The Brazilian Miscegenation
Miscegenation in Brazil finds its roots in the long history of human settlement. The Brazilian nation was constituted on the basis of mixed unions among three « initial matrices » : the Amerindian, the European and the African. In this miscegenation process, ethnic differences seem to have been erased, as the concept of « racial democracy » indicates. Made into a myth of origins of the Brazilian nation in the early twentieth century, it suggests a perfect equality among citizens. However, socio-economic inequalities based on racial differences in access to wealth and power have long escaped to observers. In 2001, this idealized ethnically mixed Brazil is contradicted by the implementation of positives actions in favor of the poor, but also of Blacks and Indians in the allocation of quotas in public institutions, especially universities. Then, what is at stake is the official recognition of the existence of inequality and the reconsideration of the so long asserted ethnic homogeneity of the nation. This article examines the paradox laying under the representations of miscegenation in a society which conveniently erases its differences, and where its members appear as clearly differentiated in public policies and in the social hierarchies according their ethnic origin.