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Confronting whitening in anera of black consciousness:racial ideology and black-whiteinterracial marriages in Rio deJaneiroChinyere OsujiPublished online: 29 Apr 2013.

To cite this article: Chinyere Osuji (2013) Confronting whitening in an era of blackconsciousness: racial ideology and black-white interracial marriages in Rio de Janeiro,Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36:10, 1490-1506, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2013.783926

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Confronting whitening in an era of black

consciousness: racial ideology and black-

white interracial marriages in Rio de

Janeiro

Chinyere Osuji

(First submission January 2012; First published April 2013)

AbstractIn Latin America, whitening is understood as a goal of darker-skinnedindividuals who marry whites to gain access to white social circles,increase their social status, and produce lighter offspring. However, inBrazil, increasing black consciousness and race-based policies areseemingly at odds with contemporary attempts to whiten. Drawing onqualitative interviews with forty-nine individuals in black�white couples,I examine how they make sense of whitening in their lives. I find thatunlike in the past, respondents do not describe themselves engagedin whitening and either find it offensive or recognize admissions ofwhitening as stigmatized. Nevertheless, whitening is how friends, familiesand other outsiders give meaning to their relationships, depending on thegender of the respondent. In addition, I find evidence of some whitewomen understanding their relationships as a way of darkening them-selves. This study reveals a transformation in the meanings associatedwith whitening ideology in contemporary Brazil.

Keywords: race; whitening; interracial marriage; Brazil; Latin America; qualitative.

Introduction

In the early twentieth century, scientific racism advocated improvingthe human race through maintaining the genetic purity of the races,particularly Anglo-Saxons. However, Brazilian elites, like other LatinAmerican intellectuals, were influenced by Lamarckian eugenics inwhich white genes were ‘stronger’ than their black or indigenous

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2013Vol. 36, No. 10, 1490�1506, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.783926

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counterparts (Skidmore 1974; Stepan 1991; de la Cadena 2000). Forthis reason, they encouraged interracial marriage with whites to‘bleach out’ non-white populations. Classic Brazilian race scholarsfound that darker Brazilians strategized to marry white or lighterpartners to gain social status through accessing white social circlesand producing offspring with more European physical features(de Azevedo 1955; Ianni 1960). More recently, Twine and Sheriffshowed that whitening remains a part of the ‘common sense’ ofBrazilians with Afro-Brazilians marrying individuals with a moreEuropean phenotype, in part, to produce more attractive-lookingoffspring (Twine 1998; Sheriff 2001).

However, there are reasons to believe that understandings ofwhitening have shifted. At the end of the twenty-first century, the blackmovement became more visible, valuing blackness and calling for policymeasures to address racial inequality (Htun 2004; Daniel 2006; Silva2006; Paschel and Sawyer 2008). Its attempts to include a negro categoryon the census (Nobles 2000), an overall increase in Brazilians identifyingas pardo (‘brown’) or preto (‘black’) (Telles 2004; Bailey 2009; Schwartz-man 2009), and more people of African descent embracing a negro1

(‘black’) identity (Silva and Reis 2011) suggest an increased valorizationof blackness that is seemingly at odds with whitening ideology.

In this study, I examine forty-nine qualitative interviews withindividuals in black�white couples in Rio de Janeiro to illuminatehow they understand and negotiate whitening in a context ofincreasing black consciousness. I find that unlike the past, respondentsdo not espouse whitening as a desired aspect of their relationships,with some understanding it as stigmatizing and others as disparagingthe black partner. Nevertheless, friends, families and other outsiderscontinue to understand these couples as engaged in the whiteningprocess. Furthermore, this study exposes a new valorization ofdarkening among some respondents in these relationships. Overall,I find evidence for a transformation in the meanings associated withwhitening ideology in contemporary Brazil.

