Name: Treyce Ellen Goulart

As a black brazilian woman who studies gender, race and history, is strange to
read an article as Expats Find Brazil's Reputation For Race-Blindness Is Undone By
Reality. This text reminded me about the study made by UNO on Brazil around the
decade 1950, about the marvelous racial democracy that the country allegedly had
achieved. That research, very early, unveiled the perverse racism in Brazil and how that
system prevailed and get renewed after the end of slavery. And now, almost 60 years
after that research, this article presents to me a foreign version of Brazil, with the same
estereotipos that were around at 19th century. It gets more interesting and complicated
for me when I think that I heard the same arguments from brazilians who, as the article
indicates, aren't addressing the racism as a system.
A important fact about Brazil, is the condition as the last place in the Americas
to give up slavery. No doubt, that fact affected the relations between ex-slaveries or
diasporic black people and the white dominant community. That unequal relationship
has been extended for too long and was fed back by the racialist theories that on the one
hand affirmed the inferiority of black and indigenous people, on the other hand
deffended the creation of a mestizo race. So, that period was marked for theories that
deffended eugenic ideals where the dominant race (the white one) would prevailed. So
white folks were encouraged to marry with or rape black women and this violence is the
heart of racial democracy. These theories were correlated with the colonialism and they
have affected and racialized all the relations on Brazil. That logic is still around here
and ignoring that or believing on the discourses that affirmes that our ploblems are just
economics, is get on a war that we already lost. We must not prioritize oppressions, but
we need to face carefully this racist heritage.
Another strategy of the racist system is the colorism. As Ky Adderley said, the
tone of ours skins defines the roles that we, as black people, occupy in this country. That
kind of discrimination commonly intensificates the lack of sense of community between
black people. Often, we are encouraged to believe that we need to defend only those
whose have the skin tone similar to ours. That is an error and is another heritage from
the historical relationships on a racist society who allowed social mobility to only those
whose skin was clearer. When we reproduce the same thinking logic we contribute with
the same system that segregate and prevents us to ascend. That same logic of internal
segregation creates the sensation of meritocracy, as it ignores the big picture of the lack
of equal opportunities for all black men and women.
Well, this article just reminded me that 127 years after the abolition of slavery,
we, black people are still fighting for our right to use our turbants, to have curly hairs,
wide noses and dark skin. We are even still fighting for the right of our children play
with black dolls. We are still fighting for our own humanity. There is not racial
democracy. Thats the hard truth about Brazil and the number of the black youth
genocide reminds us about that everyday.