Quote: (12-06-2012 08:12 PM)kdolo Wrote:
Quote: (12-06-2012 05:55 PM)speakeasy Wrote:
A miss Brazilian ass contest and not even one mulatta or Afro-Brazilian girl. WTF is up with that??
Absolutely ridiculous. Only in Brazil ..........
The country with the largest Black/African population in the world outside of Nigeria that loves to pretend that they don't exist.......
A Brazil butt contest with no black or mixed women ????? mind boggling..... the mental gymnastics needed to make this happen are extreme.
Brazil has a strange racial dynamic that has always left me a little perplexed.
On one hand, there is the claim that Brazil is more of a racially inclusive "rainbow" nation than the USA. Looking at it all objectively, I can conclude that this claim isn't entirely without merit. There was a much greater degree of racial mixing in Brazil than in the USA (out of demographic necessity) and Brazil does include a larger black/mixed populace than does the USA or any other nation outside of Africa.
After you then proceed to take into account the very obvious African cultural influences that Brazilians seem proud of and happy to sell to the world (ex: the music, capoeira, obsession with the ass/bunda, etc) and watch their soccer team at every world cup, it becomes easy to see how a rational individual could conclude that Brazil really is an inclusive, rainbow nation (or "racial democracy", as its been called).
And yet at the same time, Brazil's populace is heavily stratified by race, despite its historically more mixed identity. The colored populace is in very poor economic, social and political shape.
In the USA, blacks have already broken through many glass ceilings. There has been a black (well, mixed) president, there have been multiple blacks in high presidential cabinet positions and ambassadorships, countless blacks in congress and in state legislatures, many blacks leading elite universities, plenty of black Fortune 500 executives, blacks at the top of the military hierarchy, etc, etc. The same is true for other "colored" (read: non-white) folks here.
I've not been one to shy away from discussions about american racism, but regardless of how challenging you think it may have been you can't deny that blacks and hispanics have already come quite a long way here (even if there is still a long way to go).
I look at Brazil and just don't see anywhere near the same level of progress and diversity at the top. White brazilians dominate just about every sphere of brazilian life not related to sports or music. Despite being in the majority, colored folks there seem largely invisible relative to their American counterparts, and the
gap in living standards between non-whites and whites seems even bigger there than it is in the USA.
This nation seems to adhere to a legacy of racial-cultural blending and malicious, veiled racism all at the same time. The presentation/image of the nation
feels more tolerant, and I want to think it actually is (because I do like it), but the actual numbers and reports on the ground don't seem to indicate that at all. In fact, they paint a petty dark picture.
I don't really get why all this is, but I do find it concerning.