Racial and Ethnic Relations - Assignment Example

The concept of racial stratification is very common in places where Europeans settled in the southern continents. Up till today, the racial ification of people from historic times affect the distribution of wealth and social classes around the world. In some nations like Brazil and South Africa, racial segregation involves placing people in several categories whilst in the US, it is based on one of two extremes; Black or White (Nanda & Warms 243) Brazil was a portion of the New World that was discovered and ruled mainly by the Portuguese.

These Portuguese under the various colonization policies made the native Indians of Brazil second-class citizens that they used as cheap labor on European farms. When this concept proved profitable, more slaves were brought in from Africa to come and toil on these Portuguese owned farms. This led to the migration of more Portuguese from Europe who came to own plantations in Brazil that used Native Indian and African slaves as cheap labor. The secret to the Portuguese domination of Brazil laid in the fact that they had a stronger military that used superior technology.

Due to this, the seized the fertile lands of Brazil and suppressed all efforts for fairness and justice. This led to the establishment of a wealthy elite made up of White Portuguese land owners. These Portuguese were assisted in the middle-ranks by Moors and other mixed race mulattoes who suppressed Black Africans and Indians. This racial stratification led determined the distribution of land and wealth in Brazil and this transcended throughout the generations till this day. In South Africa, the Dutch first settled in the Western Cape and found fertile lands that was fit for agriculture and cultivation.

The British also settled in the Eastern Cape and some of them seized lands from the native Xhosa people and began plantations. At this time, the natives were used as cheap labor on the White farms. Numerous Dutch farmers (known as Boers) migrated and acquired more lands. Due to this, Black Africans living on the land had to be deprived of their lands. The population of the Dutch increased gradually. After minerals were found in large quantities in the interior of South Africa, the Boer farmers began moving inwards.

The British also saw the need to consolidate their presence in the interior. This led to tensions between the Dutch and the British around 1900. However, noticing that the Black Africans were vulnerable, they deprived them of their land rights. This led to the formation of 'native reserves' for the Black African population in less fertile and rich lands. The British and the Dutch continued to control the best resources and relegate the Black Africans to the background. In 1948, the Nationalist Party, a predominantly Dutch party gained power and declared the principle of Apartheid which restricted Blacks to the Native Reserves where they could live their lives in segregation whilst the Whites lived in the modern cities and owned the best of lands and territories in the country.

The difference between racial stratification in Brazil and South Africa is that South Africans created a state-within a state based on racial classification. In other words, the South Africans used laws that were recognized as sovereign to place the Blacks in a setting that will isolate them from the Whites socially, economically and culturally. On the other hand, Brazil did not make such a conscious effort to do so. However, they used a subtle method of military dominance to ensure that the rich and powerful land owners were the ones in control and they held on to power whilst the lower racial groups lived under them and served them.

It can be said that the social stratification in Brazil is mainly economic in nature whilst the South African racial stratification is legal in nature. Up till 1994, people in South African were legally classified into either White, Asian, Colored or Black. And it was the category you belonged to that determined where you could stay, how much land and money you could possess and your status in the society. On the other hand, the Brazilian law has been quite liberal and granted freedom to Black people since the 1800s.

However, the social structures made it difficult for Black people to become rich and wealthy. The disparity in the distribution of wealth caused most of the upper class in the society to be White Europeans, the middle class to be mulattoes, Moors, American Indians and other poorer people of European origins whilst the poor were mostly of Black African origins. This unfair wealth distribution causes Blacks to live in the poorer neighborhoods and live a lower quality of life whilst the White upper class enjoyed the best and most privileged status in Brazil.

The South African principles of Apartheid are similar to the Principles of Segregation in America. This is because in most states, particularly the Southern States of USA, there were laws that determined the status of an individual right from birth based on his or her racial features. Like Brazil, before the abolition of slavery in the late 1800s, African-Americans were slaves of White plantation owners. They were declared by convention to become the properties of their White masters. This was an automatic legal tool that was used to keep Black people at the bottom and people of Asian and mixed race in the middle of the social structures based on their racial features.

The Dutch and British deprived Blacks of the rights to land and made it illegal for them to have any rights to own properties. This was similar to the laws in most of the states which forbade Black people and people of colored origins from owning certain properties and rights. Also, South Africa banned sexual relations and marriages between people of different racial backgrouds (Coates 201). This was also the practice in some 16 states in the USA where inter-racial marriages were banned until the 1960s when they were struck off.

Brazil also had an unfair distribution of wealth based on the racial origins of people and this trend survived for generations till this day. In the same way, USA's history of keeping people of certain races under segregation has led to a situation where the gap between the rich and the poor remains large up till this day. The differences between South Africa and Brazil's racial stratification also differs on certain levels and situations. First of all, in USA, people were placed on a binary categorization: a person was either Black or White and this was based on the person's ancestry.

In Brazil and South Africa though, people were placed in on of several categories and their rights were determined on their classification. The classification tools in Brazil and South Africa were based on complexion and physical features and not ancestry. Thus a brother and a sister could belong to separate racial categories in Brazil and South Africa (Nanda & Warms 246) America had different degrees of segregation in different states. Whereas the Southern States sought to use laws to strongly keep Black people in suppression, the Northern states were progressive and had very liberal laws that gave freedom to Blacks and other people who could meet certain standards.

This was not the case in South Africa. Since 1948, the whole South Africa was to follow principles of Apartheid and this was a national agenda that had complete legal backing and was effective in keeping people from different backgrounds in their 'positions' as determined by the national constitution. Brazil however maintained very strong socio-economic systems based on racial backgrounds. This made it difficult for people from certain racial categories to cross from one status to another in terms of wealth.

However, the very nature of America's constitution led to the bridging of the gap between the different races once a racist idea was abolished. In conclusion, the Brazilian and South African racial stratification systems were consequences of Eurocentrism in lands that included people of other racial backgrounds. This led to the use of legal systems to suppress non-Europeans in South Africa and the use of wealth distribution in Brazil to classify the different racial groups. The South African situation is similar to the American one because there were places in the South where laws were used to divide people on the basis of their race.

The Brazilian situation was also similar to the American segregation because the status of people of non-European origins were economically weakened by their position in the society. However, the differences are that America's segregation was variable and this made it different from the South African position which was a national one. On the other hand, Brazil differed from USA because the gap between the richer races in America and the poorer ones was closed much more rapidly than that of Brazil.

Work Cited Coates, Rodney. Race & Ethnicity: Across time, Space and Discipline. New York: BRILL Publishing. 2004. Print. Nanda, Serena & Warms, Richard. Culture Counts: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Mason, OH: Cengage. 2009. Print.