At Brazil Carnival, Racial Unity a Mask
“Nowhere is the vision of Brazil as a racial democracy more apparent than during carnival, when millions of people black and white, rich and poor, press up against one another in an annual party that began Friday in most of the country.

But the celebrations mask tensions that simmer beneath the surface in a nation where most of the poor are descended from Africans and most of the rich mostly from Europeans.”
Full Article : phillyburbs.com

Brazil’s False Image of Racial Harmony Has Accomplice: the Black Population
“For instance, in a study by Camino, da Silva, Machado and Pereira (1), Brazilians were asked their own opinions and what they thought the opinion of other Brazilians would be regarding “natural” attributes correlating to whites and blacks. In a classic example of recognizing prejudice but not seeing prejudice in themselves, Brazilians believed that Brazilian society itself associated negative attributes to blacks and positive attributes to whites.

People in the survey consistently believed that Brazilians in general attributed adjectives such as intelligence and honesty to whites while believing that the society saw blacks as dishonest and aggressive. The study also confirmed that Brazilian society in general sees blacks as being more naturally endowed for sports and the arts while whites are associated with authority and professional employment.

Finally, the study showed that people (themselves or society) associated “third world” qualities such as poverty and being workers with blacks while whites were thought to have more “first world” qualities such being rich, civilized and independent.

The point of this study answers one of my previous questions. Brazilians do indeed clearly see how their society is structured. The results of this study questions the typical reaction regarding poverty when one says that racism doesn’t exist because “whites also live in favelas”.”
Full Article : brazzil.com