Estigmas e paradoxos: um estudo comparativo das relações raciais em São Paulo e Lisboa

Abstract

Portugal and Brazil are countries that resemble each other for the secular presence of Africans and their descendants in their societies This presence was marked largely, for the slavocrat system Even after the end of the slavocrat system, the two countries influenced by racist scientific theories elaborated during the 19th century developed strategies of social control and maintenance of the relationships of political and economical power and of the access to this power that had as characteristic the unbalance when ignoring the Africans the afro-Portuguese and the Afro-Brazilian ones These subjects were evident with the beginning of the cape-verdian immigration bound for Portugal mainly for Lisbon and its metropolitan area where the immigrants occupied the degraded neighborhoods and those ones known as "de lata" Likewise it happened with the Afro-Brazilians in the city of São Paulo that from the end of the 19th century were reached by legislations and government politics that aimed at segregating the great part of the members of that group The spacial segregation of the Afro-Brazilian ones in São Paulo and of the cape-verdians immigrants and Afro-Portuguese associated with the construction of stereotyped images and with the stigmatization processes reflected in the social disqualification of these groups in their respective cities The Afro-Portuguese and the Afro-Brazilian ones were and still are victims of racist attitudes in the daily relationships in both cities although there is public condemnation to the racism campaigns against the racial discrimination and a resistance of the people to recognize that they have prejudice attitudes This work analyzes such paradox, result of the presence and influence, in the societies and in the governments of Brazil and Portugal, starting from the middles of the 20th century of the luso-tropicalista ideology written by Gilberto Freyre that had as main theory, the inexistence of racism in these societies This scenery is the base of this study, considering the racial relationships in Portugal and Brazil starting from the perception of Afro-Brazilian youths who live at Cohab - Cidade Tiradentes in the East area of the city of São Paulo and of the Afro-Portuguese youths residents of the neighborhood called 6 de Maio in the city of Amadora metropolitan area of Lisbon In the interviews it was evident that the color of the skin is decisive in the perception of the racism and in the racial identification leaving in second plan African cultural elements The study also analyzes the influence of the luso-tropicalista ideology in the construction of the perception about the racism the Afro-Brazilian and the Afro-Portuguese youths