Whitening and interracial marriage

Ideologies surrounding race mixture, particularly interracial marriage,have had a profound impact on the Americas. In Brazil, there is a longhistory of race mixture as both a symbol and a means of upwardmobility for darker-skinned individuals and their offspring. Duringslavery, masters sometimes manumitted slaves who were their offspringas well as female slaves with whom they were romantically involved(Freyre 1980; Ferreira Furtado 2009). After slavery, a mulato eliteemerged that drew on their white parent’s connections and sought outmarriage with whites to help cultivate their elite status (de Azevedo

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1955; Freyre 1980; Daniel 2006). Over generations, this process resultedin a physical lightening of individuals vis-a-vis their darker ancestorsand increased social status for themselves and their offspring.

In the late nineteenth century, elites � influenced by Lamarckianeugenics � challenged European and North American ideas thatblack�white race mixture produced racial degenerates (Skidmore1974; Stepan 1991; Viana 2005; Daniel 2006). Instead, due to theirsupposedly stronger genes, whites were already in the process ofbleaching out black and indigenous populations through race mixture,thus solving the ‘race problem’. Demographic evidence of Afro-Brazilians’ lower fertility levels and higher rates of disease, malnutri-tion and infant mortality suggested that they were dying out and thatover several generations, whites would outnumber them (Viana 2005;Daniel 2006). Elites also viewed non-white descendants of formerslaves as a hindrance to Brazilian development and evolution into aFirst-World nation. Whitening ideology influenced public policy, withthe Brazilian government subsidizing thousands of European immi-grants to migrate to Brazil, while simultaneously prohibiting blackimmigration (Stepan 1991). Immigration would help to whiten thepopulation while meeting economic development goals.

In the 1930s, Gilberto Freyre ([1933] 1986) praised the large amountof interracial mating that occurred among Brazilians, popularizing thenotion of Brazil as a racial democracy (see Joseph, this issue).Contrary to his contemporaries, Freyre saw interracial mating asevidence of an absence of prejudice and conflict in Brazilian racerelations. However, rather than replacing whitening as an ideology,racial democracy continued to encourage race mixture as an ideal. Inhis qualitative study of ‘elites of colour’, de Azevedo (1955, p. 79, mytranslation) found that ‘marriage between dark-skinned people andwhites bestows prestige to the former and offers the expectation ofchildren closer to’ whites.2 In a different study, Ianni (1960, p. 103)found that whitening was ‘a ‘‘universal’’ aspiration’ of all non-whitesas well as a way of increasing social status. No longer solely an eliteideology, these authors described whitening as a strategy that everydaynon-whites engaged in to move up the status and racial hierarchythrough lightening themselves intra- and intergenerationally.

However, understandings of whitening may have recently shifted.The end of the twentieth century ushered in an increased prominenceof black consciousness-raising. Black movement activists mobilized,however unsuccessfully, for a negro category on the Brazilian census(Nobles 2000). In 2000, over 40,000 people participated in the historicmarch in Brasilia emphasizing the continuing existence of racialinequality (Htun 2004; Paschel and Sawyer 2008). Activists attendedthe 2001 UN World Conference against Racism in Durban, SouthAfrica, publicly challenging the notion of Brazil as a racial democracy.

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Since then, over fifty state and federal universities have created racialquotas for the poor and for Afro-Brazilian students (Silva 2006;Racusen 2010) and former president Luız Inacio Lula da Silva (‘Lula’)created the Ministry for the Promotion of Racial Equality (SEPPIR).More Brazilians have embraced a negro identity (Silva and Reis 2011)and are using pardo or preto categories on the census to identifythemselves (Telles 2004; Bailey 2009; Schwartzman 2009). Thesechanges in Brazilian society may have made aspirations for whiteningundesirable and show an increasing appreciation for blacknesschallenging the racial hierarchy.

Although marriages across colour have increased in recent decadesand now comprise a third of all marriages in Brazil (Petruccelli 2001;Telles 2004; Ribeiro and Do Valle Silva 2009), this is a smallpercentage given popular understandings of interracial marriage beinghighly prevalent. In addition, marriages between whites and non-whites are often characterized by status exchange in which non-whiteshave higher levels of education than their white partners; in addition,their likelihood of marrying whites increases with higher levels ofeducation (Schwartzman 2007). These characteristics of the marriagemarket call into question the notion of whitening as a strategy orsymbol of upward mobility for non-white individuals today.

