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Tuesday, March 19
The Indiana Daily Student

Race isn’t what you expect it to be in São Paulo

The average American has fairly set ideas about what people from other countries look like.

I’m sure an image pops into your head when you think of a Japanese, German, Mexican, Nigerian or Iranian person.What about a Brazilian?

I have realized a few important things about race living here in São Paulo. First, although Americans perceive themselves as living in one of the most diverse countries in the world, this is simply not true. Seventy-seven percent of our population is white, according to the latest Census Bureau report.

Second, especially in the case of Latin America, we tend to make generalizations and form stereotypes about other countries’ racial makeup.

On one occasion, I watched as an American asked my friend, who is a fair-skinned, blonde Cuban, where she was from. When she told him, he responded that she did not look at all Cuban.

“What did you expect a Cuban to look like?” she asked. His discomfort was palpable.

In Brazil’s case, 2011 marked the first year that whites did not comprise the majority of the population. The Brazilian census reported that about 48 percent of the population was white, about 8 percent was black and 43 percent brown.

At 11 million, São Paulo is not only the biggest city in Brazil but also the biggest city in the Western Hemisphere. It is home to an amazingly diverse smorgasbord of people, including the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan.

I did not expect to find such a variety of backgrounds when I first arrived. There is also a high concentration of whites in the more affluent southern regions of the country, including São Paulo.

Many people were very worried for my safety when I decided to study here, mostly because I am a white woman.

I heard “You’re going to stick out like a sore thumb” time and again. But the reality turned out to be much different than that.

Most people assume I speak Portuguese. Of course, the moment I open my mouth, everyone in the surrounding area knows that I’m American. Still, I don’t feel more visible here solely on the basis of my skin color.

Many of Brazil’s racial problems seem to mirror those of the United States. The same census also showed that, in Brazil, whites earn 2.4 times what blacks and browns earn.

This reality probably seems familiar. In the U.S., whites earn about 1.7 times what blacks earn, according to the Census Bureau.

When it comes to social problems such as racism, it seems Brazil’s issues are similar to those of the U.S., only augmented.

The dilemma of racial inequality is not helped by a general lack of desire by the Brazilian upper class to discuss racism.

I’ve almost begun to miss Fox News anchors claiming that white privilege does not exist. Here, the discussion seems almost non-existent.

Despite obvious racial disparities, the conversation surrounding the issue is not as developed as it could be. The effect is that in Brazil, an outsider’s view of race and racism is never quite what it seems.

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