Category Archives: Race and Ethnicity in the Modern World

Brazil – A Racial Paradise?

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by Lee Hyeon Woo

I remember watching a film about Brazil. It was a film titled Tropa De Elite, or Elite Squad. The film was about special police forces named the BOPE hunting down drug dealers in Brazilian slums known as the favela. As I watched the movie, I realized that most of the population consisting the favela were dark colored. There were only a few completely black men, and most of the population had brownish skin. At first it didn’t matter because I thought Brazil was a “dark country”. But when the movie suddenly showed the image of a Brazilian medical university, I was surprised to find out that most of the students who are introduced as Brazilians were white. That’s when I realized that Brazil was not free from racial problems.

I found out that Brazil’s major populations were white people, who took up 49 percent of the entire Brazil population. Then followed brown, or pardos, which took 42 percent of the population. Blacks, contrary to my original belief, took only 7 percent of the entire population. However I also found out that due to the long history of Portuguese colonization, most of the population were of mixed ancestry regardless of skin color. These include mulato, a black-white mix, mestiso, an indigenous-white mix, and cafuzo, an indigenous-black mix. To my surprise there were also considerable numbers of Japanese Brazilians. Because of this mixed ancestry, Brazilians have no point of discriminating each other with racial ancestry. It was no wonder that the Brazilian government would promote that, since there are so many races living together in harmony, their nation is a “racial paradise”.

While it would have been the best if what the Brazil government claims are completely true, I unfortunately found out that even in a “racial paradise” discrimination exists. Even if the ancestry is mixed, Brazilians would still discriminate race by fundamental means – the skin color. To simply put, the whiter you are, the more advantageous you are in Brazilian society. These discriminations can apply in job interviews, education, and environment. As I mentioned the Favela in the film, Tropa De Elite, most of the populations in the favela are dark skinned people. On the contrary, in university, which requires a large amount of tuition, most of the students are white, implying that white Brazilians have more economic benefits than darker ones. The most difficult part in solving this discrimination is that it is hidden. Everyone in Brazil says that they are not racists and they respect all races, but when they face a situation which involves other races, they would subtly engage in discrimination. Sometimes they don’t even know that their act is a racial discrimination.

Black and White in Brazil? – It’s hard to identify race

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by Aya Murakami

flagWhile the US has been importing a racial system from Latin America, Brazil is going in an opposite direction. It has imported the traditional US way of classifying race. The system called ‘Black movement’, and it divides people into two categories: black and white. Even though there are another two classification systems, this idea has been rapidly spreading over Brazil and having huge impact on people’s idea of race.

Traditionally, Brazil had been identifying itself as “racial democratic” country. Brazil is one of the most racially mixed societies. It counts 2nd largest black population and the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. There was no legislation to divide people into racial groups and people could claim their own racial categories. As a consequence of these reasons, racial groups in Brazil were very ambiguous and elusive.

However, even in Brazil, the racial democratic country, statistic revealed that discrimination toward darker skin people exists. Although afro-Brazilians occupy at least 50% of total population, there were less than 5% of blacks in the government. Also, nearly two third of poverty was made up by Blacks. The average income gap between white and black was huge, black only gained 40% of which white did in 1980. Moreover, blacks were unlikely to be able to get higher education.

These are some of my Brazilian friends.

These are some of my Brazilian friends.

Since 2001, some of the state and federal universities have provided a certain percentage of seats to blacks. As a result, the number of black students in the university has been bigger and bigger. It has certainly given chance to blacks and in the long run, people are expecting it to reduce the gap between black and white.

However, it is true that these actions are providing equal opportunities for blacks? Or rather, it is increasing the gap between white and black? There remain some questions. Since most of the people are mixed race hence it is very difficult to draw a line between two categories. In fact, it is still ambiguous who is black and who is white. Sometimes family members, such as siblings are categorized in different racial groups.

