GRSJ224/colourism in south america

Colorism in South America

Racism versus Colorism

When comparing racism and colorism, particularly in the context of South America in comparison to North America, it is important to develop working definitions of each of the concepts. Racism is the “assumption of inherent biological superiority of a certain ethnic group in relation to others and the consequent discrimination against them”. Colorism, on the other hand, is “a partiality for light skin tones and the devaluing of dark skin”. The most notable difference between the two social phenomena is the presence of a continuum when looking at colorism, while racism implies a strict dichotomy between different groups who are physically distinct from one another.

In South America, the word “race” is not often used today to categorize people, and “color is a primary way to describe ethnoracial categorizations” in the same manner in which we consider race in North America and the United States in particular. In fact, in much of Latin America, including Brazil and Mexico today, the term race is rarely used in reference to humans. Colorism, and the use of colors to distinguish bodies of people, is more prevalent in Latin countries. Color is “more commonly used to categorize people” and the “interchangeable use of “color” and “race” is prevalent in the scholarship in Brazil and Spanish America”.

The most symbolic importance of the difference in the use of color and not race in the definition of one’s ethnic heritage or visual appearance is the fact that in many South American countries, and using Brazil as an example, race, like color, has long been considered continuous. This is distinguishable from the North American understanding of race which attempts to place each individual in a specific box regarding their physical identity.

The Latin American Context

Due to the absence of racial classification laws in addition to the “widespread race mixture among white, Indigenous and black populations”, there was a result of a blurring of racial boundaries in much of Latin America, as well as a considerably small white population. This spurred the emergence of a mestizo population, or what we know as a mixed-race population in North America. Among the mestizo population, wide “skin colour differences [...] along with persistent ideas of racial hierarchy” result in a status hierarchy which places “light-skinned mestizos at the top and darker mestizos at the bottom”.

This demonstrates that while there is the presence of more evident and abundant racial mixing in Latin America there continues to be value placed on lighter skin tones as opposed to darker ones, linking lighter complexions to representations of wealth and class, while darker skin tones are seen as indicators of subordinance. The distinction between the differences in treatment in terms of one’s skin tone continues to be in contrast to the United States, where race is “clearly defined, categorical and based primarily on descent”. In Latin America, however, the racialization populations experience relies “largely on phenotypic appearance and shades of skin colour”, with phenotypic appearance being defined as one's appearance as determined by their unique genetic makeup and the environmental influences around them.

The Paradox of Race Relations

The idea of the paradox of race relations was brought forth by Silva in explaining the race relations that were present in Latin America, and Brazil in particular. Silva defines the paradox of race relations as the “persistency of racial inequality without blatant racial conflict”. This can be better understood as the “coexistence of strong social boundaries and weak symbolic boundaries between racial categories”. When looking at social boundaries, Silva describes the “socioeconomic inequalities between racial categories” as strong, while weak symbolic boundaries indicate that “blacks and whites do not perceive themselves as culturally different, or they do not perceive themselves as bonded groups, in a dynamic of ‘us versus them’”.  

The paradox of race relations that Silva presents stands in stark contrast to the reality faced by North Americans in regards to race and racial inequality. The idea of race in the United States in particular is extremely demarcated and not at all fluid as it is in Latin America. People are placed in strict categories by others in regards to their physical appearances and racial identities, whether it be black, white, Asian, Indigenous, or otherwise. We could even say that in the United States, there is a strong symbolic boundary between groups as different racial categories see themselves as being different from others and rarely identify themselves in relation to other racial categories.

Contemporary Implications

While the manner in which the concept of race is treated differently in South America, with colorism and the use of “gradients” to differentiate physical differences between individuals being prevalent, there are still strong implications for the hierarchical classifications of different skin-toned individuals. Those with lighter skin tones, embodying European standards of beauty, are often placed higher up in the social hierarchy, represented as the faces of wealth and class. Those who have darker skin tones are often seen as taking up places lower on the social hierarchy, and are attributed with negative and less sought-after qualities.

One example of a contemporary consequence of the hierarchical view of colorism is the prevalence of skin bleaching in many parts of the world. Many scholars point “to the strength of the skin-bleaching industry as material evidence of a globalized preference for lighter skin”, and suggest that these desires “are not as driven by internalized pathology but instead as a rational response to the perceived association between whiteness/lightness and better life outcomes”. Whiteness has been seen to have become a commodified product that can be purchased by corporations and media industries that have promoted is “inherent superiourity”.

More broadly, the presence of colorism in the Latino community has enabled a certain power of skin color stereotypes when the colorism “operates in the denigration of dark skin”. Even today, specific studies (Hall, 2018) show that “dark-skinned Latino men [display] higher age-adjusted mortality rates than [...] light-skinned Latino men”.

While there are differences in the manners in which racial differentiation presents itself in North America as opposed to South America, with the presence of colorism being the norm rather than racism as we know it as Westerners, the consequences upon members of communities that are perceived as “lesser than”, or lower on the social hierarchy, continue to permeate all areas of their life. These differences may only be changed through persistent efforts from governments as well as international organizations to change the rhetoric surrounding race relations, as well as actions encouraging a shift away from the stable class hierarchies set in place in Latin America maintaining these tense race relations.