Opening Pandora's Box: The Extreme Right and the Resurgence of Racism in Brazil

The Racial State and the Racial Formation of Brazil

Understanding the threat of Bolsonarism to the country's recent antiracist achievements and the risk of the resurgence of racism requires understanding the racial background of Brazil over the past century (Omi and Winant, 1994; Goldberg, 2002) and the antiracist agenda built by the black movement and implemented in recent government administrations. Therefore I will begin with some brief comments on the way race has been lived, negotiated, and contested in Brazil and its role in the construction of policies and interpretations of the nation. Focusing on the period from the twentieth century to the present, I will use the following concepts: “racialism,” “antiracialism,” “racism,” and “antiracism.” By “racialism” I mean a system of social classification that presupposes the existence of race as a category that exists only on the plane of social relations. “Antiracialism” is the denial of the existence of races. Both of these can give rise to “racist” or “antiracist” behaviors and attitudes. Thus, “racism” is a doctrine that hierarchizes racial groups and motivates prejudiced and discriminatory attitudes, while understanding “antiracism” is a political action in opposition to the system of racial hierarchy (Guimarães, 1999).

In racial terms, the twentieth century began with the shadow of scientific racism that had been cultivated by the Brazilian political and intellectual elite in the previous century. Scientific racism was triggered, mainly from the 1870s on, when the issue of replacing African labor in response to the impending end of slavery (in 1888 [Skidmore, 1975]) took hold of the country’s political agenda. At that time, the racist notions of the Brazilian political elite were becoming clear. Shortly thereafter, explicit declarations were made of a preference for European immigrants, believing them to belong to a superior race.

However, while there was certainty about the status of black people in the supposed evolutionary hierarchy, the same was not true of those who became known as mestizos, because a good part of Brazilian intellectuals, academics, and politicians were themselves at the time considered mestizos. The theories created in the European context were not fully accepted by the Brazilian intelligentsia, and there was indecision as to whether miscegenation degraded pure races or was a positive factor. If miscegenation was seen as something positive, it was because it could be used to turn Brazil into a white country. According to predictions of the time, mestizos and blacks would end up disappearing (Lacerda, 2012 [1911]). The idea of whitening was then introduced as a solution to Brazil’s racial problems and, later, as a way of making Brazil into a civilized nation. This was because the political equation of the time—using the nomenclature of the era— held that a superior race corresponded to a civilized nation and an inferior race to a primitive nation. Between the 1870s and the 1920s, then, the hegemonic political thinking about race formation was racist racialism, meaning that race, which at the time was understood to be a natural category, was mobilized to produce racist public policies and behaviors.

The whitening model coexisted with a narrative in which relationships between ex-slaves and ex-masters had not been as sour as in other places, especially the United States, and that we had developed a model of civilization in which racial barriers were of little relevance (da Costa, 1998). Almost 50 years after the end of slavery, Gilberto Freyre (1992 [1933]) summarized the myth of racial democracy in his book Casa-Grande & Senzala. This book provided a brilliant construction of the idea that we had no barriers between racial groups and that there was a fluid miscegenation between whites, blacks, and indigenous people. Freyre described Portuguese men's propensity for miscegenation in their relations with indigenous and African women. This was his formula for making miscegenation a positive concept and a pillar of the nation. Thus, the miscegenation of whites, indigenous, and blacks apparently gave rise to a single world (“the world that the Portuguese created”) characterized by a reality in which race was not relevant in determining social relations or the social mobility of individuals, which were understood to be based merely on personal effort. Freyre's ideas were the standard for Brazilian politics and culture until practically the end of the twentieth century. On the basis of these ideas, the exaltation of miscegenation, combined with the model of whitening, created an idealization of Brazil as a paradise nation, a racial democracy, where there were no conflicts or racial problems. These ideas continue to permeate all dimensions of Brazilian social life, from state institutions to popular culture.