Also, the system made people to think whether they are black or white whereas most of people have never thought about it. Thinking about it and assigned in a racial group increased awareness of race. As people started to have sense of belonging to either black or white racial groups, some white people felt that the black were taking benefit from the system. Actually, there were some violence attacks toward African students from white students.

Therefore, it can be said that it is difficult to define racial categories especially a country like Brazil where most of people are racially mixed. In my opinion, without clear classification I think it would be very difficult that the system work efficiently. Although the quota system might bring brighter future for blacks, there are still some controversial questions to be answered.

See Also:

Movies

Black in Latin America E02, Brazil: A Racial Paradise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh7c46U5hhY

WIDE ANGLE | Brazil in Black and White | PBS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g29P3-xj7GQ

Articles

Guardian. (2011, November 17). Brazil census shows African-Brazilian in the majority for the first time. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk

The Economist. (2012, January 28). Race in Brazil: Affirming a divide. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com

Is color–blind ideology a solution to racism?

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by Emilie Hui Ting Soh

Turning color-blind, in this context, refers to consciously ignore and disregard the skin color of an individual so as to eliminate the race factor that one possesses just by the way he or she looks. The negative issues of race normally come from the judgments and stereotypes one makes in his or her mind, which will then be translated into actions. Indeed, this is a very ideal concept and if the society is that simple and gradually turned that way, then the people living together in the society will have peace with one another. This is, however, an assumption. The point of discussion that I want to make here in this blog post is on whether or not such an ideology will help in solving the negative issues concerning race?

There are several criticisms being made to the ideology of being color–blind. The first criticism argues that such an idea would add more cruelty to the negativity, which racism brings about. The concept is to ignore and disregard an individual’s race and their unique racial experience and treat every individual as ‘race–less’. Let us put this criticism in an imagined scenario. Imagine that we are all ‘race–less’ and treat everyone as though we are all the same and forgetting any differences we have amongst one another or simply, noticing the difference yet having to keep it within yourself because it will be frowned upon when mentioned. With that, would it not make life more difficult for both ‘us’ and ‘them’?

Furthermore, the question to this ideology is whether or not we can really turn a blind eye to race, and disregard the differences between ourselves. For a long time, we have been advised to not have or should not practice any racial discrimination. However, in the process of growing up, we observe the surroundings and the people around us and internalized these observations within ourselves and develop our own mindsets. Hence the imagery and stereotypes that we have developed thus far will remain deeply rooted in our mindsets and behavior consciously and subconsciously.

Therefore, in my opinion, even if we do succeed in turning the blind eye to any racial differences, would it not just become a silent form of racism, whereby we do not talk about it but still hold on to some kinds of negativity towards another individual? There should be other ways or methods we can adopt and use to ease these issues such as accepting that such difference exists and to educate the future generations. We should share the common idea that we may look different from one another, but we are no different in the use.

Racial Stratification in Hong Kong

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by Chris Leung

Latin Americanization means the phenomenon of racial stratification and the book Shades of Difference took the example in the United States. However, this term can also be applicable in other places. For instance, in my birth place, Hong Kong, racial stratification is also obvious. However, the situation is quite different from the States.

Since Hong Kong was colonized by Great Britain, racial stratification has already been installed into people’s minds. In terms of the strata, in the beginning of the colonization period, British people and other European were obviously in the top level, followed by East Asians especially Indians. Finally most of the Chinese were in the bottom of the strata. However, there were also some elite Chinese, who could manage to live in the same standard with the Europeans, most of them also discriminated against the collective Chinese with the Europeans. At that time, many luxurious restaurants and shops insisted “Not allowing dog and Chinese.”

This strata system lasted for a quite long period until there were more Chinese people started to work for the government. Nowadays, as Hong Kong has already returned back to China, the strata system has also changed drastically. As there are no more foreigners taking major role in the government, the Chinese could finally regain the position they used to have before colonization and the discrimination against races has a lot improved.

