Colourism in Brazil

Introduction

In Brazil, people often say that racism doesn’t exist, only “prejudice of colour.” This belief is rooted in the national myth of racial democracy; the idea that because of racial mixing, Brazil is a racially tolerant country without the divisions seen in places like the United States. But this way of thinking undermines what millions of Brazilians experience everyday: colour still shapes opportunity, privledge, and identity. The problem is not race being openly acknowledged, but how skin tone quietly determines who faces discrimination and who doesn’t.

Colourism vs. Racism in Brazil

To understand how race works in Brazil, I interviewed my boyfriend, who grew up in São Paulo. When I asked whether race and skin colour are talked about openly, he said:

“Race and skin colour are not brought up very often, since it is very hard to pinpoint an exact look for a typical Brazilian. But once it is brought up, it’s pretty openly discussed since immigration and a variety of skin colours are a core part of Brazilian culture.”

Like many Brazilians, he made a clear distinction between “racism” and colour discrimination:

“Skin colour is a lot more often discriminated [against] compared to racism… because of our long history of slavery, discrimination towards Black people and people of darker skin colour has still remained.”

This distinction reflects what scholars have called Brazil’s colour hierarchy, where lighter skin brings social advantage while darker skin is linked to poverty, exclusion, and violence. Unlike in North America, where race categories are more rigid, race in Brazil is graded on a spectrum, and this ambiguity gives more leeway to colour-based inequality (Sales & Carvalho, 2025).

Light Skin as Social Advantage

Brazil has dozens of ways to describe skin tone, including: branco, moreno, pardo, preto, mulato. These labels don’t just describe appearance; they determine how you are treated. My boyfriend comes from a lighter-skinned pardo family, and when I asked if anyone in his family had been targeted by racism, he said:

“No. My family is more fair-skinned, so we were thankfully never the target of racism or being described by our skin colour.”

This reflects the idea of proximity to whiteness, the fact that being lighter-skinned offers social protection, even among non-white Brazilians (Sales & Carvalho, 2025). This isn’t just my boyfriend’s experience, but built into the society.

Colour and Class: The Brazilian Pyramid

I asked about the relationship between skin colour and poverty in Brazil, and he didn’t hesitate:

“There is a clear disproportionate amount of darker-skinned individuals suffering from poverty. It is extremely rare that is the case for someone that has more European features and fair skin.”

His observation is backed by data. According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), white Brazilians earn almost twice as much as Black and brown Brazilians on average. Meanwhile, 75% of the poorest people in Brazil are Black or brown (IBGE, 2022). These patterns show that Brazil’s inequality isn’t just about class or “individual effort,” its racialized through colour.

Is Brazil Becoming Less Colourist?

When asked whether racism is still present in Brazil, he said:

“It has improved a lot over the years, but I still think there is a long way to go until it is fully fixed.”

Yes, conversations about Black identity are growing in Brazil. Movements like Vidas Negras Importam (Black Lives Matter Brazil) and the rise of Black pride culture are challenging silence around race. But, as Sales and Carvalho (2025) argue, Brazilian society still teaches people to “escape blackness” by identifying as pardo or moreno. Racism isn’t disappearing, but instead getting disguised as “colour preference.”

Anthropology Connection

Anthropology helps reveal how race operates differently across cultures while still reinforcing inequality. In Brazil, race isn’t denied - it’s disguised. Colourism functions as racism through another name, preserving a hierarchy where whiteness stays at the top, even without being explicitly mentioned. Race in Brazil is not biological; it is a social system that organizes power, privilege, and opportunity.

Discussion Question

Why do you think Brazil avoids talking about race directly?

References

Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. (2020). Social inequality indicators in Brazil. https://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/visualizacao/livros/liv101760.pdf

Sales, A., & Carvalho, J. (2025). Pardo is the new Black: Reframing racial identity in Brazil and beyond—A systems perspective. Management Review, 36(2), 39591. https://doi.org/10.31083/MRev39591