The Concept of Race in Brazil - Case Study Example

Race is more important than in Brazilian society Nowadays it is impossible to read a newspaper or a magazine or to watch news on TV and not to run against the information concerning the issues of ethnocentrism, racial or national stereotypes, discrimination, social classes etc. These issues occur overall: from the sphere of international commercial activity up the wars caused by racial and ethnic distinctions. The given questions are going to become even more topical in the future when technological progress will unite various cultures of the world tighter. It should be stated that racial categories are variable and mostly depend on the meanings inserted by contemporaries. According to some scholars, it is wrong to consider the concept of race politically neutral. It always contain, even if just implicitly, the idea of conflict of interests. Omi and Winant state “race is a concept, which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests, by referring to different types of human bodies” (Omi, Winant, 1994) Speaking about the Brazilian society it should be mentioned that in this country phenomenal rapid population growth occurred. According to the first census conducted in 1582, i.e. 50 years after the start of European colonization, there lived just 57 thousand people, including 14 thousand slaves brought from Africa (Indian population is not included). After almost three centuries, according to 1900 census, the population of Brazil was 17 318 people, and according to census of 1980 - 119 million people. In 2003 the country had 182 032 residents. Since 1900 Brazil had more than 4 million immigrants, but in the last decade, the pace of immigration declined. Italians prevailed among immigrants in the 20 century. The population of Brazil is dominated by young, and this explains the high rate of fertility. While the fertility rate in rural areas is much higher, the urban population is growing very rapidly due to a significant influx of people from rural areas. The relocation of peasants into the cities has become one of the main problems of Brazil. Since social services such as schooling, health, housing, energy, transport and communications, now do not meet the demands of the countrys population, in the face of rapid population growth, this gap will further deepen. Here it would be appropriate to speak about the nations and races which live in Brazil now. The population of modern Brazil came from the representatives of the three major races - Mongoloid (American Indians), negroids (Africans) and Europoids. Latest - mostly descendants of Portuguese immigrants, and recently added to them from Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland and Russia, as well as Arabs from Syria and Lebanon (Fernandes, 1971). Taking into consideration the variety of races it should be mentioned that Brazil has many social problems. Brazilian authorities failed to move the impasse of social problems. In the win only government officials proved. The Government significantly increased their pensions. But in health and education budget revenues were curtailed. Social inequality in Brazil rather increased. "Brazil has a sad championship in the world for inequality in income distribution - writes a leading Italian newspaper Corriere Della sierra" - at 10 per cent share of the rich account for half of total income, while half of the poor - less than 10 percent." In addition the poor pay taxes, rather than the rich do. Because some tax revenues constitute only 20 per cent of revenue. Western experts emphasize: Brazil remains the countrys "dangerous and growing inequality of violence." "Brazilians, like most Latin Americans, are disappointed in market reforms," - notes the Financial Times. The sharp criticism exposed as the U.S., and the International Monetary Fund, Brazil literally imposes a system of "economic liberalism". So, the Americans closed their market to Brazilian steel, and Western Europeans closed the agricultural markets. Brazil remains underdeveloped country. No tweaks in finance can not improve either finance, or move the economy forward. The real value is created in production in enterprises, rather than at banks and exchange. Goods and services give real content to the national currency. Actually, the recipe is simple and known it is needed to collect enough money to industrialize the country and go to developed country markets with the goods, which contain a high proportion of added value. There is a progress in combating the use of slave labor. According to the International Labor Organization, since 1995 the federal government departments released from debt bondage more than 18 000 people. Nevertheless, the problem is not solved yet. According to the Rural Land Commission, each year about 8000 people caught in situations of forced or slave labor. A pledged amendment to the Constitution to confiscate land, where slave labor is used, is still awaiting approval in Congress. Afro-Latin and Indian peoples for centuries have suffered from discrimination, and now this situation is not eliminated. This discrimination does not give these people escape from poverty. Negros and métises make up about 30% of the population, it is not less than 150 million people, most of them concentrated in the countries such as Brazil - 50%, Colombia - Venezuela and 20% - 10%. And this population, compared to white, has very few opportunities for access to health care, education, employment, it have low incomes, and possible political authority is much more limited than that of whites. In most cases, Indians and other "colored" minority lost their main means of livelihood - land and other natural resources and were forced to immigrate to urban centers, where they account falls very dirty and poorly paid work (Fernandes, 1971). Ethnic and racial dislike is most widespread in Brazil. The Rejection of Rights of "another race" is gradually replacing rejection of "the Other-foreigner", especially if the "other" - not white and come from countries with a predominance of Indian and afro-Latin population. Such conclusions are contained in the document prepared by ECLAC: "General trends, priorities and obstacles in the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance in Latin America and the Caribbean." Among the main factors of abject poverty and afro-Latin Indian population in the region, ECLAC names: "progressive Indians lost their land and failures in the economic development of society." They can add migration from rural to city and the deterioration of the structure of employment in rural areas or in cities. Ethnic discrimination is one of the main causes of inequality in the