Brazil's Liberation

I always considered Blackness in South American countries to be extremely nuance-- Brazil is no exception. With a brutal history of centuries of slavery and continued prejudice, Brazil's African roots have found a way to thrive despite numerous efforts to stomp them out.

Beginning around 1540, eventually 5.5 million slaves would be brought to Brazil. This number is more than ten times the amount of enslaved Africans that were brought to the United States.

The country has the second largest Black-African population in the world, second to Nigeria.

While the enslaved were forcibly brought to Brazil and stripped of their rights and previous identities, pieces of African culture remained.

Photo courtesy of BrazilSelection.com

Candomblé, Brazil's main Afro-Brazilian religion, combines elements of Yoruba, Bantu, and Fon. Many of the same gods and deities that are praised in the Yoruba religion are also worshiped in Candomblé, only by different names. For example, Oshun, an important river goddess of divinity and femininity, is referred to as Oxum in the Candomblé religion.

Another fun fact, the name Candomblé literally translates to "dance in honor of the gods". No wonder dancing is an integral part of the religion's celebrations!

Though many Afro-Brazilians identify as Black, it is interesting that Black Brazilians are not present in American media when portraying Brazilians. They are always shown as olive-skinned, maybe tan people with straight black hair. It is disheartening to see their identities continue to be erased by the media.

Earlier in this post I mentioned continued prejudice against Afro-Brazilians from their fair-skinned counterparts. This phenomenon is a common theme across the African Diaspora. Wherever we go that we are not the majority, we are doomed to experience systemic racism. Brazil's instance was amplified with "Blanqueamiento", which translates to "whitening".

In an effort to dilute the African-ness of the country, the Brazilian elite proposed the idea of strengthening the white race in Brazil, to eventually be rid of Black or dark-skinned Brazilians in the future. This came directly after Brazil's abolishment of slavery in 1888, with whites fearing that when the enslaved Africans would be free, they would band together to expand the Black population, eventually overpowering the white slaveholders. This seems to be a recurring fear that Europeans have of Black people.

Black features were seen as ugly and inferior to white, and was a gene to be exterminated and erased from Brazil in the eyes of these white "farmers". Between 1890 and 1914, 1 million Europeans arrived in Brazil, with the Brazilian elite having hope that they would whiten the Brazilian population, and perhaps create mixed children that would eventually procreate with other white Brazilians, lessening their African genes.

As a Black person, seeing the efforts of our fellow man be spent on oppressing us and ensuring that we do not rise to power in any way, is frankly depressing. I often wonder why we were chosen to suffer in this way, to be so internationally hated for our African ancestry.

I admire Afro-Brazilians for thriving in the face of adversity, and never allowing their African roots to be buried.