. It was a common view among Brazilian elites, from the end of the
Second Reign until the beginning of the
Republic, that Brazil had escaped the problem of racial
prejudice, based on the theory that in Brazil there had been a kind of mild slavery and harmony between masters and slaves. It was also common to compare the racial situation observed in the
United States at that time with the image that was formed of the national reality, concluding that in Brazil black people were treated much better. But this was not true, and several authors contested this view already in the 19th century. Later research reaffirmed the falsity of the ideas of social harmony and mild slavery, showing how black people lived in rustic and often unhealthy housing, performed heavy labor in long working hours, received little medical assistance and low-quality food, and were systematically abused physically, morally, psychologically and sexually. Resistance to domination frequently resulted in brutal repression with humiliations and severe physical punishments that often led to mutilation, deformation, disfigurement or death. As noted by
Leonardo Boff, "history was written by the white hand". At the same time, the
whitening of the Brazilian population was desired, supported by theories of
eugenics and selective
miscegenation and implemented through state colonization programs with populations of
European immigrants. The whitening theory was regarded as a scientific truth and was widely disseminated until the mid-20th century. It was based on the presumption of white superiority, understanding miscegenation as a way to make the population lighter, based on the belief that the
gene of the
white race would prevail over the others and that people in general would seek partners lighter than themselves. Thus it was asserted that whitening would produce a healthy mixed-race population capable of becoming ever whiter, both culturally and physically. For this reason, the ideal of miscegenation was seen as an effective mechanism for the absorption of the
mestizo and the long-term elimination of traits of the black ethnic group in the population. The objective of these mechanisms was neither to promote the social advancement of a certain portion of blacks and mulattos nor to establish
racial equality, but, on the contrary, to preserve the hegemony of the dominant race. When it was observed that even after the
abolition of slavery in 1888 blacks and pardos remained in an inferior situation, it was justified by saying that, since the legal impediments to their advancement had been dissolved and since in Brazil there was no prejudice, if success did not occur it was due to their own fault, reiterating racist ideologies that viewed the black person as lazy, morally degraded, averse to work, ignorant, intellectually inferior and incapable of taking advantage of the opportunities that opened up. In the words of
Petrônio Domingues, "according to this conception, the black person would come to conceive freedom as the opposite of work. Freedom as the opposite of responsibility. Freedom as the opposite of discipline. In addition,
scientific racism endorsed the hypothesis according to which such deficiencies were more biological than cultural in nature". This scientistic discourse exempted former slave masters and the state from responsibility for the situation of blacks and gained official status, and its propaganda was so efficient that it was accepted even by part of the black and mixed-race population. With the work
Casa-Grande & Senzala (1933), by the
historian and
sociologist Gilberto Freyre, the theories of racial democracy and social harmony were systematized and gained prominence in reaffirming an idyllic image of Brazilian reality. Although the author did not deny the existence of violence and inequality, he tended to describe them as circumstantial rather than fundamental, and gave greater importance to the contribution of blacks and indigenous peoples to culture and to miscegenation itself in the formation of the population as a dynamic, adaptive, democratizing and non-conflictual process that tended to balance antagonisms. According to
Clóvis Moura, Gilberto Freyre characterized
slavery in Brazil as composed of flexible masters and conforming slaves. Freyre's myth of the "good master" would be an attempt to interpret the
contradictions of slavery as an unimportant episode that would not have the power to nullify the supposed harmony between masters and slaves. The work received immediate acclaim from a significant part of the intelligentsia, but soon also began to be criticized as a fanciful reading of the national past, while some critics understood it as a utopian project of a profoundly racist society.
Present day Racist theories, whether purely ideological or
disguised as science, penetrated Brazilian culture on a large scale and were not only taken as truths but also naturalized inequalities and made discussion about the situation of black people difficult, reinforcing discriminatory cultural practices and public policies, in addition to harming the formation of a politicized consciousness among black people, the understanding of their history and culture, and the construction of their own identity, weakening the sense of solidarity and group belonging among the black population. Since the 1970s black movements have celebrated 13 May, the day of the
abolition of slavery, as the
National Day of Denunciation Against Racism, encouraging reflection and denunciation of
structural racism, inequality and violence against black people. Even today the idea of the existence of a racial democracy in the country is widely disseminated. According to Joaze Bernardino, "it is nothing new to say that a significant majority of Brazilians recognize themselves as 'mixed', just as they value this 'mixture'. What happens when this miscegenation is emphasized and valued is that there is a confusion of racial mixture on the biological level with racial interrelations in the sociological sense. Assuming that the former occurred without conflict [...] suggests that the latter also existed without conflict". The study concluded by stating: favela, the largest in Brazil. ::"[It is attested] in a striking way, the intense inequality of opportunities to which the black population in Brazil is subjected. Poverty, as we have seen, is not 'democratically' distributed among the races. Blacks are overrepresented in poverty and indigence, considering both age distribution, regional distribution and gender structure. [...] The schooling of whites and blacks, in turn, clearly exposes the inertia of the pattern of racial discrimination. As we have seen, despite improvements in the average levels of schooling of whites and blacks throughout the century, the pattern of discrimination - that is, the difference in schooling of whites in relation to blacks - remains stable across generations. [...] The other socioeconomic dimensions analyzed, let us recall, refer to child labor, the labor market, housing conditions and consumption of durable goods. In all of them, as in education and poverty, we repeatedly observe that there are differences between whites and blacks, with blacks always at a disadvantage". In São Paulo, in 2016, 70% of favela residents were black and pardos. According to the
IBGE, in 2016 the illiteracy rate of whites was 4.2%, and that of blacks or pardos was 9.9%; the average income from all work was R$ 2,814 for whites, R$ 1,606 for pardos and R$ 1,570 for blacks; among children aged 5 to 7 who were forced to work, 35.8% were white and 63.8% black or pardo, and the unemployment rate was 9.5% for whites, 14.5% for pardos and 13.6% for blacks. A study by IPEA showed that in Brazil, out of every seven individuals murdered, five are Afro-descendants. The study also stated that "if it is true that the profound social inequalities existing in the country are behind many of our dramas (such as divided cities; differences in lethality between poor and rich; and between blacks and non-blacks), on the other hand, the social question does not exhaust the explanation of the striking differences in violent victimization that affect the Afro-descendant population more, which reflect, in part, the racism still prevailing in Brazil". Racist jokes and sayings are common in Brazilian popular culture, reinforcing discrimination and marginalization, perpetuating stereotypes and creating the impression that racism is merely a joke. According to Fernando Ferreira, ::"Our racism combines inclusion with
social exclusion. In sports, in music, in the body of the law, we manage to provide some inclusion. But if we examine statistics on leisure, work or birth, the scenario is disharmonious. Any foreigner entering private clubs, elite theaters or luxurious restaurants will notice the whiter complexion of the people in these privileged places. We, because we are inserted into a process of naturalization of these discrepancies, hardly recognize these differences. [...] Moreover, the fact that we are still debating whether or not there is racism in the country indicates our lack of vocation to understand our history. To say that we are not racist is not
irony, it is ideology". == Debate ==