In the current era of increasing black consciousness, black�whitecouples may not view their relationships as a whitening exercise. In thecurrent climate, they may see whitening as highly stigmatized or racist.In addition, many scholars have failed to recognize that throughinterracial marriage, the darker family may be whitening while thelighter family is darkening (Telles 2004). Given the current context,there may also be a burgeoning number of white Brazilians who value‘darkening’ in their relationships, suggesting a reversal in whiteningideology. Furthermore, there may be a disjuncture between howcouples understand their own relationships versus how outsiders seethem.

Methodology

The data that I use is from fieldwork that I conducted in the city of Riode Janeiro for eight months between August 2008 and February 2010.Rio de Janeiro was an ideal research site because it has large white andnon-white populations, providing opportunity for interracial mar-riages. In addition, since interracial couples are more likely to live inurban areas in Brazil (Telles 2004), it would be easier to find themthere. In sum, I conducted forty-nine qualitative interviews withindividuals in twenty-five black�white couples.

Racial categorization varies according to time and place, includingpeople in my sample who appear black or white to me may not reflect

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what these categories mean in Brazil. While Brazil is characterized bya colour continuum, there are three main census colour categories:branca (47.7 per cent), parda (43.1 per cent) and preto (7.6 per cent)(IBGE 2011). The Brazilian government and black movement oftencollapse the preto and pardo categories into one large negro category,often used by Afro-descendants outside of the black movement (Silvaand Reis 2011). Unlike the USA, multiracialism is part of the nationalmyth of origin with pretos, pardos and brancos all openly acknowl-edging race mixture in their ancestry (Degler 1986; Guimaraes 2005).

Similar to recent, qualitative studies of black�white couples inBrazil (Moutinho 2004), I recruited couples involving a negro marriedto a branco, relying solely on the nominations of native Brazilians.Contrary to exaggerations in the fluidity of racial categories in Brazil(Harris 1964, 1970), the overwhelming majority of my respondents(forty-six out of forty-nine) identified as either negro or branco, withself-identification corresponding to outsider-identification. This wassimilar to nationally representative studies showing that self-identifi-cation corresponds to outsider racial identification 80 per cent of thetime in Brazil (Telles 2002, 2004).

Given their small proportion of all marriages, I used ‘snowball’sampling to find couples � a method that is useful for finding hard-to-reach populations (Weiss 1995). In addition, I used purposivesampling to capture variation in the experiences of black�whitecouples by race, gender and level of education. There are fourteencouples involving black men with white women and eleven involvingblack women with white men. I sampled for three different educationalattainment groupings: both couples with some college experience(eleven); neither partner having some college (six); and only onepartner having some college (seven). My over-sample of the highlyeducated likely reflects a variety of factors, such as the likelihood ofnon-whites marrying whites increasing with higher levels of education(Schwartzman 2007). In addition, although interracial marriage ingeneral is more common among those with lower levels of education,status exchange (Davis 1941; Merton 1941; Gordon 1964) is prevalentin marriages between whites and non-whites specifically. Namely, ininterracial marriage in Brazil, non-whites have higher levels ofeducation than their white partners, compensating for their lowerracial status (Silva 1987; Petruccelli 2001; Telles 2004; Ribeiro and DoValle Silva 2009). Furthermore, homophily in my own social networks(McPherson et al. 2001) likely produced more highly educated couplesthan is reflective of the population. While my study is not nationallyrepresentative, it illuminates the variation in meanings that thesecouples give to their relationships.

Conducting individual qualitative interviews with black�whitecouples illuminates the meaning of whitening in their lives.

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This method can have limitations in terms of people giving sociallydesirable responses, especially given the silence around issues of raceand colour in Brazil (Sheriff 2001). However, I minimized theseissues by spending the first part of the interview building rapportwith respondents as well as asking both direct and indirectquestions.

All interviews were conducted, transcribed and coded in Portuguese.I examined the data to find and code instances of whitening, darkeningand marrying up/down in the lives of the respondents. I thencompared and contrasted coded transcript segments associated withdifferent race and gender categories to examine variation in under-standings of whitening. (More information on sampling and researchprocedures are available upon request.)

