Huh, I didn't know that about Brazil, though of course, slavery is far from a uniquely American institution. I think race is spoken about in a much more relaxed in Brazil from what I've know of it. There's far less (no?) hand-wringing about using the wrong term or causing offence.
But I think the root of America's problems with race are m…
Huh, I didn't know that about Brazil, though of course, slavery is far from a uniquely American institution. I think race is spoken about in a much more relaxed in Brazil from what I've know of it. There's far less (no?) hand-wringing about using the wrong term or causing offence.
But I think the root of America's problems with race are more to do with Jim Crow than with slavery. If freed slaves had been allowed to live their lives as equals and especially if they'd been given the reparations they were promised, I suspect that racial tensions would be a fraction of what they are if anything at all.
As is often pointed out, almost every country has slavery somewhere in its past. But Jim Crow (and apartheid in South Africa) are far more rare. And more importantly, far more recent. That's where the comparison with other countries falters.
You may well have already looked but I'll put a couple of links about race/racism in Brazil. The one from the UN notes that in the US the colonizers came as families while in Brazil they were single men which led to a higher amount of racial mixing.
I think you are correct about the persisting influence of Jim Crow. As recently as the early 1980s my wife and I were denied service in a fraternal lodge in Georgia because she failed the brown paper bag test. Mighty white of them to not mention their policy before they got my fifty bucks membership. Ironically, she talked me into joining. She played bingo, illegal at the time, in the lodge's "lady's bingo room" which allowed POC. They brought out food for sale from their restaurant and she wanted me to join so we could go eat there together.
Poor white and black people associated far more than the modern SJWs would have us believe back in the day. The moneyed found that dangerous and promoted institutionalized racism to build the divide to reduce opposition from the have nots. The effectiveness is stunning.
Huh, I didn't know that about Brazil, though of course, slavery is far from a uniquely American institution. I think race is spoken about in a much more relaxed in Brazil from what I've know of it. There's far less (no?) hand-wringing about using the wrong term or causing offence.
But I think the root of America's problems with race are more to do with Jim Crow than with slavery. If freed slaves had been allowed to live their lives as equals and especially if they'd been given the reparations they were promised, I suspect that racial tensions would be a fraction of what they are if anything at all.
As is often pointed out, almost every country has slavery somewhere in its past. But Jim Crow (and apartheid in South Africa) are far more rare. And more importantly, far more recent. That's where the comparison with other countries falters.
You may well have already looked but I'll put a couple of links about race/racism in Brazil. The one from the UN notes that in the US the colonizers came as families while in Brazil they were single men which led to a higher amount of racial mixing.
I think you are correct about the persisting influence of Jim Crow. As recently as the early 1980s my wife and I were denied service in a fraternal lodge in Georgia because she failed the brown paper bag test. Mighty white of them to not mention their policy before they got my fifty bucks membership. Ironically, she talked me into joining. She played bingo, illegal at the time, in the lodge's "lady's bingo room" which allowed POC. They brought out food for sale from their restaurant and she wanted me to join so we could go eat there together.
Poor white and black people associated far more than the modern SJWs would have us believe back in the day. The moneyed found that dangerous and promoted institutionalized racism to build the divide to reduce opposition from the have nots. The effectiveness is stunning.
https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/racial-discrimination-and-miscegenation-experience-brazil
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/mythology-of-racial-democracy-in-brazil/
God, stories like that make me so angry. Thanks for the links, I'll check them out.