Multiracialism
[5] This can be attributed to the function of race as a social and political construct, one which was developed in order to more easily distribute resources and determine status within societies.
Despite a lack of data during the early colonial period, scholars widely accept that white settlers in Brazil made up a minority of the population throughout this era.
[9] The theory of "racial democracy" was further developed in the 1930s as a means to reconcile nationalist anti-immigration sentiment, the perceived failure of the state initiative to whiten Brazil, and the growing multiracial population.
[7] Further effects of the ternary system are seen in how Brazilian slave holders incorporated the population of Freed Coloreds, typically mulattos, as enforcers of the racial hierarchy.
[7] This is further explained through the “mulatto escape hatch”, wherein individuals who were visibility of mixed heritage would be granted situational permission to identify as white due to their talents and assets such as education level or learned skills.
[10] By employing this social strategy in the context of the ternary system, Brazilian elites were able to keep the most outspoken and skilled multiracial individuals from critiquing the unequal status quo.
[10] Due to the operation of this racialized system, it became favorable for Brazilians to present themselves as belonging to Native American or European heritages[7] while simultaneously distancing themselves from African descendancy.
[8] By establishing benefits in the form of increased quality of education and financial security, NPR substantiated that the government of Brazil had provided the population with an incentive to (re)claim African heritage.
[11] These emerging social constructs provided a framework for societies to categorize individuals and subsequently place them within a hierarchy—typically seen with what is defined as ‘white’ at the top and ‘black’ at the bottom.
[11] Professor of sociology, G. Reginald Daniel elaborates that these systems were ultimately constructed and employed as a means by which the practice of enslaving Africans could be defended.
[11] Slavery provided the context for the emergence of multiracial identities in colonial America as African slaves and European indentured servants formed interracial unions.
[12] But the multiracial children of these relationships were perceived as a threat to the purity of the white race, and anti-miscegenation laws were promptly passed in the 1660s to preserve distinct racial categories.
[12] Further means of legitimizing the construct of race in the United States emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century through what was known as racial science or scientific racism.
[13] Racial sciences gained additional credibility due to the illustrious reputations of the scholars who conceptualized the field, such as Louis Agassiz a leading member of the American School of Ethnology from Harvard University.
[11] This limitation lends multiracial individuals to being perceived in relation to either extreme of the spectrum, and not as occupying the space between black and white despite how they personally identify.
[11] This phenomenon can be further explained through the history of the one-drop rule, a means of racial categorization which emerged during the Jim Crow era in the American South.