access to health care. Everywhere, ethnic minorities have a much lower level of medical care than the population of each country as a whole. This inevitably added the poor quality environment, the loss or reduction of ancestral lands. In some countries, regions ambitious development projects entail very negative consequences for indigenous peoples(Winant, 1998). The same phenomenon can be found in the education system. Problems of access and coverage is added as "appropriate" for education of Afro-Latin and Indian peoples, although there are the signs that the process of rampant assimilation, which occurred in the past and recent past, went subsided. It is not the better situation among the black population. In Brazil, for example, among the black population there is very high level of unemployment, these people have low wages and very limited break to senior positions. According to ECLAC for Brazil, 25.7% of Blacks from the city of El Salvador are unemployed, which is much higher than average unemployment rate for the rest of the population - 17.7%. This situation is repeated with some variation in other cities in Brazil - Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Porto Alegre, Recife and Sao Paulo. Racial discrimination is also reflected in unequal income distribution. On the other hand, at the continental level the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples is growing to their lands, habitat, property, government and use of resources. In Brazil these rights are constitutionally enshrined. There are international organizations involved in combating with discrimination. But to enact the international agreements, it is essential that every State has improved its constitution to include the recognition of ethnic and racial differences, as required by the Agreement 169 OIT, which have already ratified Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru. In the ECLAC document concludes that "the confidence with which democracy incursions into the political life of the region, promises to create a civil society, unifying different cultures." Advances in the understanding of differences and particularities of different ethnic groups, accompanied by the development and the universality of rights of different peoples in the economic, social and cultural spheres. The Latin American countries should value its multi-ethnic and multicultural character. "A truly civil society considers vital to recognize the right of everyone to have their customs and culture", said the ECLAC document. Despite the fact that economic and social disparities between black and white Americans are gradually disappearing, another situation arises in the area of race marriages. As in his study "Trends in interracial marriages in the twentieth century," Professor at Harvard University Roland Freyer, in such areas as religion and place of residence considerable convergence has not happened. Even today the U.S. and Brazil remain highly segregated society in many ways. Freyer claims that 90% of Americans and Brazilians pray mainly with their same race or nationality. In a typical American city to ensure uniform residence of white and black residents 64% of the past must be relocated to other areas. Even in secondary schools relations between American teenagers rather segregated: the average American student accounts for 0.7 Friends of another race. At the end of XVII century slavery in some southern U.S. states was replaced by "service contract": a black worker undertook to pursue his master a certain amount of time, usually four to seven years, without any cash payments, but getting food, shelter. White began working closely with blacks. This led to a rapprochement between them, and in some cases - to cohabitation. The result became the first laws against racial mixing, which prohibits marriages, and in some cases sexual relations between members of different races. According to statistics given in the study by Freyer, in 1880, family unions between white, on the one hand, and blacks or Asians, on the other hand, accounted only 0.1% of all marriages entered into white. Originally white citizens preferred to make a family with black rather than with Asians, although the trend has changed in the future in the opposite direction. From 1880 to 1980 the proportion of marriages between white men and black women was less than 0.1% of the total. Since 1980, this indicator began to rise and by 2000 had reached 0.2%. The number of marriages between black men and white women increased from 0.10% in 1970 to 0.45% in 2000. Currently, almost 6% of marriage, in which African-Americans come, are with white women. Throughout the history, not once encountered discussions about shapes and sizes accumulation and transfer its property to other generations, the moral and legal evaluation concerning the regulation of these relations. Often the debate about inheritance law were related to various projects of social restructuring, reflect the interests of various sectors and classes of society. In the democratic sectors of political thought, the masses often receive wide dissemination of ideas common property equalization trends in the distribution of property. They are characterized by, for example, early Christianity, various religious sects, ideologies many peasant uprisings, for utopian social projects. At the beginning of the XIX century equalization of ideas can be treatise by American utopist Socialist Thomas Skidmore "Human rights in the property" (1829), the one chapter was devoted to the issue of "duration" of rights. The right to inherit regarded them as artificial human invention as "insinuation law" which society could revoke or deny forever for the common good (Winant, 1998). Another problem of Brazilian society is the class division. Politicians, journalists and researchers increasingly rely the term BRIC. This acronym is taken to unite Brazil, Russia, India and China - four countries, leading to economic growth. But BRIC States in 2040 threatens to overtake GDP seven developed countries, whose economies are in stagnation, and even balance on the brink of large-scale crisis. In Brazil, Valdir Quadros, the professor from the University of Campinas, took up the study phenomenology of the national middle class back in 1981. By that time already in the country it was possible to talk about the development of this stratum. In 60-70 - Brazil has experienced the years of industrialization, which led to the strong increase in urban population. Then came and Brazilian middle class, albeit a very peculiar. In their analyses Quadros found only criterion: the representatives of the middle class, he decided to include the workers whose income exceeded one thousand reals (about 340 dollars) per month. But if to follow the methodology of Quadros, it turns out that in 1981 the middle class was 42% of the population of Brazil, as in 2002 - about 31%.