THE MYTH OF RACIAL DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN BRAZIL

Brazilian academics and population have long shared the notion that centuries of miscegenation rendered their society relatively free from racism. Lately, however, scholars have claimed the myth of racial democracy is a devious ideology that conceals racial inequalities and perpetuates white supremacy.Thus, the deconstruction of the myth of racial democracy has been considered as crucial to the enhancement of racial consciousness among nonwhites, and a necessary step to defeat racial hegemony. Accordingly, the State has implemented affirmative action policies to increase the access of blacks to public universities. These efforts, notwithstanding, the majority of black Brazilians has not been inclined to cultivate a racial identity and the population has fiercely rejected the quota system as it implies the racialization of society. To account for Brazilians die-hard belief in racial democracy, this study reconstructs the emergence of such concept in the light of theories of nationalism to demonstrate that this myth is at the very core of Brazilian national identity.