{"id":12789,"date":"2011-03-22T01:37:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T01:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=12789"},"modified":"2014-09-08T15:56:31","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T15:56:31","slug":"president-underscores-similarities-with-brazilians-but-ignores-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=12789","title":{"rendered":"President Underscores Similarities With Brazilians, but Ignores One"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Underscores Similarities With Brazilians, but Ignores One<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times
\n<\/a>2011-03-20<\/p>\n

Alexei Barrionuevo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jackie Calmes<\/strong><\/p>\n

RIO de JANEIRO<\/a> \u2014 From a visit to this city\u2019s most infamous slum to a national address amid the gilded elegance of a celebrated theater, President Obama<\/a> on Sunday sought to underscore the shared histories and futures of the United States and Brazil<\/a>, reaching out to the people of one of the most racially diverse countries in the Americas.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Obama, on the second day of a five-day tour of Latin America<\/a>, once again seemed to sidestep mentioning his own racial background in appearances here, even as Brazilians who gathered at a plaza trying to catch a glimpse of him said that he had inspired millions in this country because of his African heritage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he knows the reality of discrimination against blacks, it would be very important for him to pass on the message that it is possible to get somewhere, to be someone, in spite of all the difficulties,\u201d said C\u00e9lio Frias, a 46-year-old businessman. \u201cHe is an inspiration.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…But Brazilians see the issue differently. Brazil was the last country in the Western world to abolish slavery, having done it in 1888. Yet unlike the United States, Brazil never passed Jim Crow segregation<\/a> laws, and despite the persistence of racism here, many Brazilians take pride in having intermarried more than whites and blacks in the United States.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the months leading up to his election, Mr. Obama\u2019s popularity soared in Brazil with a wide cross-section of Brazilians. Many proclaimed that Mr. Obama\u2019s gregarious personality made him seem like a Brazilian masquerading as an American, even as many Americans see him as too cool and detached.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was moved by his election, I followed everything, saved magazines, newspapers, everything that came out about him,\u201d said Maria Helena Reis, 62, a nurse. \u201cHe gives a lot of pride to blacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion polls in the region show that Mr. Obama\u2019s election has also improved Latin American countries\u2019 opinion of the United States as a whole. Among Brazilians, those with a favorable view increased by 16 percentage points from 57 percent in 2008 to 73 percent in 2009, according to Latinobarometro, a polling company in Santiago, Chile. The increase was higher among blacks and those of mixed race surveyed than among whites.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Obama\u2019s activities on Sunday in Rio\u2014first, his visit to the sprawling <\/strong>City of God<\/strong><\/a> favela, or slum, made famous the world over in the 2002 movie that bears its name, followed by a televised speech to a large audience at a historic theater\u2014illustrated the White House\u2019s efforts to take advantage of the president\u2019s unique appeal to the broad and heavily mixed-race Brazilian public…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Underscores Similarities With Brazilians, but Ignores One The New York Times 2011-03-20 Alexei Barrionuevo Jackie Calmes RIO de JANEIRO \u2014 From a visit to this city\u2019s most infamous slum to a national address amid the gilded elegance of a celebrated theater, President Obama on Sunday sought to underscore the shared histories and futures of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,83,21,8,26,394,20],"tags":[5750,5751,2327],"class_list":["post-12789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-brazil","category-latincarib","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-alexei-barrionuevo","tag-jackie-calmes","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}