Race and color in contemporary Brazil, political opportunity and historical tendency

Abstract

In this article, I present the data published by IBGE on the color and race/color of the Brazilian population in the period from 1872 to 2022 to examine the historical trends in the growth of white, parda and black racial groups. Three trends are observed. The first, between the end of the 19th century and the 1960s, a whitening process; the second, from the last census date until the last decade of the 20th century, is the continuous growth of the parda population to the detriment of both the white and black populations; the third, which began in 1991, is the gradual growth of the black and parda population and the constant decline of the white population. My argument is that these trends are mainly due to movements of racial reclassification of the population, therefore more to ideological factors – the way in which the Brazilian nation is preponderantly defined in each period – and less to demographic factors, or public policy incentives, like those that have benefited black and brown people since the present century.