Afro-Brazilian is a term to racially categorize Brazilian citizens who self-reported to be of black or brown (Pardo) skin colors to the IBGE census. Brazilians, including Black Brazilians, rarely use the American-style phrase "African Brazilian" to categorise themselves, and never in informal discourse: the IBGE's July 1998 PME shows that, of Black Brazilians, only about 10% consider themselves of "African origin"; most of them identifying as having a "Brazilian origin" [3]. In the July 1998 PME, the categories "Afro-Brasileiro" (Afro-Brazilian) and "Africano Brasileiro" (African Brazilian) weren't used even once; the category "Africano" (African) was used by 0.004% of the respondants[4]. In the 1976 PNAD, none of these were used even once[5]. The politically correct term in Portuguese is "negro"[6]. As of 2005, 96 million Brazilians were included in the black and brown categories[7], corresponding to 50.64% of the country's population.
According to Edward Telles[8], in Brazil there are three different systems related to "racial classification" along the White-Black continuous[9]. The first is the Census System, which distinguishes three categories: "branco" (White), "pardo", and "preto" (Black)[10]. The second is the popular system that uses many different categories, including the ambiguous term "moreno"[11] (literally, "tanned", "brunette", or "with an olive complexion")[12] . The third is the Black movement system that distinguishes only two categories, summing up "pardos" and "pretos" as "negros"[13]. More recently, the term "afrodescendente" has been brought into use[14], but it is restricted to very formal discourse, such as governmental or academic discussions, being viewed by some as a cultural imposition from the "politically correct speech" common in the United States.
Brazilian geneticist Sérgio Pena has criticised foreign scholar Edward Telles for lumping "blacks" and "pardos" in the same category. According to him, "the autosomal genetic analysis that we have performed in non related individuals from Rio de Janeiros shows that it does not make any sense to put "blacks" and "pardos" in the same category".[15] In support of Sérgio Pena, for example, another autosomal genetic study on a school in the poor periphery of Rio de Janeiro found that the "pardos" there were found to be on average over 80% European, even though they (the tested students) thought of themselves as 1/3 European, 1/3 African and 1/3 Amerindian before the tests. [16]
Brazil has the largest black population outside of Africa[17] with, in 2008, 6.84% classifying themselves as preto (Black) and 43.80% as pardo (Brown)[7], for a total of 50.64%. However, the latter category is broad and encompasses Brazilians of mixed ancestry, including mulattos and caboclos (caboclos are neither Black nor of African origin).
The largest concentration of Black and "pardo" Brazilians is in the state of Bahia where over 73% of the people are Blacks or "pardos".[18].
A large but unknown number of Brazilians have some African ancestry. Due to intensive mixing and assortative mating with White Brazilians, Brazilians with African ancestors may or may not be "Black" or "pardos", i.e., they may or may not show any trace of black features[19].
Notable Afro-Brazilians:Read more, click here:
