“Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
You see as person who is introspective by nature, I make observations in every aspect of my life in an attempt to comprehend the world I live in. The past few days have been a literal whirlwind of changes with my moving from Dallas, Texas to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Along with such a majestic move, my brooding has reached a pinnacle never grasped before and in a simple conversation last night I came to realize a sad reality of my beloved America…
…I forgot how racist America truly is.
America is as racist as they come, yet we live in a delusional state of “lukewarm acceptance”. Many people when even mentioning the word “racist” stand in arms against such thought, as if racism is merely a memory of the past rather than the very tangible reality of the present.
Now, what may you ask brought on such a realization, such recognition of a subject that has truly become silently desensitized in the U.S.?
Well the story begins as a child. My parents being immigrants from Brazil, never instilled in me this specific social mindset of Americans, as it was not their social mindset, thus I never truly came to comprehend concept of “race” and the very real issues it continues to create in the U.S. today.
I remember distinctly in elementary school one day being asked by another child, “What are you?” Now mind you, I did not have any idea what such a question meant, so I responded with, “I’m a girl… what are you?” in utter confusion. She relied, “No no, I mean WHAT are you? You know, like where are you from??” Still confused I responded with, “Well, I was born in Dallas, so I’m American just like you.. why?” “Nooo,” she replied, “You don’t get it, I mean like where are your parents from? What are you, like race and stuff?”
It was then that I realized my position in life in the U.S. was never going to merely be that of an American citizen. As time progressed, I understood that because of the color of my skin I could never just be American… I had to identify as “being” something and with time people have varied in opinion from “Brazilian” to “mixed” to “Latina” to whatever other erroneous perception they could come up with.
But never once just plain ol’ American.
I recall seeing videos and pictures of my many many cousins (there are approx. 19 of us!) in the middle of 2nd grade and when asked in school to ‘identify’ what I ‘was’ for the state regulated TAKS test thinking, “why can’t I just live in Brazil, at least then I’ll just be Brazilian and no one will ask what I am.” Oh how I was wise beyond my years, a wisdom long forgotten till now. As a young girl, I was defiant to this indoctrination of racism under the covert name of “census”, and whenever asked to fill out a form I would check every box available under race… unwilling to break. I still recall cases of racism enacted towards me just because of the color of my skin. Yet, as life progressed so did my desensitization on the topic and would merely respond to the expected “race” categorization.
The recognition of racism however was once again revived in college. Now one may assume that my bit of racial enlightenment during my collegiate years was due to some professor oh so enthused and passionate on the topic that he/she must have enlightened me and opened my eyes to the reality of the world… wrong. I came to recognize racism once again due to the jests and joking of my peers. You see in the U.S. social banter can revolve around many things, and one of them regularly tends to be race. I had not been around such dialogue my entire life so to hear such words. However, now exposed once again to the new world of “race” I was about to be very quickly educated. The topics varied from the difference between “n***a” and “n***er”, with the latter “only allowed for a black person of negative persona”… yes yes because it was argued everyone knows the difference between a “n***a” and a “n***er”. Or another time when in the computer lab I was messaged “OMG these FOBs are soooo loud!” In my confusion I stood up and yelled to the friend who had just messaged me across to room “Hey, what’s a FOB??” She quickly put her head down in embarrassment as I had yet to realize at the time the room was full of recent immigrants from India, the explanation that ‘FOB’ pertained to them came later.
As time progressed so did my recognition of what is truly unacceptable at its core. My own desensitization process came full circle with my own participation in racial bantering and jests.
That is until last night, in Brazil where I experienced something that I had never experienced my entire life in America…
At a dinner, my uncle proceeded to explain to the other guests that I was his ‘American’ niece who had just arrived a few days ago. In astonishment a guest, a blue eyed, whited haired, pale skinned, gentleman looked me up and down stating, “There’s no way she’s American she looks like one of US, she looks Brazilian!” All the other guests proceeded to nod in agreement.
