Stanley R. Bailey

Unmixing for race making in Brazil.

This article analyzes race‐targeted policy in Brazil as both a political stake and a powerful instrument in an unfolding classificatory struggle over the definition of racial boundaries. The Brazilian state traditionally embraced mixed‐race classification, but is adopting racial quotas employing a black/white scheme. To explore potential consequences of that turn for beneficiary identification and boundary formation, the author analyzes attitudinal survey data on race‐targeted policy and racial classification in multiple formats, including classification in comparison to photographs. The results show that almost half of the mixed‐race sample, when constrained to dichotomous classification, opts for whiteness, a majority rejects mixed‐race individuals for quotas, and the mention of quotas for blacks in a split‐ballot experiment nearly doubles the percentage choosing that racial category. Theories of how states make race emphasize the use of official categories to legislate exclusion. In contrast, analysis of the Brazilian case illuminates how states may also make race through policies of official inclusion.

Group Dominance and the Myth of Racial Democracy: Antiracism Attitudes in Brazil:

Group dominance perspectives contend that ideologies are central to the production and reproduction of racial oppression by their negative affect on attitudes toward antiracism initiatives. The Brazilian myth of racial democracy frequently is framed in this light, evoked as a racist ideology to explain an apparent lack of confrontation of racial inequality. Data from a 2000 probability sample of racial attitudes in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, contradict this long-held assertion, showing that most Brazilians in this state recognize racism as playing a role in Brazilian society, support the idea of affirmative action, and express interest in belonging to antiracism organizations. Moreover, opinions on affirmative action appear more strongly correlated with social class, as measured by education level, than race. As compared with results from the United States regarding opinions on similar selected affirmative action policies, the racial gap in Brazilian support for affirmative action is only moderate. Results also show that those who recognize the existence of racial discrimination in Brazil are more likely to support affirmative action. Implications for race theorizing from a group dominance perspective in Brazil as well as for antiracism strategies are addressed.

Multiracial versus Collective Black Categories Examining Census Classification Debates in Brazil

Current census debates in Brazil surrounding Brazilian race categories center on two contrasting proposals: the adoption of the multiracial moreno term vs. the use of the collective black classification negro. Those proposing the former base their argument on the right to self-classify according to one’s own sense of identity. Proponents of the negro category contend that it would be most efficient for redressing racial discrimination. We examine the meaning and saliency of these categories and explore the possible consequences of their adoption. Using national survey data, we demonstrate how education, age, color, sex and local racial composition structure the choices of moreno and negro over official census terms. Findings include a negative correlation between education and the choice of moreno, while the opposite is true for negro. In addition, an age effect on both categories suggests a popular shift in racial labeling away from official census terms. We note that similar issues structure current census debates in the USA.

Understanding Latin American Beliefs about Racial Inequality1

Scholars argue that Latin American ideologies of mestizaje, or racial mixing, mask ethnoracial discrimination. We examine popular explanations for indigenous or Afrodescendant disadvantage in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru using the 2010 AmericasBarometer survey. Findings show that numerical majorities across all countries endorse structural-disadvantage explanations and reject victim-blaming stances; in seven of eight countries, they specifically recognize discrimination against ethnoracial minorities. Brazilians most point to structural causes, while Bolivians are least likely to recognize discrimination. While educational status differences tend to be sizable, dominant and minority explanations are similar. Both are comparable to African-American views and contrast with those of U.S. whites.

Brazil in black and white? Race categories, the census, and the study of inequality

Abstract Many scholars advocate the adoption of a black-and-white lens for the analysis of racial inequality in Brazil. Drawing on a nationally representative dataset that includes race questions in multiple formats, we evaluate how removal of the ‘brown’ category from the census or other social surveys would likely affect: (1) the descriptive picture of Brazils racial composition; and (2) estimates of income inequality between and within racial categories. We find that a forced binary question format results in a whiter and more racially unequal picture of Brazil through the movement of many higher income mixed-race respondents into the white category. We also find that regardless of question format, racial inequality in income accounts for relatively little of Brazils overall income inequality. We discuss implications for public policy debates in Brazil, and for the broader scientific and political challenges of ethnic and racial data collection and analysis.

