Reinterpreting Comparative Race Relations

Race and Ethnicity in Latin America

“…Furthermore, it was very hard to create the kind of black solidarity movement that the US had witnessed in the 1950s and 1960s, which mobilised blacks as a clear social group and challenged prevalent negative definitions of blackness. This was also the conclusion of Toplin (1971) and Skidmore (1972). Nevertheless, it should be noted that black activists were already present in Brazil when the UNESCO studies started and they were to become increasingly important (see Chapter 5).…”

“…Historian Carl Degler made an important contribution with his book Neither Black Nor White (1971), an extended comparison of race relations in Brazil and the US which challenged the idea of racial democracy in the former region. Others such as Toplin (1971) and Skidmore (1972) made similar revisionist interpretations, and Toplin also pointed out that, with desegregation and positive discrimination in favour of blacks, the US itself had changed, making the comparison even less straightforward. Degler traced historical differences between Brazil and the US, disavowing the notion of benevolent slavery but focusing on the so-called 'mulatto escape hatch', which accorded people of mixed ancestry a special place (1971: 107) and allowed them to move up the social scale.…”

“…It was this 'traditional' vision of Brazil purveyed by Freyre and Pierson (Toplin, 1971) that was vital when, after the horrors of Nazi racism and as part of the final dismantling of scientific racism and eugenics, UNESCO -headed at the time by Arthur Ramosdecided to undertake a study of race relations in Brazil that, within the overall UNESCO initiative on attacking racism (Barkan, 1996), would show the world how to get things right in this respect (Maio, 1999). 1 The UNESCO studies covered very different areas of Brazil and this is important when assessing the results of their research.…”

Images of Latin American mestizaje and the politics of comparison

“…Toplin (1971) and Degler (1971) made the contrast with the USA where, however much mixed race people were recognised as distinct within the category of AfricanAmericans (Hanchard, 1994: 38;Spickard, 1989;Toplin, 1981), the category 'black' became a point of collective identification and political action. Later analyses described how, in the context of a growing black social movement, some light-skinned Brazilian blacks were happier to identify as 'blacks' (Burdick, 1998;Turner, 1985).…”

“…In a variation on the role of the 'mulatto', earlier accounts emphasised that the social recognition of mixture made Brazilian racial identities ambiguous and made political solidarity difficult: lighter-skinned Afro-Brazilians were often characterised as attempting to flee blackness and not identify themselves with a racial consciousness. Toplin (1971) and Degler (1971) made the contrast with the USA where, however much mixed race people were recognised as distinct within the category of African-Americans (Hanchard, 1994: 38;Spickard, 1989;Toplin, 1981), the category 'black' became a point of collective identification and political action. Later analyses described how, in the context of a growing black social movement, some light-skinned Brazilian blacks were happier to identify as 'blacks' (Burdick, 1998;Turner, 1985).…”