{"id":56618,"date":"2018-07-01T04:57:29","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T04:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56618"},"modified":"2018-07-01T05:04:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T05:04:35","slug":"is-neymar-black-brazil-and-the-painful-relativity-of-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56618","title":{"rendered":"Is Neymar Black? Brazil and the Painful Relativity of Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is Neymar Black? Brazil and the Painful Relativity of Race<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2018-06-30<\/p>\n

Cleuci de Oliveira<\/strong><\/a>, Bras\u00edlia-based reporter<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nNeymar da Silva Santos J\u00fanior<\/a>, center, celebrating a goal with his teammates during Brazil\u2019s World Cup match against Serbia on Wednesday. Michael Steele\/Getty Images<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Ever since his \u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m black, you know?\u201d comment, Neymar<\/a> has served as a focal point in the country\u2019s cultural reckoning with racism, whitening, identity and public policy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Years before he became the most expensive player in the world; before his Olympic gold medal; before the Eiffel Tower lit up with his name<\/a> to greet his professional move from Barcelona<\/a> to Paris<\/a>, Neymar da Silva Santos J\u00fanior<\/a>, the Brazilian forward known to the world simply as Neymar, faced his first public relations controversy.<\/p>\n

The year was 2010, and Neymar, then 18, had shot to fame in Brazil<\/a> after a sensational breakout season. During an interview for the newspaper<\/a> O Estado de S. Paulo, in between a conversation about Disneyland and sports cars, he was asked if he had ever experienced racism. \u201cNever. Not in the field, nor outside of it,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m black, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

His answer was heard like a record-scratch across the country. Was this young man in denial about his racial identity? Particularly when in the same interview he outlined his meticulous hair care regime, which involved getting his locks chemically straightened every few weeks, then bleached blonde.<\/p>\n

Or was there a less alarming explanation behind his comment? Could Neymar merely be pointing out that, as the son of a black father and a white mother, his lighter skin tone shielded him from the racist abuse directed at other players? Had he, at least in his context, reached whiteness? Whatever the interpretation, Neymar\u2019s words revealed the tricky, often contradictory ways that many Brazilians talk, and fail to talk, about race in a country with the largest population of black descendants outside of Africa<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since his \u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m black, you know?\u201d comment, Neymar has served as a focal point in the country\u2019s cultural reckoning with racism, whitening, identity and public policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,83,21,8,23674],"tags":[26788,1893,2640,17560,17559,28810,8951,7222,2327],"class_list":["post-56618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-brazil","category-latincarib","category-media-archive","category-social-justice","tag-cleuci-de-oliveira","tag-edward-telles","tag-new-york-times","tag-neymar","tag-neymar-da-silva-santos-junior","tag-paulo-cesar-lima","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56618","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=56618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56619,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56618\/revisions\/56619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}