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Brazilian History

SOURCE: The Baffler
1/24/2023

Bolsonaro's Long Shadow

by Nara Roberta Silva

The recently departed president is only the latest, and probably not the last, avatar of antidemocratic impulses in Brazilian politics, generally reflected by the elite recruiting the anxieties of the middle class to thwart broader social rights for the nation's poor.

SOURCE: Spectre Journal
11/4/2022

"Bolsonarismo" After Bolsonaro: Lula's Return and Antifascist Organizing in Brazil

by Sean Purdy

Entrenched support for Bolsonaro in Brazil's police, military, and institutions mean that the left will need to sustain grassroots mobilization to prevent the right from sweeping back into power.

SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
8/1/2022

The Eugenic, Anti-Black History of the "Brazilian Butt Lift"

by Daniel F. Silva

Brazilian doctors developed the procedure in the wake of a eugenics movement that assimilated some stereotyped attributes of Black women's bodies into a new set of beauty standards that marginalized Afro-Brazilians. A similar dynamic occurs today on worldwide social media.

SOURCE: The Baffler
12/6/2021

Passing for Racial Democracy

by Stephanie Reist

"Color and race are not always synonymous in the Brazilian context. Features like hair texture, education, place of origin and address, and social class all factor into how people conceive of color, resulting in what researcher Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman calls a traitocracy that is more complex than a pigmentocracy or simple colorism."