(Omi, Winant, 1994) The fall, in the opinion of the Quadros, was caused by the unbalanced economic growth, fiscal policies and illiterate unpopular labor in society. The last is a characteristic of Brazil. The country is still covered with "favelas" - the poor neighborhoods where people are not prepared to share the values of the new consumer society. Inhabitants of this giant slum prefer to watch free satellite television, steal electricity from the nearest pillar, to play football and entertain, but not working (Winant, 1998). The most serious decline in the proportion of middle class in Brazil, according to Quadros, happened in 1990 - ies. The main culprits were economic crises, one after another, shaking the country. It is an interesting fact that the majority of people belonging to the middle class are black or colored. The most recent study of the Brazilian middle class last year was held by the organization Euromonitor International. Since 2002, Brazil is experiencing sustained economic growth. The inflation is declining, interest rates are falling. As a consequence, the middle class is growing again, and thereby contribute to the availability of credit, and government support for poor households. By the middle class in Euromonitor include households with incomes from 10 to 15 thousand dollars a year. The number of such families increased from 2002 to 2006 by 31% and amounted to 7.1 million, or 14% of all households in Brazil. However, the dominant social stratum that is difficult to name yet. So, it is possible to state that race is more important in Brazil than the class division. Racial discrimination causes this. Having researched the problem, it became clear that there is a tendency in Brazil that there are more while people among those who are rich. The majority of colored people is poor or belongs to middle class. This is connected with immigration tendency. Many while people come to Brazil because it is really a perspective country to have business in, of course they come with some capital to develop. As it was mentioned above there was a great wave of Italian immigration, many people in Brazil now are of Italian origin. It is also possible to speak about the racial discrimination in educational system. Many colored people just do not have money to pay for university or just have to work and have no time for study. That is why they are not able to get a well-paid job and everything is repeating again. In the mean time we have to confess that unfortunately even in the twenty first century mankind failed to get rid of racism. Just the other way round during last decades of the twentieth century it has got the new, even more ‘fastidious’ forms. As a result it has become very difficult for scholars to define the notion of ‘racism’. And what even worst is that modern racists make use of such uncertainty and declare themselves as intransigent fighters against racism. It should be said that contemporary criminal justice turned out to be just not ready to such metamorphoses of racism. Modern antiracists very often fall short of knowledge about its essence and history, and accordingly they do not take into consideration significant peculiarities, which can be very helpful in struggling against it. In fact antiracism time and again is based on the same prejudices as racism, being just its mirror reverberation. Display of racism, prejudices, stereotypes, and discrimination has become apparent on a wide spectrum of the social and psychological phenomena, in the first instance in inter-group and interpersonal conflicts, stigmatization, and aggressions against the certain groups. The question of self-identification of a person with some ethnical group takes special place in international relations, as this choice becomes for a person a ground for making decisions, comprehension of values, and acceptability of the certain style of behavior, readiness to support the selected public or political movement. One of the first steps of improving of our understanding of race and class relations may become more accurate studying and understanding of cultural and historical processes, and especially their influences on basic psychological processes. However perfection of our understanding of culture, history, and their influences is only one step. It is necessary to analyze critically own culture and behavior in order to find out the reasons why stereotypes continue to exist. It is necessary to accept existence of significant individual variability inside of groups and cultures, and also vices of own cultural ethnocentrism and negative stereotypes. On accepting group and individual distinctions instead of to ignore them, we get an opportunity to communicate with people on the general platform, instead of judging in advance their actions, behavior and reasons by means of the stereotypes based on ignorance and intolerance. There is no doubt, that studying of our cultural environment, upbringing and heritage, and also their influence on our behavior has a huge value and benefit for all society. The recognition of the contribution of culture of different ethnic groups in actions, behavior and its reasons, helps us to understand, to respect and to estimate these distinctions when we observe them in real life. References Dinesh DSouza. The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society. New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1996. Ellie Vasta. ‘Rights and Racism in a New Country of Immigration: The Italian Case’, Racism and Migration in Western Europe, Oxford, 1993. Etienne Balibar.‘Es gibt keinen Staat in Europa: Racism and Politics in Europe Today’. New Left Review. No. 186: 5-19, 1991. Francis Ashley Montague. Mans Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. Meridian books and Jewish publication society edition, no. 190. [Cleveland etc.]: The World Pabl. Comp, 1968. John Solomos and Les Back. Racism and Society. New York: St. Martins Press, 1996. Howard Winant. ‘Racism Today: Continuity and Change in the Post-Civil Rights Era’, Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 21. No. 4. p. 760-761, 1998. Michael Omi and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994. Florestan Fernandes, Phyllis B. Eveleth, J. D. Skiles Negro in Brazilian Society, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1971 University of South Carolina, 1967 Seminar on Latin American History, Conflict and Continuity in Brazilian Society. Univ of South Carolina Pr; [1st ed.] edition, 1969 Read More