Brazilians See Themselves in Mixed-Race Obama
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Stephanie Beasley, Reuters, June 10, 2008
Barack Obama’s campaign for the U.S. presidency has generated huge interest in Brazil, a country whose African heritage is a key part of its identity but where many blacks still struggle to progress in society.
Democrat contender Obama would be the United States’ first African-American president should he defeat Republican John McCain in November’s election.
Obama’s progress has been avidly debated in Brazil, from student refectories to newspaper columns. His portrait was on the front cover of this week’s Veja magazine, a leading Brazilian news weekly, along with a 10-page report.
“Obama looks like my father,” singer Caetano Veloso said in an interview with Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. “He’s a mulatto that’s looks like someone from Santo Amaro (Veloso’s hometown). I’ve heard he’s said he looks like a Brazilian.”
The interest in Obama highlights different notions of race in Brazil and the United States—who have a shared history of slavery—and also Brazil’s own racial fault lines.
Brazil boasts of being a racial democracy. Many people have African blood, including internationally famed musicians and athletes, and African elements are ingrained in the national culture from samba to cooking.
But in reality, few Afro-Brazilians are in the top ranks of politics and business. Blacks count for many of the poor in this country of 185 million people, which has one world’s biggest income disparities. Police harassment of young black men is common.
“There are few racists in Brazil but there is racism,” said Andre Jenszky, a lawyer at the Sao Paulo office of a Wall Street firm. “Racism is sort of casual and everyday.”
To many Brazilians, Obama, the son of a white American woman and a black Kenyan, is not quite black anyway.
{snip}
(Posted on June 11, 2008)
Comments
I used to work with Latin Americans that were white, Spanish or mixed. The white and Spanish ones were friends but not with the mestizo. I wonder what they must think now that they live in a country where the mestizos are going to dominate one day. What a difference in the two Americas!
Posted by at 6:24 PM on June 11
Why exactly is this news for Americans? Why should we give a damn what Brazilians think about our presidential election?
PS: BTW just like in the US, if “Police harassment of young black men is common.” it is probably because they are committing crimes in numbers way above their share of the population. If you want the police to leave you alone stop stealing, raping and murdering people.
Posted by Enough at 6:35 PM on June 11
Of course, the article doesn’t mention the tsunami of racial violence in Brazil, between white hispanics and black hispanics. About half the population despises people like Obama so much, they’d hurt him if he showed up in their neighborhood.
Brazil is BALKANIZED. This is the great secret kept by our media with regard to multi-racial countries, particularly where there are alot of mixed race people. Far from being peaceful, multi-cultural havens of tolerance and understanding, there is extreme violence, even open warfare among racial groups.
You can have two guys. One is 10% african, 90% white hispanic and the other is 50% african, 50% white hispanic. And they will kill each other over race.
Liberals want you to believe that race mixing leads to racial harmony. But, there are many areas in the world where you can see just how big a lie that is.
Brazil is one of these places.
Posted by at 7:54 PM on June 11
An article similiar to this appeared in this week’s NY Times by Thomas Friedman. He is in Egypt. He finds that Egyptians are just soo soo enthusiastic about Obama because he has brown skin and looks “just like us”.
This kind of article will appear more and more. And it all comes from Obama headquarters. Vote for Obama, he looks Egyptian. And Brazilian and sort of Arabic and Indian.
If McCain wins, the white hating media will go ballistic.
Posted by at 7:55 PM on June 11
Well here we go:
“But in reality, few Afro-Brazilians are in the top ranks of politics and business. Blacks count for many of the poor in this country of 185 million people, which has one world’s biggest income disparities. Police harassment of young black men is common.”
A country that is seemingly near devoid of “racists” but permeated with “racism,” is to explain for the failure of blacks in Brazil?
If that isn’t doublethink ala Orwell, then I do not know what is!
Why do they not just come right out and say, that for whites not to give (yes give) half of all that they produce to blacks is “racism,” since they cannot produce it for themselves? Why maintain the myth of racial “oppression” and historical slavery “legacies” as the cause of income disparity and sociopolitical marginalization for them?
I think the answer is clear, even if whites did give them half (or even 99.9%) of what they produce, these problems would not go away. They would remain, as would the acts of rape, murder, and violent marauding that make up the neoclassical and postcolonial triad of modern black contributions to any country that is “lucky” enough to be graced by them in any numbers greater than zero. Even Japan, as homogeneous as it is by choice, is periodically afflicted with an example of such African “diversity” via “soldiers” and other US military personnel of midnight to beige pigmentation and Ebonic vocalizations, that we force onto their soil as our friendly cosmopolitan contribution to them as our main pacific ally.
Thus, the outright idiocy that the USA may very well emBarack upon in a possible “mainstream” media and sociopolitical elite orchestrated affirmative election in November of 2008?
As always, God help us all!
Posted by John PM at 8:08 PM on June 11
What a load of tripe.
“To many Brazilians, Obama, the son of a white American woman and a black Kenyan, is not quite black anyway.”
