Race in another America : the significance of skin color in Brazil /

Refutations of Brazil as a self-proclaimed "racial democracy" are not novel anymore. Armed with an array of historical and present-day data from a number of sources, Telles (UCLA) sets out not only to shut the door on claims of overall equality offered to darker-skinned persons in Brazil, but also to show the significant gap between persons classed as white and all other (darker) persons, essentially eliminating, in practical terms, the "mulatto escape hatch" and setting the stage for conceptualization of race in Brazil in binary terms customary to the US. Telles attacks notions of the dual benefits of miscegenation and lack of hypodescent, showing that these practices do not intrinsically relieve racism--especially when major social institutions champion whiteness and minimize opportunities for persons circumscribed by their color. The data-driven nature of the Telles study and the depiction of Brazil's belated responses to its racial problems, as well as the solid linkage of these problems to the country's extreme overall inequality, lead one to hope for a subsequent treatment of Brazil's stratification system, which exploits most persons of any color and leaves only elites unscathed. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above. W. J. Nelson Shaw University