In the introduction, chapter one and two in Race on The Move the author, Tiffany D. Joseph talks about how the categories of race differ from region to region, specific from the United States to Brazil. Someone that is considered black by American standards may be considered white or fairer skinned in Brazil. This is mainly the result of how differently the two countries treated the issue of race post slavery. This is a topic that we briefly touched on earlier in the class but Joseph digs a little deeper on the issue of race and how it changes by specifically talking about a small city in Brazil called Governador Valadares. Governador Valadares is so important in the context of racial differences between the United States and Brazil because
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However this does not mean that racism is not present in Brazil it just presents itself differently. In the United States racism has long been based on the genotype of the individual especially historically with the one-drop rule. In contrast Brazil’s perception of race is based on phenotype, how the genes manifest themselves visually in the individual. So someone that is considered white or fair-skinned in the eyes of a Brazilian may have black ancestry but that is not really relevant. In this case what is relevant is how dark their skin is. Fairer skin is more desired in Brazil. Just like in America the structural inequalities between the races are easy to see; people with darker skin are more likely to earn more and be more educated. Regardless of how different region in the world think about race there is one thing that seems to remain constant is that darker tends to be undesirable and those with darker tend to be discriminated against. We see this in the United States, Brazil and India with the caste system. One of the things that contributed to that desire for lighter skin is that generally in the past darker skinned people used to be the one that spent all day working in the sun while lighter people remained inside because they were rich enough to not do manual
However this does not mean that racism is not present in Brazil it just presents itself differently. In the United States racism has long been based on the genotype of the individual especially historically with the one-drop rule. In contrast Brazil’s perception of race is based on phenotype, how the genes manifest themselves visually in the individual. So someone that is considered white or fair-skinned in the eyes of a Brazilian may have black ancestry but that is not really relevant. In this case what is relevant is how dark their skin is. Fairer skin is more desired in Brazil. Just like in America the structural inequalities between the races are easy to see; people with darker skin are more likely to earn more and be more educated. Regardless of how different region in the world think about race there is one thing that seems to remain constant is that darker tends to be undesirable and those with darker tend to be discriminated against. We see this in the United States, Brazil and India with the caste system. One of the things that contributed to that desire for lighter skin is that generally in the past darker skinned people used to be the one that spent all day working in the sun while lighter people remained inside because they were rich enough to not do manual