Couples’ understandings of whitening

Unlike previous studies in which scholars found that whitening waspart of the way in which interracial couples understood theirrelationships, whitening was not an aspiration that any of therespondents openly revealed to me. This was true for both black andwhite respondents. When I spoke to black partners about what initiallyattracted them to their partners, many of them cited their whitepartner’s intelligence, conversational skills or compassion. When Iasked them to describe physical aspects that were initially attractive tothem, respondents mentioned traits as varied as their partners’ rearend (bunda), lips, their smile, their eyes (across colours), legs andheight. None of the black respondents discussed seeing their partnersas increasing their status in society nor expressed a desire for theirwhite partners to help them produce children with more ‘attractive’characteristics. This is strikingly different from prior scholarship inwhich non-whites overtly expressed whitening as part of theirmotivation for relationships with whites.

For example, Ofelia is a forty-six-year-old white woman whorecently obtained her high school diploma. When I asked Ofelia ifshe was lightening her husband’s family, she said:

Ofelia: No.Chinyere: Why?Ofelia: Because I think that in a relationship, the two of them,the concern is not lightening or darkening. The concern is if thetwo people like each other and want to be together. The skincolor doesn’t matter. It’s just being together.

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Ofelia’s comments reveal that making the family whiter would implythat a couple is together because of colour and not because of theiremotional attachment. Ofelia’s comments were typical in the sense thatnone of the respondents saw themselves as whitening or helping theirpartner to whiten.

I also interviewed Ofelia’s husband, Konrad, a forty-five-year-oldwith a college degree. When asked about anyone thinking he hadlightened the family he explained that it had never happened becausehis family of origin was more financially secure than his wife’s family.Later, he explained why the notion of whitening does not make sense:

The same way that the preto, that the negro thinks that ‘‘If Imarry a white woman, I am whitening,’’ the white person canthink that if he, she marries negro, that she is darkening. Right?So then, am I going to say, ‘‘Hey, you’re darkening our race?’’ . . .If [my son] later marries a negra, is he going to darken all overagain? It’s his problem. If he is going to marry a white woman tolighten [the family] even more, I’m not going there, you know?That’s not my problem.

Konrad’s interview reveals that his class privilege has shielded him fromothers understanding his relationship with his wife as a way of engagingin upward mobility. This is also likely due to his wife’s lower educationalstatus, making their marriage an example of status exchange. Konradalso illuminates how the notion of whitening or darkening the familydoes not make sense in that one partner is always darkening one side ofthe family while the other is lightening the other side. His latercomments about his son marrying a black or white woman show thatfor Konrad, what happens in future generations is outside of his controland therefore not his concern. Nevertheless, it illustrates that he doesnot entirely dismiss the idea of colouring the family through marriage.Although whitening is not a concern for him personally, it still remainsa framework for understanding cross-colour relationships.

In my interviews with black men, the tone of the conversationchanged when I asked about whitening. For example, Edvaldo is atwenty-four-year-old black man with a high school diploma. Hebecame a little angry when I asked about others thinking that he hadmarried up through his relationship with his wife Veronica, who alsohas a high school diploma. He took issue with my use of the term‘bettering the family’, a commonly understood phrase in whichwhitening the family supposedly ‘improves’ it:

Chinyere: What are your experiences with people thinking thatyou are lightening the family? Bettering the family?

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Edvaldo: Why bettering?Chinyere: Due to her skin color.Edvaldo: Oh, and her skin color is better than mine or yours?Chinyere: I don’t know. I am asking if other people talked to youabout that.Edvaldo: No, but bettering, why bettering?Chinyere: Lightening.Edvaldo: Oh, lightening. But why bettering? Is our skin bad? Is itspoiled?Chinyere: I wouldn’t say that.Edvaldo: Look . . . they even say that we age slower than they do.I think that it would be the contrary, but whatever.Chinyere: But, so, have there been people that said that you arelightening the family?Edvaldo: No . . . we haven’t had a single problem. We never had aproblem regarding prejudice in any way.