Interrogating Race Color, Racial Categories, and Class Across the Americas

We address long-standing debates on the utility of racial categories and color scales for understanding inequality in the United States and Latin America, using novel data that enable comparisons of these measures across both broad regions. In particular, we attend to the degree to which color and racial category inequality operate independently of parental socioeconomic status. We find a variety of patterns of racial category and color inequality, but that in most countries accounting for maternal education changes our coefficients by 5% or less. Overall, we argue that several posited divergences in ethnoracial stratification processes in the United States, compared with Latin America, might be overstated. We conclude that the comparison of the effects of multiple ethnoracial markers, such as color and racial categories, for the analysis of social stratification holds substantial promise for untangling the complexities of “race” across the Americas.

Remaking Racial Inclusion: Combining Race and Class in Brazil’s New Affirmative Action

New multicultural regimes now characterize much of Latin America, creating opportunities for ethno-racial populations to fight for social inclusion. Yet, the literature identifies uneven patterns of success in those endeavors. Scholars argue that states more readily consider claims based on the recognition and protection of cultural difference as legitimate, but are resistant to calls for the remedy of racial discrimination. As a counterexample, we examine the case of affirmative action in higher education in Brazil, and specifically in the state universities of Rio de Janeiro. We explore how issues of racial exclusion and discrimination gained traction in public policy in that context. Perhaps more importantly, though, we show that race was only one component of that policy; instead, race was combined with class to establish a new type of beneficiary status for affirmative action: poor black students. Beyond Rio de Janeiro, we suggest the wider diffusion in Brazil of the combined race and class category for determining target populations.

Support for race-targeted affirmative action in Brazil

Brazil is undergoing a paradigm shift in its approach to racial inequality. Once eschewing race, legislators and other policy makers are now vigorously implementing racial quotas in public institutions of higher education. In this paper, we explore public opinion on racial quotas using the 2010 and 2012 AmericasBarometer. In 2010, a surprising majority of Brazilians strongly supported these policies. Afro-Brazilians and individuals with lower levels of education were more likely to express strong support compared to whites and those with higher levels of education. In 2012, a question format change that set up a zero-sum game scenario between afro-Brazilians and others resulted in a dramatic fall in that support. Interestingly, those 2012 results show that education, and not race, contours support. We discuss possible explanations for these particular patterns of public opinion on racial quotas in Brazil.

Shifting Racial Subjectivities and Ideologies in Brazil

Census ethnoracial categories often reflect national ideologies and attendant subjectivities. Nonetheless, Brazilians frequently prefer the non-census terms moreno (brown) and negro (black), and both are core to antithetical ideologies: racial ambiguity versus racial affirmation. Their use may be in flux as Brazil recently adopted unprecedented race-targeted public policy. We examine propensities to self-classify as moreno and negro before and after the policy shift. Using regression modeling on national survey data from 1995 and 2008 that captured self-classification in open and closed formats, we find moreno is highly salient but increasingly constricted, while negro is restricted in use, though increasingly popular. Negro’s growth is mostly confined to the darker pole of Brazil’s color continuum. Education correlates in opposing directions: negative with moreno and positive with negro. Our findings proxy broad ideological shift from racial ambiguity to negro racial affirmation. They suggest race-targeted policy is transforming racial subjectivities and ideologies in Brazil.

Racial inequality and the recognition of racial discrimination in Jamaica

ABSTRACT A growing body of literature posits that a population’s denial of the salience of racial discrimination acts as a mechanism of its perpetuation. Moreover, scholars locate a population’s propensity to deny racial discrimination in contemporary ideologies of racial mixing or ethnic fusion. Most quantitative studies of public opinion on these issues are limited to Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. This study examines the case of Jamaica. We first (1) examine the extent of Jamaica’s contemporary racial inequality using national census data. We then (2) use nationally representative data from the AmericasBarometer social survey to determine the extent to which a recognition of racial discrimination characterizes Jamaican public opinion. Finally, we (3) explore the salience of an ideology of racial mixing in Jamaica and (4) test whether that ideology affects the likelihood that Jamaicans acknowledge contemporary racial discrimination. Our findings document dramatic social inequality by skin colour in Jamaica and suggest that a majority embrace an ideology that racial mixing is negatively associated with Jamaicans’ recognition of racial discrimination. We discuss our findings and their implications for understanding ideologies of racial mixing and racial inequality in the Americas.