The myth of racial democracy was the belief that a social system had been inaugurated in Brazil in which race was not a relevant element in social relations, especially when it came to moving up the social ladder. According to this explanation, black people, especially mestizos, apparently had no barriers to their social rise. This “paradisiacal” character of Brazilian society was contrasted, above all, with U.S. society, which had created numerous barriers for the black population (Bernardino, 2002). The myth of racial democracy functioned as a regulator of social relations, while in other countries social relations were regulated by segregation (Goldberg, 2002). Through the exaltation of miscegenation and the assertion that there were no racial barriers to blacks’ moving up the social ladder, the myth of racial democracy moved the debate on racism from the public sphere to the private one. In other words, experiences of racism and racial discrimination in Brazil have always been seen as specific to individual behavior.

If we characterize the previous period as marked by racist racialism, the subsequent period, beginning in the 1930s, can be characterized as one of racist antiracialism, in which the denial of the existence of race in the state's and even society's hegemonic discourse existed alongside daily racist practices. All of this led to a continuation of racial inequalities and the marginalization of the black population. As a general rule, cases of racism were treated as racial prejudice, something always relegated to the private sphere, and such occurrences were treated as if their perpetrators were merely being impolite. Instances of racism were treated as features of individual behavior and not the responsibility of social institutions.

While official discourse and even intellectuals and cultural producers were propagating the myth of racial democracy, black intellectuals and the black movement have produced a different narrative about racial relations in Brazil since at least the Black Convention of 1950, specifically in the Teatro Experimental do Negro of Abdias Nascimento and the Teatro Popular Brasileiro of Solano Trindade and in the demonstrations that led to creation of the Unified Black Movement in the 1970s. Continued development of the discussion that had been generated within the wide-ranging organizations of the black movement found success in the next decade, most notably in the 1988 Constitution. Among these successes were the creation of the Fundação Cultural de Palmares (Palmares Cultural Foundation) and Article 68 of the Transitional Constitutional Provisions Act, which recognized the right of landownership for the remaining black quilombos. In addition to these constitutional rights, also in the 1980s, the black movement managed to achieve other progress—the declaration of November 20 as Black Consciousness Day, the designation of Serra da Barriga (the site of the historic quilombo of Palmares) as a national heritage site, and the recognition of Zumbi dos Palmares as a national hero (Pereira, 2005; Gonzalez and Hasenbalg, 1981; Andrews, 1998).

The counternarrative originating from the black movement, which was registering important symbolic-cultural achievements in the 1980s, gained further traction in the following decade, when on November 20, 1995, the historic Zumbi dos Palmares March against Racism, for Citizenship, and for Life brought together more than 30,000 protesters in Brasília. On that occasion, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso was presented with a document entitled the “Program to Overcome Racism and Racial Inequality” that contained a series of demands, including not only symbolic-cultural claims, as in the previous decade, but policies to promote racial equality in the labor market, affirmative action policies in universities, the granting of land titles to quilombos, etc. The following year, in Brasília during the inauguration of an international seminar on multiculturalism and racism, for the first time in the country's history a president, Cardoso, recognized that Brazil was a racist country (Souza, 1997).

Although timidly, the Cardoso administration (1995–1998, 1999–2002) began to adopt a series of racially oriented policies that included the first experiments with affirmative action in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Agrarian Development, the Ministry of Justice, and elsewhere (Silva, 2019). However, it was only during the PT administrations, which began in 2003, that the antiracist agenda that had been built by the black movement began to act with true boldness. Despite questioning and limited conviction within the PT itself when it came to an antiracist agenda, and given the fact that within the party there was strong opposition to this agenda, with accusations of generating class struggle, we can identify a victory for the counternarrative of the black movement both within the broader society and within the party itself (Bernardino-Costa, 2019).