Contrary to earlier studies showing whitening in a positive light,Edvaldo saw whitening negatively and as a sign of prejudice. Similarto arguments by black movement scholars (Do Nascimento 1989;Munanga [1999] 2008), Edvaldo’s remarks reveal that the notion of‘bettering the family’ through interracial mixing is a way of devaluingblackness. He contests traditional notions of whitening, arguing thatlighter skin is not better than darker skin. His angry tone revealedthat he took offence to the idea that anyone would feel this wayabout him and his wife. Whitening was not a part of how heunderstood his relationship and, in fact, was offensive to suggest. Hiscomments show a challenging of a racial hierarchy favouringwhiteness.

Leandro is a twenty-eight-year-old negro who grew up poor, butmanaged to go to college. He is married to Nadia, thirty-three, who isalso college-educated but grew up more middle class. Her mother ownsthe condo where they live in the centre of town. Despite differences intheir family of origin, Leandro explained why he never receivedcomments about whitening from family or friends:

Leandro: My family at least, never said that to me. Probablybecause people know me and know that if they were to say this, itwould not be very well received.Chinyere: Why?Leandro: It’s because the relationship that I have with people �this I make very clear � it’s not because of color, it’s not becauseof . . . the financial resources that they have nor the amount ofmoney, it’s not because of status, whatever it is, or the job they

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have, it’s simply because of the person. And people knowing thatI’m like that, I’ve always made it very clear, if they think that, don’tsay it.

Leandro’s remarks reveal that he does not understand his relationshipwith Nadia in terms of whitening. Like Ofelia suggested earlier, to doso would negate the romantic nature of the relationship, reducing it toa status-seeking exercise. Nevertheless, his comments also suggest thathe acknowledges that others may see his relationship in those termsand may have told him so in the past. Like several respondents whom Iinterviewed, he ‘makes it clear’ that such perceptions of his relation-ship are best left unsaid.

The notion of whitening the family implies that people have ulteriormotives for their relationships with their partners � that of ‘improving’the quality of their stock and engaging in social mobility. Severalrespondents mentioned that this was not how they saw their marriagesand that to suggest otherwise was inappropriate. This was very differentfrom studies by Ianni (1960) and de Azevedo (1955), in which manyBrazilians valued and aspired to whitening. Given Edvaldo’s angryreaction to my questions, it is possible that those who know blackpartners married to whites, as Leandro pointed out, know better thanto talk about such things with them.

Outsider perspectives

Most of the men did not discuss actual incidents in which they hadbeen accused of whitening or darkening their families. Only four men �one black and three white � recalled such an incident. However, twelvedifferent women across colours mentioned that they had experiencedoutsiders telling them that they were colouring their or their husband’sfamilies. For example, Veronica is a twenty-four-year-old white womanwith a high school diploma. She is married to Edvaldo, who becameangry during our discussion of whitening. Veronica discussed how shehas experienced discomfort from her neighbours in the form of jokesabout her ‘darkening’ her family:

Veronica: There have been jokes that I had to put an end to.Jokes like ‘‘Oh, you’re trying to darken your family.’’ ‘‘You wantto give your mother a black grandson.’’ ‘‘Your daughter is goingto be mad at you because she’s going to grow up with hard hairand your hair is good,’’ you know?Chinyere: Who said this?Veronica: Neighbors, some neighbors . . .Chinyere: When was the last time that somebody said this?

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Veronica: Oh, it was as soon as I was staying . . . when I went tolive with Edvaldo. You know? So then I told them ‘‘Children whosay that are children who were brought up poorly by theirparents,’’ because if my daughter were born with good hair orbad hair, Edvaldo and I would work a lot to maintain her hair asthe most beautiful in the world and she’s going to know from anearly age to respect the race . . . and, or . . . the family that shecomes from, so she would never say ‘‘Mom, my hair is bad andyours is good.’’ So I ended it, you know. Today, we no longerhave these problems.

Unlike her husband, Edvaldo, Veronica describes receiving commentsabout her darkening her family through her marriage to Edvaldo.While accusations of whitening or darkening were the minority ofexperiences, they were more common among female respondents.Their childbearing capacity was a key component of how they wereseen as engaged in whitening. Despite maintaining racial hierarchies interms of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ hair, similar to Edvaldo, she understoodthese comments as offensive and slight aggressions against her and herfamily. This incident illustrates how outsiders draw attention to thecolour difference between her and her husband and demonstrate thatthey think she has higher status due to her ‘good hair’. It also showshow outsiders understand her relationship in terms of colouring herfamily, even if she does not and even challenges this racial hierarchy.

