Terms of Inclusion by Paulina L. Alberto

Author:Paulina L. Alberto [Alberto, Paulina L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780807834374
Publisher: UNC Press
Published: 2011-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

“Racism pure and simple”

Perhaps because of the particularly stark racial discrimination that had historically prevailed in São Paulo, black thinkers in that city found themselves fending off accusations of racismo às avessas, or reverse discrimination, almost as soon as they reentered the public sphere in 1945. Appealing to the prevailing national mood, Raul Joviano do Amaral, writing for São Paulo's Alvorada in October 1945, attempted to head off accusations of racial separatism by casting black activist organizations as useful components of a pluralistic, democratic society. “As a minority—and a minority situated at the bottom of the social pyramid—[negros] cannot constitute a ‘danger’ and do not wish to exchange one form of prejudice for another. What the community wants is to educate itself, instruct itself, working democratically to form an integral part of Brazilian society, as is justly their due.”8 While making this defensive appeal to democracy, however, Amaral did not hesitate to call out accusations of reverse racism for what they were: repressive uses of racial democracy intended to deny racism and silence black claims for redress. “Each time that blacks begin to escape their somnolence, the most absurd and outlandish invectives are raised against them. And—as in earlier days—the well-worn arguments rear their heads: ‘Blacks don't have a problem,’ ‘We are a people who do not have racial prejudices,’ ‘We do not have barriers based on color.’”9 In August 1947 another article in Alvorada denounced allegations of reverse racism as “a ridiculous concept” that arose as a direct response to the reemergence of black activism in São Paulo after 1945. “All other groups have a right to deal with their problems. Except for blacks. When the black man lifts his head, he is immediately singled out as aggressive.”10 By 1954 an article by veteran black journalist José Correia Leite lamented the effectiveness of such accusations in cowing some black leaders into inaction: “With the escape valve of not being racist,” he wrote, some black leaders “preach inertia [and] cowardice.”11

Against this backdrop, writers in São Paulo's black press set out to disprove prevailing assertions that Brazil was free of racism and that blacks faced no “specific” problems based on their race. As early as 1945, Alvorada’s Amaral attempted to “debunk the false supposition that blacks do not have their own issues within the broader human problems . . . of the Brazilian community.”12 And in March 1947 Leite responded to the barring of African American scholar Irene Diggs from a Rio hotel on account of her race by inverting the traditionally flattering comparison between Brazil and the United States. “There [in the United States], blacks are imposing their progress; and here, we are being swallowed by the sentimental lie that in Brazil there is no prejudice. But in fact [Brazil] continues to be a vast slave quarters, with just a few blacks in the Big House.”13 Leite's use of “slave quarters” and “Big House” (senzala and casa-grande) directly referenced Gilberto Freyre's famous work, widely credited with popularizing the idea that Brazil was free of racism.

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