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The term social apartheid has been used to describe various aspects of economic inequality in Brazil, drawing a parallel with the legally enforced separation of whites and blacks in South African society for several decades during the 20th-century apartheid regime. [1] [2]
According to Maria Helena Moreira Alves, early twentieth century inequalities between rich and poor in Brazil were exacerbated by the differing treatment of urban migrants during and following the Great Depression. Internal migrants, who were mainly descended from Amerindians or African slaves, were given no government assistance or training in adapting to large urban centers. They became concentrated in a kind of "social apartheid", living in slums and taking menial and unpleasant jobs shunned by whites. By contrast, European, Arab, and Japanese immigrants, who tended to be better educated, were directly assisted by a number of government programs, including some sponsored by their national governments, as well as other benefits. [3]
Income disparity is a major source of social inequality in Brazil. In 2001, Brazil had a relatively high Gini coefficient of 0.59 for income disparity, meaning that the disparity between the incomes of any two randomly selected Brazilians was nearly 1.2 times the average. The World Bank estimates that the top 20% of the richest Brazilians have roughly 33 times the income share of the poorest 20%. [4]
The causes of Brazil's income disparity are linked to inequitable distribution of public resources, disadvantages in education, and a wage gap. Public spending is regressive overall; while social programs are largely progressive, other spending, such as pensions for public employees, constitutes a larger share of total spending, and is weighted toward individuals with higher incomes. According to the World Bank, this accounts for around 39% of income inequality. [5] Access to education is highly unequal and weighted toward privileged groups, resulting in a gap in labor skills that is substantially greater than other countries in the Americas such as Mexico, Colombia, and the United States. The World Bank estimates that this accounts for about 29% of total inequality. [5] Finally, there is a considerable and increasing wage gap between jobs requiring higher and lower skill levels. The world bank attributes 32% of inequality to the wage gap. [5]
Gender, skin color, and social standing are significant factors in income disparity, with women and Brazilians with African ancestry earning substantially less than males and white Brazilians, due to disadvantages in education and wages. Black Brazilians have levels of educational attainment that is two thirds the level of whites, which limits their access to higher paying jobs. Women earn 29% less than men, despite women having an average of one year more education. [4]
Some believe that these parallels between South Africa during the apartheid era and modern-day Brazil are associated with the country's history of slavery and associated racial castes, as inequities in the economic and social status particularly affect Afro-Brazilians in comparison to other groups. [7] According to São Paulo Congressman Aloizio Mercadante, a member of Brazil's leftist Workers' Party (PT), "Just as South Africa had racial apartheid, Brazil has social apartheid." [1] Journalist Kevin G. Hall wrote in 2002 that Afro-Brazilians trail White Brazilians in almost all social indicators, including income and education. Those living in cities are far more likely to be abused or killed by police, or incarcerated than are members of other groups. [1]
Brazil's social situation has negative effects on educational opportunities for the disadvantaged. [8] Critics note that the classes are mostly separated from any interaction other than service: the wealthy live in walled-off gated communities, and the disadvantaged classes do not interact at all with the wealthy "except in domestic service and on the shop floor". [9]
According to France Winddance Twine, the separation by class and race extends into what she terms "spatial apartheid", where upper-class residents and guests, presumed to be white, enter apartments buildings and hotels through the main entrance, while lower-class domestics and service providers enter at the side or rear. [10]
Civil rights activist Carlos Verissimo writes that Brazil is a racist state, and that the inequities of race and class are often inter-related. [11] Michael Löwy states that the "social apartheid" is manifested in the gated communities, a "social discrimination which also has an implicit racial dimension where the great majority of the poor are black or half caste." [12] Despite Brazil's retreat from military rule and return to democracy in 1988, social apartheid has increased. [8]
Social apartheid is tied to the exclusion of poor youth (particularly street youth) from Brazilian society. [13] Some political theorists assert the role of the police in keeping the inhabitants of Brazil's many favelas from encroaching on the lives of middle- and upper-class Brazilians is key to maintaining this state of apartheid. [14]
Professors of anthropology Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Daniel Hoffman describe this discrimination against and exclusion of slum and street children as "Brazilian apartheid", and state that "[t]he hidden and disallowed part of the discourse on Brazil's street children is that the term is, in fact, color coded in 'race-blind' Brazil, where most street kids are 'black'." They write that in order to protect themselves, poor children often carry weapons, and that, as a result, "[t]he cost of maintaining this form of apartheid is high: an urban public sphere that is unsafe for any child." [15]
Tobias Hecht writes that rich Brazilians see the often violent street children as a threat, so they try to marginalize them socially and keep them and the poverty they represent hidden from lives of the wealthy elite. According to Hecht, the persistent presence of these children "embod[ies] the failure of an unacknowledged social apartheid to keep the poor out of view." [16]
Social apartheid is a common theme in studies of the implications of Brazil's huge income disparities, [9] The term "social apartheid" (and the inequities associated with it) are recognized as a serious issue even by Brazil's elites, who benefit from it:
Despite decades of impressive economic growth, the striking social inequities remain. In a recent survey of 1,500 of the most influential members of Brazil's political and economic elite, close to 90 percent believed that Brazil had achieved economic success and social failure. Close to half viewed the enormous inequities as a form of "social apartheid". [17]
Cristovam Buarque, Democratic Labour Party senator for the Federal District, says that "Brazil is a divided country, home to the greatest income concentration in the world and to a model of apartation, Brazilian social apartheid." [7] He writes that instead of "a spectrum of inequality", there is now "a break between the included and the excluded. In place of inequality, a separation, a social apartheid, has arisen". He argues that society is threatened by "a gap between the rich and poor so big that in every country there will be separate growth, along the lines of South Africa under apartheid", and that while this is happening globally, "Brazil is its best example". [2]
As the overall homicide rate registered in Brazil has been rising, the number of homicides per 100,000 afro and pardo brazilians also increased from 32.42 in 2006 to 43.15 in 2017, whereas the number of homicides per 100,000 for white and asian brazilians has decreased from 17.12 in 2006 to 15.97 recorded in 2017. [18]
According to research, the possibility of being black homicide victims in Brazil is even greater in groups with similar educational and socioeconomic characteristics. The chance of a black teenager murdered is 3.7 times higher compared with whites.
