"There are lots of black folks in Brazil, Miss Kensington, in fact, people of color actually outnumber Caucasians in my homeland," Marcelao Romano said evenly, maintaining his composure as he locked eyes with Stacey Kensington, professor of African Studies at Carleton University. The blonde, steely-eyed professor flashed him the placating smile that white folks often displayed when caught doing or saying something incorrect.
Professor Kensington showed the entire class a video of the Brazilian capital, and the whole montage was so white-washed that it irked Marcelao, who felt the need to tell his Canadian classmates that Brazil wasn't an all-white nation. Seriously, when will the Canadians and other westerners realize that not every place on earth was full of those who look like them? People of color do exist, and that's okay. Sheesh!
"Thank you, Mr. Romano, that will be all," Professor Kensington said, and then class resumed. Marcelao looked out the window, and saw much of the Carleton University campus from his vantage point in the Loeb Building. Outside, a fierce snowstorm raged, blanketing the City of Ottawa, Ontario, in sheer whiteness. Inside the packed classroom, however, there was a definite chill in the air, and it had nothing to do with the temperature outside.
Marcelao took a look around, at the young men and women who surrounded him in class. Black, white, brown, and every shade in between. Somalis, Haitians, French Canadians, Irish, Chinese, Aboriginals, so many ethnicities and nationalities were represented here. In a very superficial way, the diversity that Marcelao saw on campus reminded him of what he often saw in his hometown of Salvador, in the Bahia state of Brazil.
Brazil had always been a racially diverse nation, with African-descended people, Native Americans and Europeans mixing to create a beautiful and truly multicultural country. Yet, in Brazil, the power rested in the hands of the European minority. Only in the late twentieth century did Afro-Brazilians begin to fight for their rights, inspired in part by the Civil Rights Movement of the United States of America.
Afro-Brazilians literally built brazil, yet they were underrepresented in politics, in the arts, law enforcement, higher education, and other facets of Brazilian society. Marcelao's father Antonio often told him about the way the darker-skinned members of Brazilian society were treated. In Antonio's day, many Afro-Brazilian women chose to marry men of European descent or Native descent because they wanted light-skinned offspring. Indeed, in Brazil, dark skin was seen as a marker of lower class. Things were slowly changing, though.
"Education is the way forward, my son, you get your degree and you can do anything, even if they try to stop you simply because you're black," Antonio Romano said to his eighteen-year-old son Marcelao in June 2014, on the day he graduated at the top of his class from the prestigious San Rafael Academy, one of metropolitan Salvador's top private schools. This was truly a milestone for the Romano family...
The sons of wealthy Brazilians had attended the century-old, all-male private Catholic school for ages, and several of Brazil's national leaders were among its alumni. Antonio couldn't be prouder of his son for graduating from the school that summarily denied him entrance, more than two decades ago. Perhaps times were really changing in Brazil...
