Use of blackface in Brazil Carnival parade sparks debate

SAO PAULO » A top samba school’s use of blackface in a Carnival parade sparked debate Tuesday about depictions of race in Brazil, which is still grappling with a fraught racial legacy.

The storied Salgueiro school’s performance in the early hours of Tuesday featured two groups in blackface in a parade that paid tribute to African culture and black women, in particular.

Many took to Twitter to express shock the school relied on a trope that has historically been used to depict black people in demeaning ways. White performers in minstrel shows in the United States used black face paint in racist caricatures of black people through much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. While Brazil doesn’t have the same history of minstrelsy, there is a legacy of denigrating caricatures of black people.

“Shoot, Salgueiro! Blackface? In this day and age 2018?” tweeted Renan Wilbert, who is from Rio de Janeiro.

Though Brazil was the world’s largest slave market and also the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, modern Brazil often perpetuated a myth of a colorblind, harmonious society. For decades, discussing racism was taboo, but Brazilians are slowly beginning to talk about prejudice and the way the country’s searing inequality is racially tinged.

People of color, despite making up more than half the population, have only recently begun to gain access in significant numbers to areas that traditionally excluded them, like universities, prominent acting roles and senior political positions.

Dark-skinned Brazilians are more likely to be poor or suffer violence than their white counterparts. Salgueiro even made reference to that reality, ending the parade with a depiction of the “Pieta” that honored black mothers who had lost