Flavia is a twenty-five-year-old black woman with some collegeeducation. She and her husband Ulises do not have children yet.Smiling smugly, she said:

. . . my cousins say that because I married a white man, there’sgoing to be a little white baby in the family, you know? ‘‘Enoughblacks, already!’’ But, I don’t see it like that. . . And my cousinsthey say, ‘‘Flavia is going to lighten the family, right?’’ ‘‘That’swhy you married a white man, huh, Flavia? You’re lightening thefamily. You’re not going to have a little black baby . . .’’ But I say,‘‘What can I do, people?’’

Flavia’s comments reflect that outsiders see black wives as using theirmarriage with white husbands to intentionally lighten the family.There is the explicit notion that by engaging in race mixture, she isdeciding against having a black baby. Implicitly, the assumption is thatbecause of her white husband, she will have children that are lighterthan her and her family of origin. Their comments suggest that hermajor motivations for marrying Ulises were to whiten her family and

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diminish blackness in future generations more than the value sheplaced on the relationship itself.

Otavio is a forty-four-year-old white man married to Katarina, bothwith less than a grammar school education. During his interview, hereferenced her black family as the source of talk on whitening:

Otavio: . . . when she was alive, her own mother would say that � Idon’t know if it’s true, but it’s what she said � [Katarina] neverliked to go out with dark people. It’s not because of racism. It’sbecause of the kids, so that they aren’t born all . . .Chinyere: It’s because of the children?Otavio: Right.Chinyere: In what sense?Otavio: Marrying a white man so that the kids will be bornlighter with good hair.Chinyere: And who thought this?Otavio: She did. [Katarina] herself . . . She herself never went outwith a dark person. All of her boyfriends were white.Chinyere: And what did you think about that?Otavio: Everyone has their preference, right? If she’s always likedwhite men, I’m not going to be opposed to it, right? It’s the samething as people of color that go, ‘‘Oh, I only go out with escuro.’’3

This can be a [form of] racism too. ‘‘What am I going to go outwith a white person for? I’m going to go out with a person of mycolor . . . .’’ There are a lot of dark people that do not like to goout with white people. I think she only has this thing . . . becauseof the children. ‘‘If you marry with preto, the kids will be bornwith hard hair’’ and I don’t know what. On this point, she wasalways like that . . . she has prejudice due to living or marryingwith escuros, you know. She thinks that, ‘‘Oh, my daughter willbe born with hair like this.’’ I think it has nothing to do withanything. So she herself is discriminating against her own color,correct? That’s what I think.

Otavio’s comments reveal a tension in his understanding ofKatarina’s aspirations for whitening. On the one hand, he sees herracial preference as problematic and as a form of racial discrimination.On the other, it is a form of discrimination that he has benefitted fromas her white husband. His discussion of race relations is informed byan understanding of internal racism among Afro-Brazilians, an issuethat the black movement has addressed in its negritude campaigns.Nonetheless, he understands her racial preferences as being similar toblacks who favour other blacks, while being silent about white racialpreferences. In addition, he does not challenge the assumption that

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race mixture produces children with predictable skin and haircharacteristics. Otavio’s remarks show how he confronts, yet doesnot completely challenge, whitening in his own relationship.

In her interview, Katarina, thirty-seven years old, revealed that herhusband is one of many white men whom she dated. When I asked herif anyone thought that she was whitening, she said:

My aunt. The last time, she said to me, ‘‘Katarina, because youhave married a white man . . . you’ve lightened the family.’’ Shethinks that I lightened the family. But I don’t think so. That’s herthing . . . I told her ‘‘No. I don’t think so.’’ I said, ‘‘That’s not howit was, Tıa [Aunt], my lightening the family.’’ She said, ‘‘It’sbecause our family only has blacks.’’ All of my family, all of mycousins, they only married blacks, so she thinks that only Ilightened the family. Until now, because . . . my youngest sister . . .she married a white man too.