Not quite black…yes….that would be because he is half white.
Posted by at 8:13 PM on June 11
God forbid we ever become like Brazil, a third world hell hole with a large black criminal underclass. I fear this is where we are heading though.
Posted by realist at 8:37 PM on June 11
Brazil has mastered the art of nuanced racism (with the largest argot [offensive and benign] of vocabulary related to every imaginable racial ad-mixture and pure blood in the world) and Cuba runs a close second place. Believe it or not, there is an ethnic enclave in the Sao Paulo region of Brazil composed of lily white Portuguese speaking descendants of Confederate States plantation and slave owners who colonized the region shortly after The War of States’ Rights. Slavery wasn’t outlawed in Brazil until the 1880s. These people celebrate Thanksgiving and Jeff Davis’ birthday in Portuguese! Talk about cultural dissemination!
Posted by Flaxen-headed Strumpet at 8:49 PM on June 11
Brazil is a perfect example of how a country SHOULDN’T be.
Posted by at 10:32 PM on June 11
Believe it or not, there is an ethnic enclave in the Sao Paulo region of Brazil composed of lily white Portuguese speaking descendants of Confederate States plantation and slave owners who colonized the region shortly after The War of States’ Rights. Slavery wasn’t outlawed in Brazil until the 1880s. These people celebrate Thanksgiving and Jeff Davis’ birthday in Portuguese! Talk about cultural dissemination!
The city is called Americana. Only few actual confederate whites there, though; as always, no matter the taboos or restrictions against it (not that Brazil has these), mixing occurs.
Posted by Michael T at 12:05 AM on June 12
If McCain wins, the white hating media will go ballistic.
Sorry, some of my highlited didn’t get here. I meant that the blacks in the U.S. will go ballistic if McCain wins and they will of course, go ballistic if Obama wins. Basically, as we all know, blacks will have a reason to riot win or loose (as if they need a reason)
Posted by Skip at 12:49 AM on June 12
God forbid we ever become like Brazil, a third world hell hole with a large black criminal underclass. I fear this is where we are heading though.
What do you MEAN!! WE ARE like Brazil. I’ve said on myspace that we are on a slide to being a 4th world nation of the Road Warrior kind. Some 3rd world countries may be bad, but they have lived barely above the stone age their entire history. The U.S. is being dragged back there and it is not going to be pretty. Americans are not accustomed to manual labor (most anyway) or foraging for their own food or having to do something productive for society in return for their survival. I can see marauding gangs of inner city thugs leaving to pillage the countryside and ranging ever further causing trouble where ever they go (as usual) I know city people who have never seen growing corn or wheat and have no real idea of where food comes from other than ‘The store’ that was an honest-to-god answer I got once in L.A.
Posted by Skip at 1:00 AM on June 12
Yes, many Brazilians do strongly indentify with Senator Obama. He represents a Brazilian future for the United States. One that has massive environmental degradation, overcrowded cities, endemic violence, and great disparities between rich and poor. America is becoming more like Brazil, but without the sense of fun and the easy-going, friendly women. We will be a grim, politically correct, Soviet Government Style Brazil Del Norte.
Posted by Sardonicus at 7:43 AM on June 12
Multiculturalism eliminates culture. Diversity kills culture. What is stronger, Chinese culture in China or some watered down version called Chinese-American culture?? Multicultists think the blending of races and cultures will eliminate racial tensions or all thoughts of race and that is their goal. However it doesn’t. Most of the people of Brazil are mixed race. Has it eliminated racial tensions? No not at all, the ligher skin ones eschew the darker skinned ones. Those who are majority hispanic identify with other majority hispanices etc. Blacks or those with a lot of black in them are there, just like everywhere, at the bottom of the pile.
Posted by at 8:43 AM on June 12
Black Americans are also fixated with Brazil, because of the high degree of racial mixing that goes on there. In fact, it is the fantasy tourist spot for most of them. They believe that most of the women look like supermodels Adriana Lima or Giselle Bundchen. Meaning look white, but indentify themselves as Black, and that they will fall all over them because of it. For whatever reason, many Blacks do believe a racially mixed society is the perfect society.
Posted by at 9:20 AM on June 12
Voting for someone who “resembles” oneself is stupid. Choosing a candidate because he is of the same “race” or sex is lunacy.
Voting for someone who has the same goals and ideology makes sense, but isn’t happening.
The presidencial race is a popularity contest based on foolish, frivilous, skin deep characteristics.
Posted by at 9:33 AM on June 12
“Many people have African blood, including internationally famed musicians and athletes, and African elements are ingrained in the national culture from samba to cooking.
But in reality, few Afro-Brazilians are in the top ranks of politics and business. Blacks count for many of the poor in this country of 185 million people, which has one world’s biggest income disparities. Police harassment of young black men is common.”
Isn’t it interesting how the same traits come up again and again in blacks throughout the world?
Posted by at 1:15 PM on June 12
“If McCain wins, the white hating media will go ballistic.”
