the
US go up the social ladder very much unlike non-white people in Brazil (and in case they forgot, non-white brazilians are
kindly reminded of that by Rede globo everyday which either "hides" them or shows them as gun-holding "bandidos" (the
worst of all being those horrible and demagogic "police" reality shows, an equivalent of those feed-them-to-the-lions shows staged in the Colosseum by Roman emperors). I have always wondered, how those working people in the favelas must feel about seeing Brazilian media portraying always and only the 5% scum of the favelas and implicilty selling that as favela dwellers ?
3) it also true that *some* Black americans, like the author of the article, are "obsessed" with skin color 365 days a year
be it KKK Alabama or Greenland's ice desert and become incredibly annoyed everytime, for example, a lighter-than-him skinned Brazilian guy affirm to be pardo instead of preto like him. Skin pigmentation shoudl never matter and It is horrible to be reminded to be discriminated as black by stupid white racist people, I agree, but why freaking out on color categorization (you're no less black than me just because you're lighter) by other non-white people of all shades?
4) non-white brazilians are the least racist people in the world (unlike *some* Black americans not including the color
obsessed author of this article (whom I nevertheless appreciate for its stimulating contributions) and....unlike very racist white brazilians.....to say the least... and I love non-white Brazilians for that and hope they'll never change regardless of how
white Brazilians treat them and how some Black americans try to import **some** (bad) ideas from the US (more hideous
Farrakhan than the great Martin Luther King).
5) As for the white Brazilian "Elite", as one contributor rightly said in one of his post on this site, their mindest is
still 100% "colonial portuguese" seeing society very much still like "casa grande e senzala" (which evolved in today's
dichotomy of "Morro" and "Asfalto") and not seeing any further than their wallet and the barbed-wire fences of their
patrolled golden condos! It is also true that Brazil unlike Europe has not gone though European modernizing historical processes like Illuminism and French Revolution...if not just as a postcard from Europe. Brazil has evolved economically 100 times more than socially.... and (their) money is all that counts to rich white Brazilians showing on the way Brazilian elite tackle society's problems (not caring about the link between crime and poverty...that would mean shelling out money on social programs for pardos & pretos,> ).