Racism in Brazil

Racism in Brazil has been a major issue ever since the colonial era and the slave era imposed by Portuguese settlers, which led to a persistent marginalization of the black population in the country. The issue has been subject of intense debate over the years, with several government measures addressed to soften or eliminate the most intense gaps, such as affirmative actions in Universities and others.

On the other hand, since Brazil is a multicultural country, without any traces of a national-wide racial unity, having its population formed by immigration from several parts of the world, other ethnicities tend to suffer lesser levels of discrimination, if any.

A research article published in 2011 indicated that 63.7% of Brazilians believe that race interferes with the quality of life.

At work: 59%
In questions related to police justice: 68.3%

Results conducted in 2008 supposedly show that people are not surprised about this difference—although a large percentage of the population is black or has black ancestry, they represented no more than 8% of the 513 chosen representatives in the last election year. The salary of Whites in Brazil are, on average, 46% over the salary of Blacks. This difference might be explained by differences in education.

According to Ivanir dos Santos (the former Justice Ministry's specialist on race affairs), "There is a hierarchy of skin color where blacks, mix races and dark skinned people are expected to know their place in society."

A study on racial bias in teacher evaluations in Brazil found that Brazilian math teachers gave better grading assessments of white students than equally proficient and equivalently well-behaved black students.

Race indicators

In the 19th century, slavery was abolished in Brazil, and the slaves were freed. However, they and their children were denied the right to own land, schooling, housing, water, and electricity.

A series of homicides in Brazil from 2000 to 2009 were studied. The explanatory variables were race/skin color, gender and education. The death statistics were obtained from the Mortality Information System. A trend analysis was performed by means of a polynomial regression for a historic time series (p < 0.05, 95% confidence interval). The black population and multiracial population represented 69% of the homicide victims in 2009. The homicide rate increased in the black population, while it decreased in the white population in the period studied. The homicide rate increased in groups with both higher and lower education among blacks; among whites, the rate decreased for those with the lowest level of schooling and remained stable in the group with higher educational levels.

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