Professor Carlos Alberto Medeiros, an expert on law and social sciences, came to our apartment in Rio tonight to speak to us about race in Brazil and the Black movement here. He spoke about a range of interesting things, but what related most to my project was his discussion of Black identity as a precursor for a Black movement. Medeiros identified himself as a Black militant who highly values the Black movement in Brazil. He stated that many Afro-Brazilians do not identify themselves as Black and thus developing a movement for racial justice is particularly difficult in Brazil – because with a racial democracy there is no problem to fight against. Medeiros identified the idea of racial democracy as very appealing not only to white Brazilians, but also to Afro-Brazilians who buy into this ideology in part because being oppressed as a result of class is less painful than as a result of race.
I found Mederios’ views to reinforce my hypothesis that Brazilian hip hop’s race consciousness is an important part of building support for affirmative action. Racial remedies such as affirmative action are an important part of the Black movement and I will see if hip hop is providing an avenue for Afro-Brazilians to express their own identity and advocate for the end to racial oppression through state policies such as affirmative action.
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