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Post by nebsen on Apr 9, 2012 21:43:57 GMT -5
With the President of Brazil In Washington visiting with President Obama,(4/9/12) I thought this 46: min history on Brazil & it's type of slavery that the Portuguese instituted would help high light the stark differences in the two systems (US/ Brazil) of slavery. This was not an easy documentary for me to watch, even with a short running time of just 46: min, it is very intense, but I was well enlightened about my bothers & sisters in Brazil even tho I knew somewhat about their history.
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Post by zarahan on Apr 12, 2012 22:38:16 GMT -5
Indeed. And it shows that the so-called "racial paradise" of Brazil is a myth.
White supremacy is alive and well there, only the terminology and methods
are different. As in other parts of the Americas and the Caribbean (excluding the US
on this particular point), slave mortality was much higher, and slave populations were
kept up not by natural increase, but by continual imports from Africa. This was the
harsh reality of the "multiracial paradise." Brazil's twist is absorption into whiteness,
although this model also posits a lesser "darker" group- an "other" that someday
will be "absorbed" in whiteness (or not). Members of this darker group at present in
Brazilian society are discriminated against in numerous ways. You will not see many
for example working in prestigious institutions like banks. Such jobs are reserved
for those of lighter complexion. On the soccer field fine, but otherwise, relegate them
to what is lower, lesser and undesirable. Brazil's racism is a "soft" one on the surface,
unlike the straight-up open racism of the US. Malcolm X said he preferred open
hostility- that way he knew who his enemies were up front.
And yet on the flip side, Brazil's assimilationist white supremacist model arguably was
superior to the naked racism of South Africa, Britain or the US. Despite the discriminatory
practice behind the veneer, the easy relations and lack of open race hostility is a plus some
argue. Others hold that blacks in the US are in advance of those in Brazil, despite the
adversarial race model, and that Brazil's 'soft' white supremacy is more pernicious and far-reaching in its brainwashing of its subjects.
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