The Neglected: Black Workers in Modern-Day Brazil

Abstract

Race relations in Brazil is a complicated story that spans many centuries and historical events from the start of the nation, the Atlantic Slave Trade, the myth of racial democracy, and very recent affirmative action policies. Racial tensions ranging from these events and more have led to inequality between white and Afro-Brazilian laborers and this paper examines various aspects of that inequality. My thesis tracks the origin of how this inequality started and then analyzes labor statistics that track different laborer’s education levels, income, race, sex, and socioeconomic status. This paper then takes a particular look at one prominent Afro-Brazilian, Maria Creuza Oliveira, who began as a domestic worker and worked her way up to a national rights protestor and eventually to a politician. I then use anthropological theories from Bourdieu and Mauss to analyze her life. Finally, I discuss my own time in Rio de Janeiro and how I felt as a racialized body in different spaces there.