Games might expose Brazil’s tensions

Rafaela Silva hoped to get an Olympic gold medal four years ago in London. Instead she got racial abuse.

Disqualified in her Olympic judo match and eliminated from the chance of winning a medal, Brazil’s Silva thought she would find refuge in sympathetic text messages from fans in her country.

Instead, here’s what she found: “The place for a monkey is in a cage. You are not an Olympian.”

“The messages said I was an embarrassment to my family, so they really hurt,” said Silva, who won gold in the world championships a year after London, and is among the favorites for gold when the Rio de Janeiro Olympics open in just over a week.

Silva is one of many athletes familiar with the sting of racism in a country where most of the poor are brown and black. Though a nation of rich diversity — 51 percent identify as non-white, brown, black or mixed race — racism still runs deep.

On the one hand, Brazil is thoroughly mixed. On the other, there is searing racial inequality in a place often portrayed as a “racial democracy,” or “race-blind.” The myth of a race-blind country has been losing force, but there’s still a yawning gap between black and white.

“Behind the apparent peaceful melting pot there’s a lot of tension and not much open talk about race,” Marta Arretche, a political scientist who studies inequality at the University of Sao Paulo, told The Associated Press.

Diversity and inequality will line up side-by-side at the Olympics, just as they did at Brazil’s World Cup two years ago. Visitors will see the country’s racial politics play out in ways that are subtle, yet clear.

Magazine covers seldom feature a black face. The very popular soap operas feature mostly white actors, although black actors are now getting roles other than drivers, cooks or doormen. Upscale restaurants and suburban shopping malls are almost all white. Waiters in top restaurants are seldom black. And the only black faces at the airport are the hired help, or black women caring for white children in the airline lounges.

All shades sunbathe on most Rio’s beaches, though Ipanema and Leblon tend to be more white. Vendors selling trinkets and drinks on all beaches are usually black.

It will also be apparent in the crowds at venues, an issue that began with the World Cup two years ago. White fans bought the pricey tickets, and the black and brown were priced out.

The root of the problem starts with slavery.

Brazil imported about 5 million African slaves — about 10 times more than the United States. Slavery ended in 1888, which was 25 years after the United States. Brazil was overwhelmingly black at the time, which triggered a government policy to “whiten” the country with poor European immigrants, Japanese and others to replace slave labor.

It’s difficult to define who’s black. Most Brazilians self-identify, which means that two people of similar skin colors may identify differently — one as white and one as black.

“It’s not so open, not institutional as it was in the south in the United States,” Arretche said. “The racism is much more disguised.”