However, when I say Chinese, it only means those who born and grew up in Hong Kong, those who emigrated from the mainland China in this decade also face a huge discrimination by the local ‘Chinese.’ Since many of them are not well educated, they could only do low-paying jobs like cleaner or security guard. Further, there are many family issues among these immigrants, hence the area they live is always a big social concern to the government and there were few movies trying to describe the life in the area where many of the residents think that the movies tried to label their living place as the slum of Hong Kong.

In conclusion, the situation in Hong Kong is quite special. In general term, stratification and discrimination are always between races like in the States. However, in Hong Kong, such things are happening inside one race, which is the Chinese.

Fair Skin and Indian Marriage

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by Nurussakinah Mahmud

The thing with marriage in Asia (mostly) is that you don’t just marry the groom or bride. When you marry someone, indirectly you are marrying the whole family too. And this is proven very solidly in Indian culture as most marriages are arranged by the parents. Every criteria for the bride must be filled satisfyingly for a marriage to occur, and with how badly obsessed the Indian society perceived fair skin as a criteria of beauty it was no wonder that most parents seek fair-skinned bride for their son.

While other cultures doubtlessly also have the affinity for searching for fair-skinned brides, in my opinion, they are not really that straight forward about it. In Malay society for example, I don’t think anyone will blatantly say to your face that they do not want to marry you because you are dark-skinned or your chance of getting married will be less than other people.

But the Indian society is kind of the opposite. They are openly stating it, in the matrimonial sites’ profiles and newspaper advertisements, even to the girl’s face, that they want a fair skin girl. In fact, as I searched through the matrimonial sites, they even have tags for skin preference which is quite shocking I must say. And while the author in the book (Jyotsna Vaid) mentions three types of skin colour the Indian usually been associated with, gora or gori (fair or light skin), saanwala (wheatish brown) and kala or kali (dark), the skin preference section only have fair, very fair and wheatish tags. Even though as we know, most people in the southern part of India generally have a much darker skin, so few of people actually admitted of having the dark skin while the rest self identify themselves as fair or at least wheatish.

Colorism is having quite a strong grasp on Indian society. Even among those who live in overseas for a very long time, the stigma that having fair skin is better than being darker is still running deep in the heart of the immigrants from India. In fact, now that they are living in overseas and their daughter may be the second or third generation there, most parents who wrote the profile for the matrimonial sites on behalf of their daughter now included ‘very fair’ to emphasize how very much lighter their daughter’s skin is, in comparison to the fair skin girl in India.

Just what is it that makes the skin colour such an obsession in Indian society? Some argue that it was implemented on their mind since the British reigned in India for more than a century. During this period of oppression, white people signified the superiority and richness as compared to the local, whom were at that time, were only servants or slaves. The mentality continues on to the modern days with the effects of globalization and media, of how beauty is always being described as having fairer skin through the commercialization and marketing of skin lightening products, as well as the influence of Bollywood idols.

As the stigma and prejudice continue, the girls with darken skin colour find themselves having a lot of problems regarding self-esteem and to always be blamed for something they could not possibly alter – the DNA or genetics that make up for their darker skin. Adding the practice of paying dowry to the groom into the equation, the discrimination is heightened as dark skin girls are subjected to a higher dowry price than lighter skin girls as compensation.

Although India is one of the fast developing countries, the blatant discrimination and social injustice especially toward women is still so worrying. As quoted by a Harvard professor in regard to colorism in India: “the sadness here, I guess, is that these are not subtle biases, they are expressed overtly to deny people access to opportunity and resources.”