Never in my life in the United States of America would I expect a blue eyed, white haired, pale skinned man to state that I, a brown eyed, curly & curly haired, brown skinned girl, that I was American and that I looked like him. Yet, here in Brazil with all its faults, a country still considered to be ‘third world’, the people have grasped a concept that Americans have yet to grasp… one country, one people.
For the first time in my life since arriving in Brazil I have not been asked What I am. For the first time in my life I am asked rather Who I am in recognition of the fact that I am a person not a thing…
Even as you look below, you see a picture of 2 girls. An American sees two different “races” due to skin color… a Brazilian sees two Brazilian girls, no differences or questions asked.
Yes America, you are racist and I had forgotten our American shame…
This is Pure Lunacy 
Very insightful and inspiring post Priscylla. The question that should be asked is whether are not Americans (across all ethnicities) are inherently racist? Or, are we a product of multi-national or multi-racial roots? The U.S. history is probably the most unique among all other nations in this respect.
Thank you Cody!
However, I think this myth of the U.S. History being ‘unique’ may be one of the founding causes in the U.S. American desensitization of racism. You see, Brazil’s history is actually very much the same in every aspect. Brazil began as a colonized nation, not by England but Portugal, so differences merely apply to cultural and religious methods of colonization. Brazil had slavery very much like the U.S., except the slavery in Brazil was 100% worse as we received 38% of all African slaves traded, whereas the U.S. only received approximately 5-8% of African slaves at most. Outside of Tokyo, Japan, Brazil has the largest population of Japanese people in the world. Along with African descendents, Brazil is also well known to have immense populations of Europeans such as Italians, Russians, Germans etc.. and also large populations of Middle Eastern descendents such as Lebanese, Syrian, Jewish, etc… You see Brazil is very much as ‘unique’ as the United States, however the path taken in Brazil socially, economically, and politically was merely different from the same beginnings as the United States.. thus leading us to where we are today, two very similar but unique countries with the same background but very different present realities. In the U.S. we identify people by what “race” they are ie: African American, Caucasian, Latino etc… as I recall very few “Caucasians” in the U.S. have direct linage to the Caucus States in Eastern Europe. However as much as racism is the number one social problem in The U.S.A., Brazil has similar problems pertaining to Social Status and “class”, where people are instead discriminated against based on their “class” before “race” is taken into consideration. Thus in the end, I consider all Countries of “The New World” just as unique as the United States as we all began as colonies of “Old World” empire, the only difference is that the United States was able to gain world power more vehemently than the rest of the Americas.
Well said. These historical similarities proves that there is something imbedded in the minds of Americans to identify each other by race. Of course, I would add that the civil war and the stubborn South during the reconstruction has a lot to do with present day racism. It is the main reason why we have documents stating a person’s race on them. American laws attempt to fix racism by identifying people based on their ethnic background. In my view, this does nothing but exploit the mulitiple divides that we have in this country.
I would add that the history of Brazil and the US led to differences in how ‘race’ is viewed. In South America the Spanish and Portuguese sent mainly groups of young men to establish and defend resource acquisition. Men being men, they quickly bred with the indigenous populations. The Catholic church, always on the look out for new members, quickly worked to ‘bring’ the populations under their umbrella. As such even those of ‘mixed’ heritage were allowed a certain amount of humanization, not necessarily equality, but at least some acceptance in society. The US in contrast was colonized by the Protestants who had little to no real interest in bringing the natives as it were into the church. At the time of English colonization there was the growing notion of Anglo-Saxonism. Spain and Portugal had an entirely different world view from being on the Mediterranean Sea; much more contact with Africa and the Middle East. To the English mindset, they were the top of the pyramid. All other ‘races’ were lesser humans. So when they colonized the did not view cross breading as a good thing to say the least. There is much more to this history, but the short answer is that South and North America were colonized by two very different mindsets, which led to very different views on race, ones that carry over to today.
You are 100% correct in the reiteration of this historical information! As I stated before “Brazil began as a colonized nation, not by England but Portugal, so differences merely apply to cultural and religious methods of colonization.”