Alternative Temporalities: US Post-Racialism and Brazilian Racial Democracy

This paper juxtaposes the temporalities at work in the discourses of racial democracy in Brazil and post-racialism in the United States. It finds that each provides a distinct example of what Charles Mills calls white time, or a temporal imaginary that functions to protect extant forms of white supremacy. Furthermore, as each discourse transforms itself in the face of criticism, they increasingly converge on a prophetic temporality that represents both the most seductive and the most dangerous version of white time.