Mixed Race Studies

The persistence of myth: Brazil’s undead ‘racial democracy’

Contemporary Political Theory
Volume 20, Issue 4, December 2021
Pages 749–770
DOI: 10.1057/s41296-021-00477-x

Sharon Stanley, Professor of Political Science
University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee

This article addresses a recurrent tension in the literature on race and racism in Brazil. On the one hand, we find the so-called myth of racial democracy presented as the dominant racial ideology in Brazil, obscuring enduring racial inequality and thwarting the development of a mass-movement for racial justice. On the other hand, we find periodic announcements that the myth of racial democracy has definitively died. Accordingly, I theorize the myth of racial democracy as a paradoxically undead myth and ask what it is about the form of this peculiar myth that allows it to survive its own repeated death. Drawing on Roland Barthes’ theory of myth, I show how the celebration of racial mixture, or mestiçagem, functions as a mythological signifier of racial democracy that operates beneath and beyond the level of conscious thought, activating powerful affects and desires even in those who ostensibly know better.

Read or purchase the article here.

Envisioning the United States in the Latin American myth of ‘racial democracy mestizaje’

Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies
Published online 2016-04-12
DOI: 10.1080/17442222.2016.1170953

Tanya Katerí Hernández, Professor of Law
Fordham University, The Jesuit University of New York

Transnational comparison is relevant both to how racial hierarchy is obscured and elucidated. This Essay traces how the Latin American ‘racial democracy mestizaje’ depiction of the US as blind to racial mixture and color distinctions mistakenly misrepresent the Southern Jim Crow history as the only US experience of racism. It suggests that, in turn, such a limited frame for comparison cloaks not only the more extensive terrain of racism in the United States that is separate from the Jim Crow reality but also parallels to the Latin American context. Moreover, the circumscribed view of US racism adversely affects those who critique the ‘racial democracy mestizaje’ myth of Latin American post racialism. This is because the standard Latin American story of US racial history hinders the ability to fully countermand the attack that portrays racial justice activists as inappropriately applying overly restrictive US binary perspectives on race. With the fuller explication of the complete US racial history, and its contemporary manifestations, it will not be so easy to dismiss the comparisons of racial subordination across the Americas, as the imperialist imposition of ill-fitting US notions of race.

Read or purchase the article here.

[PODCAST] In Konversation: Unpacking the myth of the “racial democracy” in Brazil – Part 1

briankamanzi
2015-10-04

Brian Kamanzi, Host
Cape Town, South Africa

Marcelo Rosa, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil

In Konversation: Unpacking the myth of the “racial democracy” in Brazil – Part 1 by Inkonversation on Mixcloud

Konversation meets with Marcelo Rosa, from the University of Brasilia.

We went on to engage on his perspectives on “race” in Brazilian society.

Listen to the interview (00:34:21) here.