Black Brazil Seeks A Better Future

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by Honeykiss1974

Interesting article.....even more interesting to see how it wil play out. In a country like Brazil, what would be the cut-off to classify someone as black? I wonder how do they classify someone as black now, since according to their stats, there are only 11 million blacks in Brazil but 76 million "mixed".

Anyway, if they do implement some type of US-styled "affirmative action" I wonder if many who are "mixed" will now move to "black" in order to utilize some of the programs? Since just like in the US, you do not have to be 100% african in nature to be classified as "black".

I suspect a great deal of it will be based on physical attributes. There are a number of problems with that, including the fact that "black" is socially constructed and includes a wide array of complexions, hair textures, facial features and so forth--even for people who are not bi-racial.

Another issue is the fact that there are people who are NOT biracial but are choosing to identify as "mixed" because they know that identifying as "black" places them at the bottom of the food chain. Then there's the issue of people straddling the fence and wavering, as you said, by seizing any opportunity that they can either way.