Ethnic Culture and Behavior in Brazil - Research Paper Example

Ethnic Culture and Behavior in Brazil Introduction Brazil is a country located in the east of South America bordering Argentina, Bolivia, and Colombia. French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. Brazil’s capital city is Brasilia, and its climate is tropical and temperate in the south. It has a population of around 184 million people that comprises of an ethnic mixture made up of whites i.e. Portuguese, Germans, Italians, Spanish and Polish (55%), mixed white and blacks (39%), blacks (6%) and others (1%). Eighty percent of the population is predominantly Catholics but the Brazilian religion represents a wide variety of faiths and the Brazilian cultural beliefs uphold the principal of coexisting peacefully with other variations of religions. As is with other parts of the world the family is the basic unit of the society and it’s the most sacred. People tend to honor their families beliefs and nepotism is considered a positive thing. The system of government for the huge country that has area coverage of 8.5 million kilometer squared (the world’s fifth largest country) is federalism with a central government. The national language is Portuguese that is spoken by over 95% of the population with the exception of a few immigrants and the Amerindian groups. Brazil as a country is rich in diversity of culture and ethnicities/groups. The Portuguese immigrants married the native women resulting into a race termed as ‘mestizos’ while those who intermarried with the African women created the race of mulattoes.- Following the abolition of slavery in 1880 (Boris, 1999). Overtime, Brazilians have intermarried extensively making the population to have a combination of the European, African and indigenous gene. This has made the Brazilian culture to be a variant of the western civilization through the Portuguese while still maintaining the legacy of African and indigenous people resulting into a hybrid mix of culture that gives brazil its distinct and unique characteristics. This has been achieved through colonialism, slavery and immigrants from mainly Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan and the Middle East. These have led Brazil to be termed as a melting pot-just like the United States which is the melting pot of the world. The most unique and world famous of the Brazilian culture is the carnival that is staged annually, forty days before Easter and it marks the start of lent. It features parades by the various samba schools and it normally takes a unique regional flavor with local traditions. Historical Background The original inhabitants of Brazil were the indigenous Indians primarily of the Tupi-Guarani dialect and other small ethnic groups of the Amazon basin and the lowlands of the Paraguay and the Parana River. The Portuguese who were the colonizers had little prejudice and prohibition against the local culture and intermarried with the local population that had nearly been eradicated by wars and diseases. During this period of colonization the Portuguese’s imported thousands of slaves from Africa as a source of labor on the sugar plantations, mines and on the coffee plantations. With time slavery became uneconomical and politically unfeasible leading to the migration of more whites (Italians) who came into Brazil to replace the blacks whose numbers had drastically reduced due to high mortality and low fertility as more settlers from Germany, Italy, and Poland established farming colonies in the south (Katia, 1986) with time Japanese and Arab immigrants came and involved themselves in commerce in many parts of the country and they became predominantly urbanites. Their intermarriages and intermingling with non Arabs and non Japanese became common so as were the other ethnic and racial groupings that came to Brazil in the later years. The results were a mixture of combinations of various degree and variations thus a popular phrase that Brazil is a racial democracy. This phenomenon led the population of blacks to decrease while that of mulattoes increased (Martin, 2008). Class System in Brazil Despite brazil being one of the ten largest economies of the world, it’s the most unequal society in the world with the most unequal distribution of income and wealth and this inequality has been rising. Over thirty million Brazilians live in poverty including twenty million workers and ten million pensioners. These differences between the rich and poor have characterized the Brazilian nation since independence more than one hundred and fifty years ago. This problem is commonly referred to as the “social question” in Brazil. Rapid urbanization and industrialization has seen an increase in the number of middle class that admires elite values more than their American counterparts. Brazil is a capitalistic society that is stratified, hence the presence of class. Because of the lack of clear distinction in race and color coupled with a strong culture of tolerance and the state legislation against racism, Brazil has managed to withstand the slide to racism. This however is a myth as racism is a live albeit hidden in form of economic and social status. There is a strong correlation between light skin and high income, education and social status. Most blacks and people of the darker- brown skin are poor, economically disadvantaged and are socially disadvantaged. They occupy the low class and racial discrimination on the basis of skin color is common despite most Brazilians stating that they are not racists. Class in Brazil is determined by economic status and skin color. Few blacks reach positions of wealth, prestige, and power. Discrimination on the basis of color mostly occurs indirect forms such as unwritten rule that pertain to attitudes, ‘good looks’ and placing of higher value to an individuals who are white or ‘whiter.’ The wide gap between the have and have not automatically results into the difference in the goals, aspirations and lifestyle among and between the classes. This discrimination has not left the women behind as they are equally discriminated against and usually earn less than men at the work place despite the legal provisions that safeguards them. Tools of Ethnic Prejudice and Dominance in Brazil The greatest tool of dominance ever used in Brazil to dominate other ethnic groups was slavery. It lasted for over three centuries and it lasted for several years after it became an independent nation. It was one of the last countries to abolish slavery- twenty three years after the United States. Over the years the media has increasingly been used to prejudice the dark skin in the country. Its media stations do group the mulatto and blacks together and refers to them as Negro’s or afro descendants to mean descendants of the African race rather than a racial slang. The two groups are generally grouped together because they share the same economic