The man we were staying with in Blumenau began with a story. “Down here, the racism can get pretty bad against Brazilians. Even though they were here first. Even thought they are an import part of the society. If you are not European, especially German, you can get discriminated against. I am Danish, and when I tell people that they ask me, ‘But are you actually Danish? Were you born there?’ Meanwhile many of the Germans themselves are not fully German. Maybe their grandparents were, but their parents and they were all born here in Brazil, yet they try to cling to that German heritage as much as they can."
Racism in Brazil, like sexism in many ways, is still a volatile issue that manifests itself in different appearances throughout Brazilian culture. As our host in Blumenau described, the melting pot of immigrants and heritages can create tension. Blumenau, a city in southern Brazil infused with German immigrants, resembles more a traditional German village than a Brazilian town. The architecture, language, and culture all make you feel like you are in Central Europe; even the reason for our visit, Oktoberfest, is classically German. This, according to our host, has created problems for Brazilians with darker skin, who do not fit the German ideal of light skin and hair. Many were driven from the city, creating a strongly homogeneous culture in Blumenau. It was certainly noticeable walking around the town; almost everyone appeared European, while very few had the dark skin omnipresent in northeast Brazil.
The United States may provide the best parallel for Brazil’s struggles with racism. Through their colonial periods, both countries received enormous amounts of slaves from Africa; in fact, of any country, Brazil took in by far the most African slaves. Brazil also abolished slavery last of any country in the Americas or Europe, in 1888, a little over twenty years after the United States. Both of these facts have created impressions and difficulties that last until this day.
A saying exists here in Brazil, “Anyone can look Brazilian.” White, black, indigenous, Asian, European, mixed, all can be found as the norm in different places within Brazil, and walking through Rio de Janeiro I have noticed the variety of appearances. Unfortunately, from my perspective, Brazil’s state of racial equality is worse than America’s. Many of the blue-collar jobs that I have come in contact with—sweeping the streets, janitorial duties, others—are occupied by Afro-Brasileiros. At the private Catholic university I attend, lighter-skinned Brazilians make up the large majority of students. In the election posters littered around the city in preparation for the October elections, I do not remember seeing a single Afro-Brasileiro face, male or female. Darker skinned people, especially in Rio, make up the majority of the inhabitants in favelas.
For all that, I have not seen open displays of racism. It seems to me that racial problems of the past—slavery, tension between foreign immigrants and native settlers—have created institutionalized inequalities that Brazil struggles to escape from. Violence in Rio, which often occurs in favelas, is not between different racial groups, but rather different groups within favelas vying for power and control. A strong drug culture also underlies much of the violence. No Ferguson-style controversy has claimed Brazil’s news media, and conscience, in recent years. Many Afro-Brasileiros hold white-collar jobs in professional fields of banking, education, or sales. Yet, a divide certainly exists between the average state of dark-skinned and light-skinned Brazilians that Brazil ought to work to resolve in the years that come.