The survey also shows that blacks are bigger victims of assault by police. The National Victimization Survey shows that in 2009, 6.5% of blacks who had suffered an aggression as aggressors police or private security guards (who are often working in the police off duty), compared with 3.7% of whites.
According to Daniel Cerqueira, more than 60,000 people are murdered every year in the country and there is a strong bias of color and social status in these deaths: "In proportion black death rate is 135% higher than non-blacks. While the homicide rate for blacks is 36.5 per 100 000 inhabitants, in the case of whites, the ratio is 15.5 per 100 000 inhabitants." [19]
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010) was quoted in 2002 by Mark Weisbrot in The Nation as saying he was "fighting to bring the poor of Brazil out of economic apartheid". [20] His loss in the presidential election of 1994 to Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002) has been attributed in part to the fear Lula aroused in the middle class by his "denunciations of the social apartheid which permeated Brazilian society." [21]
A dominant minority, also called elite dominance, is a minority group that has overwhelming political, economic, or cultural dominance in a country, despite representing a small fraction of the overall population. The term is most commonly used to refer to an ethnic group which is defined along racial, national, religious, cultural or tribal lines and that holds a disproportionate amount of power and wealthy compared to the rest of the population.
Health equity arises from access to the social determinants of health, specifically from wealth, power and prestige. Individuals who have consistently been deprived of these three determinants are significantly disadvantaged from health inequities, and face worse health outcomes than those who are able to access certain resources. It is not equity to simply provide every individual with the same resources; that would be equality. In order to achieve health equity, resources must be allocated based on an individual need-based principle.
In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups, however, academic research indicates that the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system can in part be explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, exposure to poor neighborhoods, poor access to public and early education, and exposure to harmful chemicals and pollution. Racial housing segregation has also been linked to racial disparities in crime rates, as blacks have historically and to the present been prevented from moving into prosperous low-crime areas through actions of the government and private actors. Various explanations within criminology have been proposed for racial disparities in crime rates, including conflict theory, strain theory, general strain theory, social disorganization theory, macrostructural opportunity theory, social control theory, and subcultural theory.
The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s, when the ongoing Civil Rights Movement led to the outlawing of de jure racial segregation. The African American middle class exists throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and in the South, with the largest contiguous majority black middle-class neighborhoods being in the Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland. The African American middle class is also prevalent in the Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, New York, San Antonio and Chicago areas.
France Winddance Twine is a Black and Native American sociologist, ethnographer, visual artist, and documentary filmmaker. Twine has conducted field research in Brazil, the UK, and the United States on race, racism, and anti-racism. She has published 11 books and more than 100 articles, review essays, and books on these topics.
Racial whitening, or "whitening" (branqueamento), is an ideology that was widely accepted in Brazil between 1889 and 1914, as the solution to the "Negro problem". Whitening in Brazil is a sociological term to explain the change in perception of one's race, from darker to lighter identifiers, as a person rises in the class structure of Brazil. Racial mixing in Brazilian society entailed that minority races ought to adopt the characteristics of the white race, with the goal of creating a singular Brazilian race that emulates the white race, striving to create a society best emulating that of Europe.
Nelson Mandela's electoral victory in the first democratic 1994 general election signified the end of apartheid in South Africa, a system of widespread racially-based segregation to enforce almost complete separation of different races in South Africa. Under the apartheid system, South Africans were classified into four different races: White, Black, Coloured, and Indian/Asian, with about 80% of the South African population classified as Black, 9% as White, 9% as Coloured, and 2% as Indian/Asian. Under apartheid, Whites held almost all political power in South Africa, with other races almost completely marginalised from the political process.
