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141 The Grammar of Color Identity in Brazil SethRacusen W hat logic does a social structure impose upon public policy? Could an identity structure be too complex or diffuse to implement categorical public policy such as affirmative action? Conversely, what impact does categorical public policy have upon an identity structure? Must categorical policy impose its own categories of identity on its public? This chapter examines the nature of the Brazilian social structure, which I characterize as a grammar of color identity, and its interaction with categorical public policy such as affirmative action in higher education. Opponents of affirmative action have claimed that Brazilian identity is too diffuse and subjective to be able to implement affirmative action: that it would be impossible to define or verify beneficiaries for the purposes of affirmative action. In their view, categorical policy cannot be implemented in a country without clearly delineated categories, and instead would racialize Brazil. The Black Movement rejoined that clear categories exist in many contexts, such as the official deployment of lethal violence, and that Brazil is therefore already racialized. This chapter explores the contours of Brazilian identity and the implications of a nuanced identity structure for affirmative action. I theorize that the Brazilian structure of identity is constituted through a highly colorized and nuanced “grammar” of identity that expresses the relationality and positionality of individuals in each context. Under this nuanced grammar, appearance , mediated and re-inscribed by social class and performance, has tremendous consequences for life outcomes. Social scientists have repeatedly found a significant Seth Racusen 142 gap between whites and others in life outcomes such as education, socioeconomic status, health indicators, and mortality studies. Thus, the color of poverty is widely recognized. The controversy is whether the color of poverty in Brazil is better remedied through race-based or class-based policies, or a combination. I argue for the combinationofpoliciesanddefendaffirmativeactionasapositivegoodthatprovides opportunities to those previously excluded, and also incentives that counterbalance Brazil’s assimilationist tendencies. At the heart of the current debate over affirmative action is an idea that state preferences in higher education will overwhelm popular identity, similar to the hypothesized effect of casinos on indigenous identity in the United States. I argue that this constitutes a simplistic view of the relationship of incentives and actors, as well as the relationship of public and private power. I argue that in Brazil, the state “made race” in the way that states shape markets. No state official could have anticipated the plethora of categories that Brazilians, especially darker Brazilians, would use to describe themselves and each other. Nor did the state assign Brazilians those identities .Further,althoughIarguethattheBrazilianstateshapedidentity,thestatedidnot createtheidentitiesitspecifiedincensuses(Nobles2000).Whyhavetheoverwhelming majority of Afro-Brazilians historically identified as moreno rather than pardo or preto, the census categories? A full answer, beyond the scope of this chapter, requires anexaminationofstatepolicy,includingimmigrationpolicy,culturalandinformation policyunderVargas,educationalcurricula,aswellassymbolicandotherstateaction.1 The sociologist Clovis Moura and others have suggested that the term moreno offered Braziliansawaytolightenthemselvesandtosoftenthesignificanceofthedistinctions (Moura1988).Thus,theBrazilian“identitymarket”hasbeenshapedbythewhitening preference, as well as heralding the browning of Brazil. I claim that a fluid, interactive relationship developed historically between state action and societal identity. Scholars have identified multiple systems of deploying identity within Brazil.2 Of those multiple systems, I distinguish two, for the purpose of simplicity: (1) state identity, generally expressed in the five terms used by the census bureau, and (2) societal identity, which draws upon a wide vocabulary of terms, including moreno and its many variants. It is the second system, societal identity, where many of the controversiesaboutcategoriesandstatepolicyreside.AlthoughBraziliansdonotuse societal identity to apply for affirmative action, many of the salient characteristics of Brazilian identity also apply to the use of state identity. By “grammar,” I refer to ordered rules for the representation of identity, and additional rules about how to invoke those representations. Thus, I claim that Brazilian identityisnotfixedbutrepresentational,andnegotiatedthroughthegrammar,which expresses status positions and overall relations of power within a given context—all T he G ra mma r o f C o lo r Id e ntity 143 of which are dynamic elements. These identity terms possess a relational aspect, expressing relations of power between the identifier, the identified, and the relevant audience.Itisnota“calculus”ofidentity,3 butagrammarofcoloridentityinthesense that grammatical rules inform the usage of terms. In my account, the Brazilian grammar of identity contains two key features: a rankinggrammar,andagrammarofderacialization.Inthefirst,thegrammarofranking , virtually all Brazilians learn by adolescence to make...

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