Brazil: Affirmative Action and the Crossroad of a Racial Democracy

• In Event: Identity Formation and Maintenance in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that the Brazilian racial project remains unchallenged through novel data based on Camâra dos Deputados' speeches on high education affirmative action from 2008 until 2018. Its construction around the idea of malleability permits race-making to remain stable in the face of contestation. The debate surrounding affirmative action highlights the extent to which race has become a self-reinforcing ideology and its limited impact on dismantling racial inequality. Brazil, the country with the largest range of skin tones in Latin America, reinforces the illusion of racial democracy by feeding on concepts such as the mulato escape-hatch. The data – using the wordfish method - demonstrates how the lower house's conservative aisle embraces words such as mérito (merit) and pardo (mixed), sustaining the idea of social mobility. Contrary to what is mostly assumed, affirmative action does not necessarily represent a step toward rethinking race in Brazil; instead, it highlights a pattern enabled by its extensive skin color range. This paper argues that this ideological divide on the issue represents the country's concretization of racial ideology. Moreover, it demonstrates the resilience of the racial project in Brazil is sustained by the success of the statal whitening project pre democracy, naturalizing white public spaces and efficiently blocking black individuals' participation in public life.

Author

• Felipe Ribeiro, Temple University