Posted by at 7:55 PM on June 11
And - If McCain looses, the white hating media will go ballistic.
Posted by Whiteplight at 2:47 PM on June 12
“Leo Imamura, a 45-year-old consultant, said he did not consider Obama to be black”
For the record Obama is Black, he is also Biracial…African American identity is an ancestral / cultural identification more than a genetic one. Some of the blackest people I know have green eyes and red hair with long roots in this country and recognize their Scotch Irish or Dutch roots as of incidental irrelevances.
Perhaps if Brazilians were less concerned about avoiding futile labels they would have the social cohesiveness and unity necessary to implement change. Being a mulatto in Brazil may be seen better than being Black but at the same both are butt-naked broke living in La Favela while their women are international play things.
Posted by African American Man at 4:54 PM on June 12
“Black Americans are fixated with Brazil, because of the high degree of racial mixing that goes on there. In fact, it is the fantasy tourist spot for most of them. They believe that most of the women look like supermodels Adriana Lima or Giselle Bundchen (look white, but indentify themselves as Black). “
Posted by at 9:20 AM
……………………………
Yes, indeed it is their fantasy world. But it’s pure fantasy, nothing more. It’s based entirely on media stories and wishful thinking: everything they have been told over their lifetimes about how wonderful and “non-racist” Brazil is. It’s where every woman looks like Giselle Bundchen and every black man can get one. Sure!
Brazil doesn’t have the same recognizable patterns of racism that North America does, that’s all. But it has its own.
I’ve heard a number of American blacks (who’ve never been there) comment on how great Brazil is, and especially how goodlooking the people are. (More nonsense. What would they know?)
I had a Mexican acquaintance, very race conscious (pro-brown but also very anti-black), who raved for years about how wonderful Brazil was. It was his mental vision of a happy multiracial paradise … just like the notion of so many other people (he had never been there either). Finally, he saved up some money and went. What an enormous disappointment! He came back HATING it!
I, on the contrary, have been there several times, and I liked it. But I didn’t go there with unrealistic expectations. It’s far from perfect, it’s no paradise, and I am under no illusions about that. Much depends on who you are and where you are. If you are white and have money, everything for you is fine. If you are a white without money, you would be forced down into the miscegenated mass. I do not want to see the USA become like Brazil, which seems to be the direction in which we are moving.
As Sardonicus said, America is becoming more like Brazil, but without the sense of fun and the easy-going, friendly people. Exactly! We will be a grim, politically correct, Soviet government-style Brasil do Norte.
In Brazil, there is no color line but rather a color continuum. The racial feeling is different from North america, but it’s there. As Flaxen HS put it (always so well), “Brazil has mastered the art of nuanced racism (with the largest argot [offensive and benign] of vocabulary related to every imaginable racial ad-mixture and pure blood in the world)” …
I think I told the story here once before of a very wealthy South African family (white) who were visiting there on their yacht (in the Cape to Rio yacht race). They LOVED Rio! They said they felt perfectly at home there. They told me it was just like back home, during apartheid. “The only difference is the absence of signs saying, this is for you and this is for us.”
Posted by ghw at 2:01 AM on June 13
“Leo Imamura, a 45-year-old consultant, said he did not consider Obama to be black”
…………………
From his name, I would guess Senhor Imamura to be Japanese (or of that origin)— of which there are many in Brazil.
Thus, he probably has no iron in this fire.
Incidentally, further to my comment yesterday, I must say that despite the poverty and crime (which are probably much worse in São Paulo) there is no city in the world that compares with Rio in beauty.
And, in addition to Vila Americana, in São Paulo state, there is also Santarem, on the Amazon, where many Confederates settled and their descendents still live today.
As FH Strumpet said, Brazil abolished slavery later than the US did, but it did so peacefully, without the need for bloodshed. If only we could have done the same!
http://home.centurytel.net/ctn19580/brazilmcks.html
Posted by ghw at 4:23 PM on June 13
I met an American black man who lived in Brazil for a few years. He hated it. Not for any racial reasons, but because it was so currupt and inefficient and chaotic. He said he was never so glad in his life when he finally got back in the good old USA.
Posted by at 5:52 PM on June 13
With its immense size, strategic location, resources and population, Brazil should be one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful countries. The fact that it is not says more about Brazil then anything else could.
Posted by at 2:45 PM on June 14
This little article is shallow and meaningless, and attempts to convince you that in other parts of the world Obama is loved and its just us that has a problem, and in this instance Brazil is the specific example. IT A LOAD OF BULL.
I’m married to a Brazilian, have been there at least 10 times, and speak Portuguese. Brazilians do not think the same as Americans about race and class. Mulattos in Brazil are a group unto themselves, and are more likely to identify with whites. They do not have differing speech patterns due to race, and do not insist on have a different culture. Brazil is truly a melting pot (whether that is a good thing I leave to you). Caetano Velosos is a socilaist millionare.
When has Brazil had a black president? (Never)
Do I know Brazilians that despise Obama? (Yes)
Posted by Wonder at 1:43 PM on June 15