Thomas M. Shapiro is a professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Brandeis University and is the author of The Hidden Cost of Being African American and the co-author of Black Wealth/White Wealth. Shapiro's current professional titles include the Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy and the Director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy. The primary areas of focus for Shapiro's research and publications are racial inequality and public policy.
Residential segregation is the physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods—a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level". While it has traditionally been associated with racial segregation, it generally refers to the separation of populations based on some criteria.
In the United States, housing segregation is the practice of denying African Americans and other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Housing policy in the United States has influenced housing segregation trends throughout history. Key legislation include the National Housing Act of 1934, the G.I. Bill, and the Fair Housing Act. Factors such as socioeconomic status, spatial assimilation, and immigration contribute to perpetuating housing segregation. The effects of housing segregation include relocation, unequal living standards, and poverty. However, there have been initiatives to combat housing segregation, such as the Section 8 housing program.
Racism has been present in Brazil since its colonial period and is pointed as one of the major and most widespread types of discrimination, if not the most, in the country by several anthropologists, sociologists, jurists, historians and others. The myth of a Racial Democracy, a term originally coined by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre in his 1933 work Casa-Grande & Senzala, is used by many people in the country to deny or downplay the existence and/or the broad extension of racism in Brazil.
Brazil has been tackling problems of income inequality despite high rates of growth. Its GDP growth in 2010 was 7.5%. In recent decades, there has been a decline in inequality for the country as a whole. Brazil's GINI coefficient, a measure of income inequality, has slowly decreased from 0.596 in 2001 to 0.543 in 2009. However, the numbers still point to a rather significant problem of income disparity.
Racial inequality in the United Statesof America identifies the social inequality and advantages and disparities that affect different races within the country. These can also be seen as a result of historic oppression, inequality of inheritance, or racism and prejudice, especially against minority groups.
Structural inequality occurs when the fabric of organizations, institutions, governments or social networks contains an embedded cultural, linguistic, economic, religious/belief, physical or identity based bias which provides advantages for some members and marginalizes or produces disadvantages for other members. This can involve, personal agency, freedom of expression, property rights, freedom of association, religious freedom,social status, or unequal access to health care, housing, education, physical, cultural, social, religious or political belief, financial resources or other social opportunities. Structural inequality is believed to be an embedded part of all known cultural groups. The global history of slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude and other forms of coerced cultural or government mandated labour or economic exploitation that marginalizes individuals and the subsequent suppression of human rights are key factors defining structural inequality. In particular the history of oppression of the Jewish people, as victims of historic and ongoing antisemitism that dates back to their slavery under the Pharaohs offer an example of the historic nature and wide variance of structural inequality.
Societal racism is a type of racism based on a set of institutional, historical, cultural and interpersonal practices within a society that places one or more social or ethnic groups in a better position to succeed and disadvantages other groups so that disparities develop between the groups. Societal racism has also been called structural racism, because, according to Carl E. James, society is structured in a way that excludes substantial numbers of people from minority backgrounds from taking part in social institutions. Societal racism is sometimes referred to as systemic racism as well.
Social mobility in South Africa refers to the movement of South Africans from one social class to another. it is the study of upward socio-economic change in status achievable by South Africans from generation to generation.
South Africa has one of the most extensive social welfare systems among developing countries in the world. In 2019, an estimated 18 million people received some form of social grant provided by the government.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unequal impact on different racial and ethnic groups in the United States, resulting in new disparities of health outcomes as well as exacerbating existing health and economic disparities.
White Americans, as the largest racial group in the United States, have historically had better health outcomes than other oppressed racial groups in America. However, in recent years, the scholarly discourse has switched from recognition of the immense positive health outcomes of white Americans towards understanding the growing persistence of negative outcomes unique to this racial group. Scholars have discussed the effects of racial prejudice and its negative effect on health outcomes to not only those being oppressed but also those being given privileges. In addition to the effects of living in a racialized society, white Americans have the highest rate of suicide and lifetime psychiatric disorders of any other ethnicity or racial category. In conjunction with these psychiatric issues, the population presents higher rates of alcohol usage alongside lower levels of psychological flourishing. Given this information, the health status of white Americans has gained increasing importance due to the differences in health outcomes between white Americans and white people from other parts of the world.
The gap in socioeconomic status between racial groups in South Africa has been a key contributor to health disparities, with White South Africans, a minority group, having overall better health outcomes than majority Black South Africans. White South Africans, a minority group, have overall better access and health outcomes than other racial groups in South Africa. Black and Colored South Africans, have poorer overall health outcomes and are disproportionately unable to access the private healthcare system in South Africa.
Segregation in countries by type (in some countries, categories overlap) | |
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