Race in Latin America 1920-Present

1. Brazil & Myth of Racial Democracy

1.1. 1. The race relations in Brazil have NOT escaped racism and racial discrimination, and the problem is far from solved. 2. Significance of skin color in Brazil is present. Genetic explanations for race differences have been refuted and inequality is a product of culture. 3. Half black-and-mulato and half white population. Mulatto is the national symbol. Slavery did not end until 1888. The government actively recruited white immigrants to decrease the presence of blacks. 4. Literal “whitening” of the country. 5. Improvement through whitening is still believed that miscegenation will improve the black racial stock.

1.2. “Race relations depend on how persons are categorized, a process in which more powerful person ascribe and impose categories on others. Racial gaps in achievement reflect racial gaps on ability. 1. System of Exchange in which status, money, and skin color are valued. Blacks are at the bottom, whites on top, apparent in growing gap in college attainment. “While 19th century scientific theories of white supremacy have since become discredited, such ideas remain deeply embedded in social thinking in Brazil…if they are deeply embedded, and people quietly accept race differences in ability and unequal outcomes. The relative social peace that is built on acceptance of differences would be destroyed by policies that assume an equality that most know is false.” There is a race problem! History confirms there is no way to avoid the tension that arise when races of significantly different levels of ability try to live together. “Mulatto escape hatch” improves social standing of generations to come.

2. Universal Hierarchy Brazil, Columbia, Latin America

2.1. Race is a political and social construct that varies over time

2.2. The story of non-racial America has a long history. Denial of racial thinking and practices since 1492.

2.3. Changing definitions of Blackness – Black, negro, black community, Afro-Columbian, Afro-descendant, lbres, morenos, preto ( black) Pardo ( brown) Amarelo ( Yellow – Asiana)

2.4. Recognition of the ambiguous practice of the category is still evident being ignored in Columbia while emerging in Brazil in affirmative action programs and racial quotas. It is evident in academic circles, while less evident in state circles, policy-makers. The agents and agencies produce simple concepts of blackness, but at the same time, work to destabilize the concepts. Seeing culture as emergent is only open to future political projects, rather than rooted to past history. Indigenous social movements are highly heterogeneous and is essentialisation. Anthropologists worry that their agendas of deconstruction conflict with agendas of cultural vindication and political mobilization of social activist movements.

2.5. Asia-Pacific Region – Latin America is overlooked due to its relative and political insignificance in the late 20th Century. The Spanish Pacific was already a well-established geographical and political identity. Asian Labor in Latin America marked the practice of the business chain. Chinese coolies were used to fill the labor demand after the end of the slave trade. Future wars will be conflicts for commerce, the power that rules the Pacific is the power that rules the world. Understanding the political economy can only emerge from systematic interactions between countries. . “Motions of capital recognize no boundaries except those that serve it-mainly to divide people from one another by confirming them in their little spaces, which rules out all possibility of resistance to those motions, and all possibility of imagining alternative futures except in the most localized ways. The problem of alternative paradigms presently is a problem of how to reconceive the locals and the global simultaneously. That calls for new alliances, and new of thinking about the worlds…the people of the Pacific have long had to learn to speak in new languages that were initially not theirs, but are by now indispensable to their existence. ..That may be the best we can do for the present, …it alone would represent an enormous step toward a common ground; a common ground constructed not on the basis of uniformity, but on the basis of diverse localisms that do not deny but take as their point of departure the common concerns of a globalized world. “

3. 1929- Boaz Eugenics Conference, debate about race mixing with blacks led to degeneracy, miscegenation is normal and healthy and has nothing to do with race. “ We are all Mestizos” Miscegenation was endorsed and racial democracy myth will continue.

4. 1930 -Freyre Miscegenation is celebrated. Belief that racial inequality is an artifact of slavery and culture and should disappear with time.

5. 1950- Fernandez Labor market competition would end racial inequality because careers would reflect merit. White would resist equality, but Capitalism would create opportunities for advancement and white would have to accept mulattos and blacks. 1950s – UNESCO studies of race inflict damage on racial democracy.

6. 1940-2000 Percentage of white has fallen from 64-54%. European immigration has decreased. Mulattos increases from 21-43%. Blacks decline from 15-5%. There is obvious white miscegenation, mostly on the bottom fifth of the socio-economic scale, more with mulattos then blacks. De-Facto Color line – due to whites in the middle-class and upper class turn their backs on miscegenation. “Marginalization of blacks and browns:” – racial democracy is harder to hold.

7. 1970 – Black Soul Movement, not until 1988 were anti-discrimination laws passed re: racial equality. “the practice of racism…subject to imprisonment.” However, Laws are rarely enforced. Vertical and Horizontal inequality exists. Vertical has to with jobs, money, status, education and is very severe. Horizontal has to with socializing and marrying across racial lines.

8. Mid-1990s Black activists fight and tell the truth re: inequality, impose strict employment quotas, and penalties from discrimination.

9. Today – Brazil is split into regions of White and Black & Mulatto. Residential Self-Segregation, even in the slums. “color differences…two poor neighborhoods show that class alone may not explain special segregation. Self-Segregation between Blacks and Mulattos. The gap between blacks, mulattos and whites has increased due to a racial hierarchy devised, and enforced by whites for their own benefits. Non-White Internalized Hierarchy “discriminatory glass ceiling…prevents them from entering the middle class.”

10. The Cultural Politics of Blackness in Columbia

11. 1969 – Nina de Friedemann Academic Black Studies begin to change. Common in both was addressing the invisibility of blackness. Identifying with being black and the weakness and failure of people to identify as such. African Roots – uncover hidden creolized Africanisms to challenge dominants versions of Europeans and indigenous in the Columbian culture. “Otherness” identified with mestizo national identity, but failure to do so with Blacks.

12. 1970s- Black Student Cultural Activists began to form.

13. 1991 – Official recasting Columbia as a pluriethnic and multicultural nation. 1991 – PCN – presenting Afro-Columbian situation around racial discrimination is not as engaging as presenting it with an emphasis on cultural differences. Ethnic differences are prioritized over racism so the definition of Blackness in Law 70 is constraining.

14. Post 1991 - Increasingly inclusive and clear concept of blackness emerging in Columbia by post-1991 reforms and social movements, but with important roots in the academic and activist work of previous decades. Law 70 – strong elements of communidad negra, based on ethnic difference and territorial claims complemented by a more encompassing category of afro supported by multiculturalism and the census.

15. 1993- Question asking about belonging to ethnic groups includes Black communities, but only 1.5 % of people identified. Article 55 and Law 70 - While blackness is seen as an ethnic group, the focus of legislation was rural black communities. The emphasis is on the ethnic and cultural difference of a black ethnic group centered in a marginal rural area, when in fact the situation is more complex. Lack of Black Representative in Constituent Assembly. Instead, an Embera (indigenous leader) represents black cultures and vocalized the similarities amongst the indigenous. Black Lobbying Cimarron

16. 1996 – Attempt to allow representative turned down by a succession of courts, but allowed by Constitutional Court in legitimizing a black community.

17. Miscegenation

18. Race & Intelligence

19. Racial Conflict

20. Racial Preferences

21. Mixed Race Experiences

22. Racial Scripts

23. Themes

24. Blackness Whiteness "Other-Ness"

25. Fueling Problems