Racial politics in Brazil
In Brazil, race is considered a spectrum upon which one's identity is subject to change based on a variety of factors, such as social class and educational attainment.
Prior to the abolition of slavery, plantation owners feared a post-emancipatory society of freed slaves who had, "deficiencies such as indolence and immorality" that needed to be wiped out.
[7] Brazil's export-based economy was largely reliant on slave labor, and slaveholders felt the freedmen would hinder the country's development because of their inferior characteristics.
Initially, Brazil saw the success of Chinese immigrants in the United States and other nations, but the risk of introducing another purportedly degenerate race like the Africans was too high.
[9] The program was "responsible for informing European workers of employment opportunities available in São Paulo, paying their passage, overseeing their arrival in Brazil, and dispatching them to the coffee groves".
[10] However, Afro-Brazilians' status improved with labor laws enacted during the Great Depression that required two thirds of businesses' new hires to be Brazilian-born.
[13] Employed Afro-Brazilians demanded better working conditions after emancipation, but European immigrants, especially Italians, largely accepted lower pay and harsher treatment to secure a higher social position.
[16] As a result of whitening-induced interracial marriage in the late 19th century and a lack of segregation laws, race in modern Brazil is defined by the concept of "racial democracy".
[5] Such identity problems and inequities caused by racial democracy led Afro-Brazilians to take measures to identify closer to the white race in order to place them on a level playing field.
[17] Factors that impacted consistency by 20% to 100% included education, age, sex, and local racial composition, trending in the direction of either "whitening" or "darkening".
Moreover, Brazil almost prides itself as having somehow moved past racial discrimination because it was built on the mixing of Amerindian, African and European ethnic groups.
[19] Employment disparities found in this study are supported by inadequate incentives for minority-owned businesses in Brazil, creating an every-man-for-himself survivalist environment for black businesspeople.
[5] While black workers maintain sizeable numbers in the workforce, especially in small and midsize retailers and restaurants, they still struggle to break into high-paying corporate landscapes such as the accounting and tech industries.
Such hardships within the business landscape for black Brazilians has led them to take measures to identify closer to the white race in order to place them on a level playing field.
[5] Several political, cultural, and social groups have emerged in Brazil in an attempt to gain equal rights and a positive Afro-Brazilian image for and among black Brazilians.
In fact, a significant increase in the average skin tone indicates that the policy was successful in attracting more brown and black students to the university, particularly in the first semester following its introduction.
The university's experiences with the policy and its consequences on the students, however, provide important information for the broader study of racial disparity in institutional settings for higher education and the workplace.
[citation needed] Although there is a blueprint, it is already evident that affirmative action has proven to be an uncomfortable fit for Brazil as a strategy for racial equality.
"If you look at a photograph of the incoming medical class of 2015, only one of the students looks black," said Georgina Lima, a professor and head of UFPel's Center for Affirmative Action and Diversity, "[a]nd he's not even Brazilian.
[23] But according to Rogerio Reis, chair of the committee at UFPel, people attempted to improve their chances at eligibility by presenting as blacker through, for example, style or tanning.
