Racial prejudice it is any form of expression that discriminates against an ethnicity or culture for considering it inferior or less capable.
Also referred to as racism or race prejudice, racial prejudice has existed in humanity for many years, not only in Brazil, but worldwide.
It is important to mention that the concept of race itself is a social construction used to define what an ethnicity actually is. the calls human races don't exist as biological entities.
According to Sérgio Pena, a Brazilian geneticist physician, “...each Brazilian has a unique individual proportion of Amerindian, European and African ancestry”. Therefore, an individual cannot be said to be of race x or y based on the color of their skin.
Although most people only consider black ethnicity when it comes to prejudice and racism, currently this moral and social problem is also suffered by other ethnicities.
It is not new, for example, white people who practice some activity or who have some habit originated in the culture black women being ostracized or judged as incorrect because they are doing things that, according to racists, “are not for white.”
It is also considered racial prejudice the act of attributing certain tastes or abilities to a individual with the sole justification that this is a characteristic of the ethnicity to which this individual belongs.
is the call unintentional prejudice, where although there may not be the intention to discriminate, there is the propagation of an idea of racial stereotype.
History of racial prejudice in Brazil
the history of racism in Brazil began with Portuguese colonization. The first to suffer prejudice on account of their ethnicity were the native Indians who inhabited Brazilian lands when the Portuguese arrived.
These Indians, also used as slaves, were considered inferior and even incapable of performing certain menial tasks that the Portuguese needed to take care, for example, of coffee plantations and plantations. sugar. It was then that in the mid-sixteenth century, the colonizers decided to look for black Africans, considered physically stronger. Then began the trafficking of labor.
Upon arriving in Brazil, black Africans became slaves and property of Portuguese colonizers. The society of the time was divided into two parts: on the one hand white and free and other blacks enslaved and without any kind of rights.
Then began to appear the first demonstrations of racial prejudice. Blacks were prevented from attending certain places where only people who could prove the call were admitted. race purity, that is, that they were 100% white.
On May 13, 1888, there was the abolition of slaves, which theoretically would leave them free and able to live free, but nevertheless, this was not how it happened.
Used to living dependent on their colonizers, the former slaves found themselves lost in a society for which they were not prepared. They had nowhere to live or even a way to support themselves. Many slaves even preferred to continue working for their former owners in exchange for housing and food.
With nowhere to go, slaves who did not return to their owners began to populate the suburbs of cities and the so-called African neighborhoods, precursors of shanty towns. This population has always lived on the sidelines, in the suburbs and without the same living conditions as people who lived in more central regions.
Since then, the population of the favelas has been made up of a black or Afro-descendant and needy majority.
The period of slavery left ills that are still notorious today. The prejudice suffered by favela dwellers, for example, has social, but above all racial, contents.
See other information about breed and racism.
cultural appropriation
THE cultural appropriation it occurs when elements typical of a certain culture are adopted by people who are part of a different culture group.
It is constantly possible to become aware of controversies that usually lead to various manifestations on social networks. An example of this was a case that occurred in 2017 in Curitiba, Brazil, when a young white woman was reprimanded by a black woman for being white and wearing a turban.
The controversy divided social networks and at the time, the term came to light cultural appropriation. It is a concept that is nothing more than the adoption of certain elements of a certain culture, by a person from a different culture.
This concept may involve not only clothing, but also music, language, cuisine, etc.
See more about cultural appropriation and examples of social movements.
institutional racism
Institutional racism happens when there is any kind of prejudice and racial discrimination in an institution such as companies, universities or public or private bodies.
This type of racism consists of the willful failure to provide proper services to a person because of their color, culture, or ethnic origin.
Meet 6 books on racism that everyone should read to help fight prejudice.