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| Subey |
Hey,
I heard a story that Brazil was an excellent example of ethnic unity because all the various groups got along well. I was wondering if anyone who lived there could comment?
Steve |
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| Martinez |
There are stupid people in any part of the world, but I could say that here we indeed have a good relationship between races and religions.
I have various friends from many ethnies in here, many of them, like most of the brazilian people are mixed from many races. But I also have an european and an african friend.
My "race" is, (as far as I can go back through the genealogic tree, say 2 generetions :D), mixed from brazilian indian and italian. My wife from black and italian.
Anyway, i could say we have a good situation in here, mostly because the various mixes. But not a utopian situation. |
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| Subey |
Don't worry I wasn't expecting to find Utopia :D
Thanks for the information |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
I heard a story that Brazil was an excellent example of ethnic unity because all the various groups got along well. I was wondering if anyone who lived there could comment? |
I used to think like Martinez, given the fact that I'm myself mostly of Italo-Portuguese ancestry. However, the problem with ethnic groups in Brazil is a different one, although I believe we're in the right path.
First of all, for regional reasons, I'm going to drop "ethnic unity" and replace it by "racial unity", as that's what we hear the most (in fact, Martinez himself mentioned about races). The concept of race in Brazil has been strongly "biologised" (quoting wikipedia), and that's a key factor in order to understand what's going on.
There are no rigid racial classifications in Brazil: if your skin is not dark, and you don't have narrow eyes, you're white - no matter whether your ancestors are German, Italian or Arab (although you often hear people with fair skin saying that "they don't look Brazilian", because of the stereotypes).
That, along with the great miscigenation that took place throughout the centuries blurred the lines between races, and they've become social ones - usually, the darker the skin is, the poorer you might be considered to look (a result of colonial slavery). When slaves were freed, no one cared about social integration, and that's why such link exists unconsciously. Lately, this problem has drawn the attention of political leaders, and it's been tackled with measures such as affirmative action (like what happened in the US 30 years ago).
Due to the small number of native Brazilians, and the recent Asian immigration, there are a number of issues related to having narrow eyes (i.e. being "Japanese" and being "Brazilian" is often perceived as being excludent factors, as if they were not part of the society). I remember a Japanese-looking teacher of mine used to tell stories about how she was perceived as non-Brazilian, and how it used to hurt her (and other students of Japanese ancestry often agreed). In fact, studying Japanese language and dating someone of Japanese ancestry is often seen as anti-Brazilian things (although this problem wouldn't exist if I learnt Italian and dated someone of Italian ancestry). Same goes with native Brazilians.
Finally, religion wise, most of the country is Christian, and it's quite weird when you're not (believe me, I know :p). However, in spite of the majority, there's no social stigmas if you're a muslim, an atheist, a Buddhist or anything, with an exception of African religions: they're often seen as inferior, a view once again borrowed from colonial slavery.
So yeah, the problems are subtle, and that's what makes it even more difficult to tackle, but I'm not quite sure whether you could consider it an "ethnic unity" due to the aforementioned examples :) |
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| Subey |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
So yeah, the problems are subtle, and that's what makes it even more difficult to tackle, but I'm not quite sure whether you could consider it an "ethnic unity" due to the aforementioned examples :) |
Darker skinned people ending up on the bottom again. You'd think the world would have come up with a new system to divide itself by now.
Could you clarify the attitude towards japanese? Are there economic barriers similar to those who are darker skinned? or are they just seen as being outsiders? And as outsiders are they perceived as being dangerous to Brazil? or benign etc? |
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