Although Katarina argues that she did not marry a white man with thegoal of lightening her offspring, her friends and family saw her asengaging in whitening, showing that it is still how they understandblack�white marriages. She negates the notion of her marital choicehaving anything to do with improving her social status or producinglighter children. Her comments show that whitening accusations aresomething she confronts and challenges in her everyday life.

Katarina’s remarks are at odds with what her husband Otavio saidabout her aspirations for lightening her family. There are twopossibilities for why this may be the case. One explanation is changeover time in how Katarina values her husband. According to Otavio’sinterview, Katarina dated white men to produce children with a moreEuropean appearance. However, when I asked her to describe thethings she likes about her husband, she mentioned how affectionate heis and how they have a really good relationship, not his whiteness.These interviews together suggest that whitening may have been a partof dating and initiating a relationship with Otavio, but is not how sheunderstands their relationship today.

Another possibility is that Katarina provided a socially desirableresponse by refusing to admit her attempts at lightening the family. IfKatarina claims not to understand her relationship in terms ofwhitening, yet really does, this illustrates a change in attitudes towardswhitening. Unlike past scholarship showing whitening as a ‘universalaspiration’, whitening is no longer seen as a legitimate aspiration orsource of pride for non-white Brazilians. Telling her husband one thingwhile telling me another, suggests that Katarina recognizes the

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contemporary stigma of seeing her relationship through the lens ofwhitening.

In both of these interpretations, Katarina has attempted to whitenher family through her relationship with Otavio at one time or another.However, both explanations point to a decline in whitening ideology forpeople in interracial marriages, either over the course of their relation-ships or in these couples overall. Nevertheless, both situationsilluminate how outsiders continue to understand black�white mar-riages in whitening terms, regardless of how the couples themselvesunderstand their marriages. These couples continue to confront theracial hierarchy that whitening implies, whether they challenge it openlylike Katarina said or merely confront it, like Otavio.

Darkening

The practice of whitening ignores that over generations, only one ofthe spouses is lightened while the lighter spouse is actually darkened(Telles 2004; Daniel 2006). While interracial marriage as a process ofdarkening the lighter spouse is often ignored in literature discussingwhitening, it emerged in interviews with white female respondents.Unlike whitening which no one admitted engaging in, several whitewomen saw themselves engaged in ‘blackness by association’ throughtheir black husbands and their offspring. About half of white womenrespondents discussed this valorization of blackness. Many remarkedthat they had always identified with elements of Afro-Brazilian cultureand participated in black religious practices or wore Afrocentrichairstyles. Across a variety of ages, largely lower-educated womenadmitted to darkening, although none of them described upwardmobility as part of their motivation, despite possible status exchange.None of the white men whom I interviewed expressed darkeningintentions, even those with connections to Afro-Brazilian culture, andno black respondents openly expressed desires for whitening.

For example, Ana Marıa is a fifty-year-old white woman who did notfinish high school. She articulated a lifelong racial preference for blackmen, yet said that only in recent decades has she dated them. Makingsense of her current relationship with Candido, her black husband, shesaid that she ‘always [had] that attraction for the negro: knowing his life,his culture. I also wanted to get involved [with Candido] for this reason.’She understood her romantic involvement with black men as a way ofculminating her desire to become closer to blackness. This desire hasalso led her to become increasingly involved in Rio’s black movementcultural events with her husband. Her interest in Afro-Brazilian culturewas linked to a romantic interest in black men.

In another example, Acemira is a twenty-one-year-old white womanwith a high school education married to Donato, a black man. In her

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interview, she said: ‘Since I was little, I always told my mother thatI always had a wish to marry a preto and have preto kids. Only that shewasn’t born preto, she came out branco.’

Acemira’s interview revealed how she understood the family-formation process as a way of achieving darkening. Rather thanseeing herself as an agent of whitening in black families, she seesherself as darkening herself and her white family of origin. However,her relationship with a black man did not produce the desired resultsince she understood her child as coming out white instead of black.Nevertheless, her comments illustrate how she understands reproduc-tion as a way of achieving blackness in her life.

