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Draft of Wikipedia Article: Miscegenation in Brazil

Race in Modern Brazil

Brazil is the most populated country in Latin America. It is also one of the most racially diverse. I According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, Brazil's racial composition is 48% white (92 million) 44% pardo (83 million) 7% black (13 million) 0.50% yellow (1.1 million). Due to its racial configuration, Brazil is often compared to the US in terms of its race relations, however, the presence of such a strong mixed population in Brazil is cited as being one of its main differences from the US. The most recent censure in Brazil demonstrates that a considerable part of the population is non-white . The pardo category denotes a mixed or multiracial composition. However, it could be further broken down into terms based on the main racial influences on an individuals phenotype.

Brazil's systematic collection of data on race is considered to be one of the most extensive in the region. However, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has been continuously criticized for it's method of measuring racial demographics. An important distinction is that Brazil collects data based on color, not race. Thus the 'pardo' category doesn't actually pertain to a specific phenotype, only to the color of the individual. This means that a 'pardo' person can range from somebody with white and Asian ancestry to someone with African and Portuguese ancestry. There is an obvious difference between these two phenotypes that are not represented by the umbrella term of 'pardo'. There have been many studies focusing on the significance the IBGE's focus on color rather than race. Ellis Monk has published research illustrating the implications of this racial framework on Brazilian society from a sociological perspective. In a discussion of how the government's implementation of a dichotomous white - non-white (comprised of mixed races, along with black and asian) He states: "The Brazilian government, beginning in the 1990s, even led campaigns urging Brazilians to view themselves as racially dichotomous, as black or white on the basis of African ancestry, regardless of the color of their skin". This development has continued as it had gained support from African Brazilians and Black consciousness movements who wished to set itself apart as a distinct race with a black skin color, similar to the racial framework used in the U.S

Miscegenation and Colonization

The early stages of the Portuguese colonies in Brazilian territory fostered a mixture between Portuguese colonizers, indigenous tribes, and African slaves. This composition was common in most colonies in Latin America. In this sense, several sociologists have compared the Brazilian colonial experience to that of Mexico. Since the publishing of Gilberto Freyre's seminal work Casa-Grande & Senzala, sociologists have looked at Brazil as having a unique colonial history where interracial relations were accepted without religious or class prejudices. Freyre says:

"The sentiment of nationality in the Brazilian has been deeply affected by the fact that the feudal system did not here permit of a State that was wholly dominant or a Church that was omnipotent, as well as by the circumstance of miscegenation as practiced under the wing of that system and at the same time practiced against it, thus rendering less easy the absolute identification of the ruling class with the pure or quasi-pure European stock of the principal conquerors, the Portuguese. The result is a national sentiment tempered by a sympathy for the foreigner that is so broad as to become, practically, universalism. It would, indeed, be impossible to conceive of a people marching onward toward social democracy that in place of being universal in its tendencies should be narrowly exclusive or ethnocentric. "

For Freyre, lack of sexual prejudices incentivized racial mixing that produces the wide genetic variety we see today. Portuguese men married and had children with indigenous and african women. The societal consequences of this is that a marked diversification of skin colors occur, blurring the racial ancestry of those considered to have 'mixed race. The increase of influence of one race over another in producing a Brazilian phenotype happened in stages. For example, immigration policy loosened in the late 1940's resulting in a the influx of multiple european communities that are now considered to have 'whitened' Brazilian communities in the north and northeast