Resources:

Fair and Ugly – Indian Americans and Skin Colour Politics. Retrieved from http://newamericamedia.org/2010/03/fair-and-ugly—indian-americans-and-skin-color-politics.php

All’s Fair in Love and Cream. http://www.michelepolak.com/200fall11/Weekly_Schedule_files/Sheyde_1.pdf

Fair Skin and Marriage in India

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by Cherry Zhou

In marriage advertisements, there are numerous ways to describe yourself or your desired partner. Detailed information can be divided in to non-physical factors and physical ones. This chapter (“Fair Enough? Color and the Commodification of Self in Indian Matrimonials,” by Jyotsna Vaid) shows that skin color matters in Indian matrimonial over time. Although there is no single origin of the conscious of fair skin being beautiful, one possible explanation is that British colonization led to a preference of lighter skin and the introduction of Western notions of beauty. In India, fair skin was and probably still is considered as an indicator of belonging to a higher caste, social standing and hierarchy in society. People are likely to link fair skin tone with wealth and education, whereas those with dark skin may be perceived as low-income workers.

Through the reading, I also found that there exists a gendered pattern of mentioning skin tone in marriage ads. Women mentioned fair skin more than twice as often as men. Figure 9.5 shows that the the percentage of mentioning fair by women increased a lot overtime.

It may also be possible that Indian women are more sensitive to messages about social norms than men; they fully understand that to highlight fair skin in marriage ads is advantageous for themselves. On the other hand, however, men are less conscious about the importance of their physical appearance, skin color in particular. Men face far less pressure than women to have fair skin. Darker skin tone in men may be compensated by assets such as having a well-paid job, overall economic security and a good personality, whereas women are likely to be evaluated and judged only on their physical appearance

But there may be a change in this idea since more and more cosmetic companies like fair&lovely are staring to sell products targeting male customers. With more and more male celebrities endorsing skin products, male’s consciousness about fair skin may change in the future.

What this chapter didn’t mention much is that whether fair skin really improves marriage prospects, especially for women. So I did some research about this question.

The author is right about the fact that a large percentage of marriage in India is arranged marriage, even nowadays. Since the socially constructed idea is that fair skin is ideal beauty so it certainly can influence a person’s chance of finding suitable partner. For women, marriage is considered to be extremely important for lifelong economic security within Indian cultures. Sahay and Piran (1997) suggested that: ‘In many Indian languages, the words fair and beautiful are often used synonymously, and there is often a preference for a female with light complexion in marriage, if other considerations are equal’ (p. 162).

Moreover, this chapter argued that there basically is no resistance or critique of the emphasis on fairness as a marker of beauty even over periods of time. So through the diaspora, future generations of immigrated Indian people still remain to have their traditional ideals about skin tone. Overall speaking, what I found shocking is that there’s so much emphasis on looks in India, especially about being fair. In Indian culture, fair skin was perceived to increase one’s likelihood of an arranged marriage, and this suggests that some aspects of physical appearance are more important than others factors.

Reference:

Sahay,S., & Piran, N. (1997). Skin-Color Preferences and Body Satisfaction Among South Asian-Canadian and European-Canadian Female University Students. Journal of Social Psychology,137, 161-171.

Tackling the misleading conception through positive government intervention movement

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by Satoru Kishi

There are mainly three factors that have caused Filipinos to believe in the misleading conception that ‘dark meant you were lower class, ugly and unimportant’ (p.61), pressuring them to utilize skin-whitening cream. The first cause was the historical colonization by the Spanish and Americans, which lasted for approximately 500 years. During this period, Filipinos were discriminated against and taught that they were inferior to the ‘whites or the western people’. This notion did not disappear due even after the decolonization era, due to what was carried out by companies. They used this false notion created in the colonial era and saw it as a business opportunity. They advertised and brainwashed the community that “darkness is evil or not good”. This misbelief boosted the demand for skin-lightening cream, a market area for companies to make money.

In the late 20th century, the globalization further intensified, and the western value of beauty spread across the globe, destroying the traditional values in some developing countries. All of these three factors, directly or indirectly, have contributed in encouraging Filipinos to consume massive quantities of skin-lightening cream. As of 2003, over 50% of Filipinos have used them, and they consume over 2 million as a whole. If this continues, it will gradually lower their self-esteem.