Unlike black partners who did not openly acknowledge engagementin whitening, many white women demonstrate candour in theiradmissions of understanding their relationships with their husbandsas a way of achieving blackness. Their comments show a contestationwith racial hierarchies prioritizing whiteness. However, rather thanchallenging the idea of whitening, they simply invert it to apply to theirown racial status. In addition, the concentration of these experiencesamong lower-educated white women suggests a status exchange systemdevaluing black partners. Nevertheless, their comments suggest anincreasing valorization of blackness due to the black movement. Morethan just influencing how Afro-Brazilians identify themselves, the blackmovement has also resulted in increased white validation and apprecia-tion for blackness that has led to open aspirations for darkening.

Conclusion

With the impact of the black movement and shifting racial identities,changes in Brazilian society over the last fifteen years have ushered inan overall appreciation for blackness that is incompatible withwhitening ideology. Interviews with people who are supposedlyinvolved in whitening processes, black�white couples, illuminate theunravelling of whitening ideology today. My research shows that theblack�white couples I spoke to did not discuss their relationships as anattempt at whitening. In fact, as seen in some responses, accusations ofwhitening can be offensive and seen as a denigration of black partners.Even when the possibility emerged that respondents may have beenengaged in whitening, they did not admit it due to the contemporarystigma associated with it.

Although most couples did not describe themselves as whitening,women of reproductive age were targets of jokes and accusations thatthey were engaged in whitening. While changes in the social landscapehave resulted in whitening not being a part of how people understandtheir own relationships, it is still a viable way of giving meaning tothese relationships for outsiders, forcing some couples to confront and

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even challenge racial hierarchies. On the other hand, several whitewomen saw themselves engaged in darkening and openly admitted toseeing their relationships as an extension of their desires for blackness.Although respondents confronted accusations of whitening, they didnot dismiss the implicit notion of colouring themselves or theiroffspring through interracial marriage. In addition, the status of thesewomen called into question their ability to contest racial hierarchiesprivileging whiteness.

Future research can illuminate the extent to which whiteningideology remains alive and well in Brazilian society. My respondentslived and worked in the greater metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro,possibly allowing them to be more in touch with black consciousnessefforts, whether at home and abroad, and thus more critical ofwhitening in their own lives. My findings may reflect the fact that moreBrazilians (including black�white couples) live in urban areas, whichmay be more receptive to new ideas like black movement ideologies.Comparisons of race relations in rural and other urban areas candemonstrate whether these findings are specific to Rio de Janeiro orare dispersed throughout the Brazilian population.

Previous studies of race mixture in Brazil have largely focused onthe experiences of mixed-race (usually male) offspring of white malesand their darker female partners. More analyses of white women ininterracial relationships as well as their female offspring couldilluminate the origins of darkening as well as potential changes in itsmeaning over time. In addition, female perspectives of darkening andrace mixture more broadly can illuminate its untapped meaningsamong different populations.

Since whitening ideology has been popular all over Latin America,comparison with other countries can illuminate the extent to whichBrazil may follow general patterns of contemporary understandings ofrace mixture. Future research can also illuminate the ways in whichfamilies and race-mixing inform understandings of contemporaryracial formation, both in Latin America as well as across multiracialsocieties. Since whitening or lightening never gained traction outsideof US black communities, it would be useful to examine the extent towhich similar notions of race mixture have emerged alongsideclimbing rates of intermarriage. In addition, as race-based socialmovements have emerged across Latin America, comparative researchcan illustrate differences and similarities in the impact of thesemovements on racial ideologies writ large.

Notes

1. In Portuguese, preto (‘black’) refers to the colour and negro (also ‘black’) refers to both

having dark skin and having primarily African ancestry, although these terms often overlap

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in meaning. Pardo translates as a brownish-grey colour and is an intermediate category

between preta and branco.

2. Francisca da Silva de Oliveira (‘Chica da Silva’), who lived in the eighteenth century, is

the most famous case of this. She was a slave of Diamantina’s most powerful man, became

his lover, and then the city’s most powerful woman. Known as ‘the slave who became queen’,

numerous films and soap operas have been made about her.

3. People with dark skin, often synonymous with pretos and a euphemism for blacks.

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