Brazil’s 2022 presidential contest is one of the most anticipated elections since the return to democracy. It will be particularly interesting to see how the leading candidates address race, racism, and the effects of Brazil’s overlapping political, economic, health, and environmental crises on citizens of Afro-Brazilian descent.
Former president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, the current presidential frontrunner, set off a public discussion of race and racism in a September 9 interview with rapper Mano Brown on Brown’s ‘Mano a Mano’ podcast. Brown noted how many Black Brazilians identify with conservative political parties because their values are centered around family, tradition and religion, but also because of a perception that a majority of the Workers’ Party is made up of liberal, white, and middle- to upper-class supporters. Mano noted that many people in the Black community were not familiar with the Worker’s Party’s social planks, such as equality, working class rights, and the rights of native people, because even though these planks are aimed at the underprivileged, in reality they are associated in much of the Black community with the demands of whiter, economically privileged classes.
President Lula responded by noting that he was very much aware that many Afro-Brazilians have not sympathized with his Workers’ Party. He began reaching back in history, noting that when it comes to racial issues, the legacy of centuries of slavery is potent. When the Republic was being constructed in the late nineteenth century, Lula noted, it did not have the interests of Black citizens in mind, and they have thus suffered for more than a century as second-class citizens.
Mano abruptly shifted the conversation, asking President Lula how he identifies racially. Lula responded, “Lula is Lula. I’m Lula the way that I am Lula. I’m Black. I’m White. I am anything. I am a human being. I am a human being who is conscious of my brotherhood with all of those who think differently than me. That have a different color than me. That have a different religion than me. That support a different soccer team other than my Corinthians. You know, I am like everybody.” Mano Brown then told Lula that his racial identification is a major point of discussion within the Black community in Brazil. President Lula responded “You need to remind those people that I was elected by the Senegalese president as the first Black president in Brazil’s history” and then said he was willing to take a DNA test to demonstrate his racial lineage.
President Lula not so subtly seemed to be racially reclassifying himself as Black, a trend that has gained pace in Brazil in recent years. As David De Micheli points out in a deeply researched article in World Politics, “Brazilians are increasingly choosing and politicizing blackness as an articulation of these newfound and racialized political identities” (4). Rather than running away from past patterns of stigma, Lula, like many other Brazilians, seems to be embracing his Afro-Brazilian roots, and imbuing a racial identity that had long been stigmatized with newfound political meaning.
De Micheli explains this ongoing movement by noting that greater exposure to social networks and the labor market “has brought many face-to-face with racial hierarchies and inequalities in their pursuit of upward mobility, altering the personal experiences and subjectivities that inform their racial identifications and the bases on which they make sense of power relationships—their political identities” (9). It is perhaps inevitable that a talented politician like Lula would pick up on this trend, and turn it to his own advantage. Will this change his party’s appeal at the polls, and what are the likely effects for Brazil’s Afro-descendant population if Lula triumphs next October? Whatever the answers, the racial reclassification that is underway is likely to reshape racial politics, and by extension, the patterns of Brazilian politics more broadly.
Photo: Site do PT/Divulgação.
Great !!
I loved the text. Brazil has a lot to learn about racism and social equality. We need to fight racism on a family basis, teaching young children how to deal with differences.
Lula is known for having implemented racial quotas for university admissions and some agencies. He is even better known for expanding the unsustainable Bolsa Família program to include some 11 million families, what some have classified as the “largest vote-buying plan in history.” Lula is also known for having presided over massive corruption including the “mensalão” system of buying votes in congress. Despite all this, Lula is probably the best and only hope for defeating the insidious and corrupt government of Jair Bolsonaro. One can only hope that, if elected, Lula will take on Brazil’s huge environmental, social and fiscal problems in a constructive way. Unlike his earlier term in office, Lula needs to rebuild the structure of political process by reducing the power of major industries, landowners and unions, eliminating the “parties for hire” and helping to purge congress of known political hacks.
great read! many of brazil’s issues currently revolve around racism, and things need to change!!
The agenda of racism is urgent. We are watching and we want representation in all spheres of power. Great text.
Todo debate sobre desigualdade é válido e necessário, mas ele tem que sair da retórica e acontecer na prática do dia a dia. Excelente matéria
Great!
Lula disse que o embranquecimento da política é um problema histórico. “Você só colhe o que planta e a política sempre foi uma coisa branca, assim como as profissões mais rentáveis. A direção do PT tinha uma maioria branca, mas agora há uma evolução e, hoje, é o único partido com setoriais para negro, mulheres, LGBTs. Nossa ideia não é criar uma cota, mas dar igualdade de condições nas participações políticas”, afirmou o ex presidente. Assim esperamos!!!
congratulations ! it’s necessary to talk about racism and be a priority in any government
It’s great to read about Brazil at such a respected university. Great text, thank you.
Dear Barbara, congratulations on the article. This theme is really very sad. Unfortunately, discrimination is an innate action of most human beings that goes far beyond being the ruler of a country. Overt episodes have been witnessed in the past (e.g. the holocaust, KKK, fascism, etc.) and continue to occur around the world without exception, regardless of the country’s cultural, social and economic condition. When it comes to Brazil, today we are witnessing the bare and raw reality of this human nature so sad and supported by its main ruler. Another sad chapter of a country that shows one of the most appalling social differences on the planet.