In order to prevent this, it is necessary to take action. One solution is that the government could put effort in consolidating a Filipino/Asian Movement through indirectly regulating what figurative person can appear on media and advertisement. This is an extreme method. Another way is to establish and promote the notion of Filipino Beauty that is different from Asian Beauty or the sense of Western Beauty. If it becomes successful, this will strengthen self-esteem and identity of its citizens.

Challenging the author’s definition of ideal Asian beauty

Joanne Rondilla describes the Filipino notion of an ideal Asian beauty or ‘the right kind of Asian’ as follows: “white skin, jet-black hair, and delicate, almond-shaped obsidian eyes” (p. 68).

To challenge this notion, I conducted the survey. One of my Japanese friends at Ritsumeikan answered the characteristics of Asian women, which differed from Korean and Chinese students who took the survey as well. The survey is attached below. Despite the fact that the result of the survey may not be reliable, since it is not asked to a large number of people, this generates questions to the author’s depiction of notions of Asian Beauty.

To conclude, there is no identical notion of ideal Asian Beauty throughout Asia. I am taking a survey for Race and Ethnicity Class to find out whether the notion/image of Asian beauty is same in all places.

Survey questions:

Gender:

Nationality:

Q1: Please describe your image/stereotype of Asian Beauty. What kind of facial characteristics/phenotypes should that woman have? (Including hair, skin tone and shape of eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows and etc. )

Q2: Who would best suit the term Asian Beauty?

Thank you for answering our survey.

Unquestioned assumptions in skin lighteners

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by Jun Sakakibara

This chapter showed that how the Philippine’s skin color consciousness reminds uniqueness since it is influenced by its historical background and shaped by the media’s effects caused by globalization. It was explained that in the Philippines, “skin lightening” does not always refer to “skin whitening”, and because East Asian or Chinese Asian looks are considered as ideal images of beauty, “being Asian” should be respected. However, I found it contradicting that the fact some people keep complaining that they are not white enough yet. If “being Asian” is fine, shouldn’t we represent our yellow skin color?!

By pointing out the characteristic of skin lightening companies’ strategies on advertisements in Asia, we can see how they have been spreading the market with using and brainwashing people with “unquestioned assumptions”. They emphasize the idea of “Euroasian” as promoting half-European, half-Asian models in advertisements, however, it is actually making concept of beauty so ambiguous. It was mentioned that “Euroasian” would be a new beauty regime. The paradox here is that there is nothing “new” about since its idea is very exclusive and Eurocentric. The models are European-looking women who are just covered with Asian straight black hair and are representing very much of their whiteness. In addition to this repacking of white-is-beautiful concept, skin products companies justify themselves by arguing “lightening” and “bleaching” are different thus there is nothing wrong to consume skin lightening products. Yet it is questionable whether there is an absolute difference between these two words. For the companies, wave of globalization is very great profitable source to spread their market worldwide, though, we have to understand that due to negative effects of globalization, our images are totally controlled so that we are being those who strengthen the racism or discrimination towards skin color and push the whiteness into much higher social status in fact.

When we discuss about whether this worldwide skin lightening phenomena is needed to be stopped or whether we are even able to stop that, I always think since such “unquestioned assumptions” remind “unquestioned” or are tend to be ignored to discuss, the situation itself would never be changed. I guess people are now realizing the paradox or problems behind the assumptions little by little, however, because usage of skin lightening products somehow lead us to happiness, we cannot get rid of them. Although it is a very complicated issue, the first thing we have to do is to accept the existence of “unquestioned assumptions” and to bring them into the discussion. We do not need to go straight for the discussion of the necessity of skin lightening products. We need to understand what we are exactly doing by investigating our money on those products and to learn how they can be problematic at the same time. I assume that this process holds very important key for the discussion of not only the skin lightening products but also of skin color consciousness in general as well.

Lighter skin or Photoshop?