and social status and they have generally been opposed to the idea of them being grouped together. This is the conflict of racial inequality in Brazil (Mieko, 2003). The lack of formal education for most blacks has worsened their status. Many cannot be meaningfully employed and this has led them to be openly discriminated upon in the job market. Because of their social economic status and poverty levels, their access to medical facilities and better health care is wanting and this has led to high infant mortality rates among the blacks and mulattos (at 63%) as compared to the whites (36%). The whites in Brazil do hold certain jobs i.e. white collar jobs e.g. Police, educators and politicians: while the blacks and the mulattos were left with menial jobs like maids, drivers etc that paid less. The job market is also characterized by the firms asking for ones picture before hiring to see if it’s black or white (Livio, 2003). The new state of Brazil Today Brazil is a rising economic giant thanks to the leadership of President Lula da Silva who himself comes from the poor backgrounds of the north. Under his leadership, the country has tried to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor leading to him being referred to as the father of the poor and the darling of the rich corporations of the country hence he is being seen as a bridge between the poor and the rich. He has transformed the country’s social sphere particularly under the plan Bolsa Famillia social program where a needy parent who can prove that her children are going to school is offered up to 200 Real a month from the state. Millions of people have joined the middle class under the policies of Lula that has seen the largest redistribution of wealth in Brazilian history making the gap between the rich and the poor to start closing. The government has also stepped up efforts to document the dialects of the minority tribes of the north and the Amazon and it has gone a head to register these indigenous lands so as to protect their heritage. Comparison and Difference with the United States The United States and the Brazil are two largest multi racial societies in the world that do share similarity and differences in the history of slavery, land mass and have a common societal inequality in terms of race. Both states offer a series of discrimination and black inequality that hinders them from fully realizing their potential. The USA is an industrialized country while Brazil is a developing country. In both states blacks are a minority. But in both countries the, distribution of wealth and income between the whites and blacks is similar with the blacks being disadvantaged as the whites own most of the countries’ wealth and occupy the top class. In terms of social indicators, the life expectancy and overall health of blacks is far way below those of the whites in both countries. These factors have a bearing on the poverty levels of the two groups. Where in both countries the black families were both likely to be living in poverty levels more than whites. In literacy and education standards, Brazil had an illiteracy problem with illiterate white at 40% and blacks at 71% as at 1950s as compared to US where the literacy level was 90% of whites for blacks (Reginald, 2006). As a result one can state that blacks’ access to better paying jobs is constrained by the disparity to education access in both countries thus worsening their social economic standings. In the free labor market, there has been a change in the demographics of the work place with increased participation of the women and a reduced participation of the men. This is due to the effect of industrialization and urbanization in Brazil and also USA. Black women have entered the workforce at higher rates than the women in both countries but there was inequality in terms of the distribution of profession not only among the white women and blacks but also in males too. This discrepancy was also seen in terms of pay where the blacks earned less in both countries. Summary In spite of the economic growth and decades of modernization between the two countries, there has been increased access to education and opened ways to better jobs. There is still inequality in the distribution of occupation and wealth among the black and the white race in the two countries. Modernization and industrialization has increased these disparities in Brazil and in USA contrary to some social scientist belief. Many of the blacks in Brazil and USA still find themselves in low paying jobs and increasingly find difficulties in terms of discrimination in their attempts to climb up the social ladder. Both countries face variations in national cultures, level of development and structure of governance but there is similarity in discrimination based on race and it is decreasing at a decreasing rate. This phenomena of racial subordination in the work place is being viewed by some socialist scholars as one of the effects of capitalism that seeks to maximize profit and concentrate social power in the hand s of a few white capitalists in the modern states of Brazil and USA as compared to the white slave owners in the pre-capitalistic political economy (Rebecca, 1999). Conclusion The 1960s saw the black conscious movement arising and growing in Brazil. The movement was greatly weakened by the thin difficulties of identifying color distinction in both social and physiological terms. The black movement has also been fighting against the lumping together of the mulattos with blacks but they have been quickly to be dismissed as Brazilian as they are being seen as aping the black social movement in the USA which was fighting for the rights of the black man in the USA. The movement in most cases did not agitate for changes in government policies pertaining to ethnic and race inequality but it advocated for pride in race and dignity of the black man. This was in part due to the reason that most Brazilians are very patriotic with a sense of nationalism irrespective of their racial orientation. They are proud of their country and there is a strong sense of unity among the Brazilians despite the racial struggles inherent in the country. References Boris F. 1999. A concise history of Brazil Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Katia M de M. 1986. To be a slave in Brazil, 1550-1888. Rutgers University Press Livio Sansone.2003. Blackness without ethnicity: constructing race in Brazil. Palgrave Macmillan Martin N M.2008. Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives. Cengage Learning Mieko N. 2003. Slavery and identity: ethnicity, gender, and race in Salvador, Brazil, 1808-1888. Indiana, Indiana University Press. Rebecca Lynn. 1999 Race in contemporary Brazil: from indifference to inequality. Penn State Press. Reginald D. G. 2006. Race and multiraciality in Brazil and the United States converging paths. Penn State Publisher Read More