Racial Democracy and Black Victimization in Brazil

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to quantify racial victimization differential between Blacks and Whites in Brazil, focusing on homicides and physical assaults. Combining socioeconomic data from the Brazilian Household Survey with data from the Mortality Information System, we apply the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition to isolate the racial discrimination component from the social indicators correlated with homicides and physical assaults. Findings indicate that only part of the victimization differential between Blacks and Whites is explained by structural attributes. A significant portion of this differential (at least 40%) for both homicides and physical assaults persists as evidence of racial discrimination. In addition, both for homicides and physical assaults, a more discriminatory scenario is observed in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil, regions historically characterized by higher social inequalities and violent mortality.

A conditional embrace—Swedish LGBTQ+ spaces through the eyes of ethnic minority non-heterosexual individuals

“…Returning to North America, racial discrimination is a pervasive problem, with over 50% of Black, Hispanic, and Asian people reporting racial discrimination (Lee et al, 2019). Similar data are available in, e.g., Brazil, where significant differences are found in racial victimization between Black and White Brazilians (Truzzi et al, 2022). Even if such documentation of racial discrimination can't readily be compared with Swedish conditions, racism clearly exists in both overt and covert forms in Sweden (Akrami et al, 2000;Hylland Eriksen, 2019;Quillian et al, 2019;Kristoffersson et al, 2021).…”

Assessing Racial Disparities in Homicide Sentencing: Findings From Brazil

“…Contemporary research has revealed that racial disparity does exist within institutions in Brazil, such as the economy (Arcand & D’hombres, 2004), education (Botelho et al, 2015; Marteleto & Dondero, 2016), and health outcomes (Nyarko et al, 2013; Pavao et al, 2012). Statistics also demonstrate the presence of racial disparities in criminal victimization (Murray et al, 2013; Truzzi et al, 2021), although existing studies have presented mixed results regarding how race influences the decision-making for homicide cases brought to the criminal justice system (Adorno, 1995; Cano et al, 2010; Costa Ribeiro, 1995; Fausto, 1984; Ribeiro, 2010; Ribeiro & Diniz, 2020). Adding to the above empirical findings, the current study finds no direct effects of race on jurors’ decisions about conviction but finds racial disparity in judicial decisions of sentence length.…”

“…The high rate of homicide in Brazil has a significant impact on the population, as research has found that nearly 50 million Brazilians over the age of 16 (about one-third of the population) have lost friends or relatives to murder (Brazilian Forum of Public Safety, 2019). Racial disparities in homicide are also particularly pronounced, with homicide victimization rates for Black persons (37.8 homicides per 100,000) exceeding the rate of non-Blacks (13.9 homicides per 100,000 in 2018 [Truzzi et al, 2021; see also Murray et al, 2013]).…”

“…For instance, in 2018, the homicide rate in Brazil was 27.8 per 100,000, a rate over six times greater than that in the United States (Ribeiro & Diniz, 2020). Moreover, between 1990 and 2015, while the global homicide rate decreased by approximately 25%, the homicide rate in Brazil increased 32% during this same period (Santos & Testa, 2018; Truzzi et al, 2021). The high rate of homicide in Brazil has a significant impact on the population, as research has found that nearly 50 million Brazilians over the age of 16 (about one-third of the population) have lost friends or relatives to murder (Brazilian Forum of Public Safety, 2019).…”

“…They believed that racism and racial discrimination were minimal or non-existent in Brazilian society in contrast to the other multiracial societies in the world.” Accordingly, at the core of the debate in Brazil is the question of whether blurred racial boundaries result in reduced racial discrimination (Marteleto & Dondero, 2016). Emerging research from across disciplines have provided evidence that relative to White, Black, and Brown individuals (i.e., the word used to identify mixed races, or the combination between Black and White) are worse off in terms of socioeconomic status (Cano et al, 2010), education (Botelho et al, 2015; Marteleto & Dondero, 2016), health (Pavao et al, 2012), infant birth outcomes (Nyarko et al, 2013), the labor market (Arcand & D’hombres, 2004), and even crime victimization (Truzzi et al, 2021).…”