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by Isarin Furutani

Evelyn Nakano Glenn covers the previously discussed concept of how people seek whiteness in terms of cosmetics and creams more from the corporations’ perspectives. According to the basic economic rule of demand and supply, there are extremely high demand for skin whitening creams (many reasons we have discussed before), if high demand exists, capitalists will then seek to fill up the space by creating the supply and make profit through this. In this, people, especially women, demanded the product even if it was made illegal. Therefore we see the smuggling being done. The market is also huge and segmented at the same time, meaning that despite the existence of the same demand for skin whiteners, people in different categories demand for something a bit different. This category can be done through age, race, ethnicity, or location. This concept is pretty standard as different cultures have different perspectives on whiteness but more do share a trait of seeking for “whiteness”.

Global whitening is currently a huge market especially in Japan. According to one of the sources, Japan has the largest market in skin lightening ($2bn) and this market has been estimated to grow more in the future to $10bn. This might not as surprising from seeing how men are also starting to buy cosmetics or facial creams looking at the ads in Japan.

In my presentation I will talk about the market in Africa, America and India. I have found one interesting article on the Fair & Lovely company that originated from India.

This picture has been criticized by consumers and specialists in providing the wrong message through the use of “photoshopping”. Dermatologists have analyzed the product and the product actually contained no chemical that could bleach or whiten the skin. The product is safe because there are no bleaching chemicals but without those chemicals the whiteness created in the picture was very questionable. The picture was not taken from the women who used the product throughout time but a mere fake illusion of the product image the company wants to make. Is this type of advertising really ok is very questionable.

Sources

http://www.whiterskin.info/global-skin-lightening-market-predicted-to-reach-10-billion-by-2015/

http://www.whiterskin.info/images-in-fair-lovely-ads-are-allegedly-photoshopped-or-retouched/

Consuming lightness

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by Ayano Tsukada

It seems like more people are eager to become “whiter”. First, it looked very weird to me that more people are wanting to be whiter in today’s world where “we are perfect in our own way” type of idea become more wide spread than ever. However, where the yearning for lightness comes from is far more complicated than I thought. People have different reasons and different ways to be whiter.

Evelyn Nakano Glenn shows what drives people’s desire for lightness in different regions and how that is influenced and used by the cosmetic and pharmaceutical firms.

In African and Indian diasporas, the legacy of colonialism seems like to be the biggest cause of people’s desire to become whiter. Skin tone is a major marker of status and a form of symbolic capital. In Latin America, too, skin color and tone are closely related to one’s social status and capital despite the national ideology of “mix is beautiful”. The majority of elites has light skin and European appearing whereas rural poor are predominantly dark skinned and indigenous appearing. In these countries, lightening one’s family line by marring with a lighter-skinned partner is also a common way to become whiter. Migration from rural areas to cities or has been another way to be socially whiter. And, of course, many use skin lighteners to change the appearance of one’s skin. In Asian countries, light skin is also a symbol of modernity and beauty. In Southeast Asian countries, the notion that Japanese and Korean women represent ideal Asian beauty has created the huge market in skin lighteners that are dominated by Japanese and Korean companies Whereas in East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and China, people are wanting to have European appearing, therefore, whiter skin is necessary as well as having bigger eyes and shape noses.

Multinational biotechnology, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical corporations play an important role in the skin-lightening game. They approach to different targets by using different strategies and it seems like they are accelerating people’s desire for light skin. Connecting lighter skin to other social factors, we internalize the idea of white is right and have become more attracted to those products even more.

From above, people’s, especially women’s, desire for lightness is pretty obvious as is evident from the wide spread and growing use of skin whitening around the world. The author says the desire for lighter skin and the use of skin whitening products is accelerating in places where modernization and the influence of Western capitalism and culture are most prominent. This desire can be seen as the result of colonialism, a manifestation of false consciousness, and the internalization of “white is right” values. The fetters of self-hatred were created centuries ago, and therefore, freeing ourselves from them would not happen easily. The author also says only educating people about the diversity of types of beauty does not change the whole picture. But it can be changed. It has to.