The creation of the Secretaria Nacional de Políticas de Promoção de Igualdade Racial (National Secretariat for Racial Equality Policies—SEPPIR) three months into President Lula's first term was much more the result of the action of black party loyalists than the result of any structural political component within the PT (Bernardino-Costa, 2019). In any case, despite infighting within the party and government, SEPPIR played an unparalleled role in the fight against racial inequality and racism. This new look at the racial issue was the direct result of black activism within the PT and in the federal government and of an important coincidence: the discussions that simmered in the country before and after the Third UN World Conference against Racism, which took place in 2001 in Durban, South Africa. Those discussions put the need to confront racism and racial inequalities on the agenda (Pereira, 2005; Silva, 2019). The achievements of the black movement since the 1980s may lead us to conclude that we were seeing an antiracist racialism that recognized the importance of race as a structural dimension of social life and therefore a social category to be taken into account when generating public policies aimed at reversing the effects of racism and racial discrimination.

Progress on Racial Matters during the PT Government: Antiracist Racialism

Even though the PT adopted a “weak reformism” as a result of its coalition policy (Singer, 2012; Bernardino-Costa, 2019), the creation of SEPPIR and the adoption of an antiracist racialism can be seen as a 13-year spark of progress in the face of more than 500 years of structural, routine racism. Despite its low budget and minimal staff, SEPPIR was behind numerous extremely positive and significant policies to combat racism and promote racial equality. Various instances of progress on racial matters in the 2000s were a direct result of black activism within the government.

Laws 10,639/2003 and 11,645/2008 modified the elementary and high school curricula, making Afro-Brazilian history and culture and then Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture mandatory subjects. Law 12,711/2012 forced all public and federal universities in the country to adopt a quota for prospective students from public schools, low-income communities, and black, brown, and indigenous people. Law 12,990/2014, similar to the affirmative action policies applied to students in higher education, reserved 20 percent of public jobs for black candidates. Decree 4,887/2003 established the procedure for the identification, recognition, delimitation, and titling of lands occupied by the remaining members of quilombo communities. Law 12,288/2010, known as the Racial Equality Statute, established guidelines for confronting racial inequalities in the spheres of health, education, culture, sports, access to land, the media, etc.

In addition to this progress, several universalist policies implemented during the PT administrations had a significant and positive impact on the black population: the income transfer policy (Bolsa Família), the real increase in the minimum wage, and, most important, the law that gave domestic workers the same rights as all other formal workers. Even considering that much more could have been done if the PT had adopted a more radical left-wing political project instead of a coalition policy, we can recognize significant progress on an antiracist agenda that promotes racial equality, especially when compared with other administrations.

This “weak reformism” (Singer, 2012) was enough to provoke reactions from part of the upper middle class, which had never seen so many poor and black people aspiring to middle- and upper-class status. A numerically significant part of the black and poor population now had access to goods and services that had been exclusive to the middle class, such as owning a car, traveling by plane, and studying at a public university. The backlash against the PT administrations gained intensity with the accusations that some of the party leaders were involved in corruption. It is in this context that we have seen a weakening of the left's agenda and a significant strengthening of the discourse of the extreme right.

Opening Pandora's Box: Dilma Rousseff's Impeachment and the Rise of the Far-Right

The roots of what we call Bolsonarism began to form in the first term of President Dilma Rousseff, specifically in the June 2013 demonstrations. Those demonstrations, organized by the Free Fare Movement (an autonomist social movement) against the increases in bus fares in the city of São Paulo, began with a progressive battle cry defending the right to the city. Soon other demonstrations followed, speaking out against the “Lulista or PT model” of governing, which had been characterized by an increase in distributive policies and a larger state apparatus (Miguel, 2018; Freixo and Pinheiro-Machado, 2019). The anticorruption battle cry became the great force that acted to unify various segments of the right. While until then, especially since the country's redemocratization in 1985, the streets had been the stage for protests by the left and its progressive agenda, beginning in June 2013 they became home to conservative groups ranging from monarchists to middle-class citizens with an anticommunist discourse, religious conservatives, and even defenders of the military dictatorship (Freixo and Pinheiro-Machado, 2019). That process, which began the day after Dilma Roussseff’s electoral victory was announced, would culminate in her impeachment. When her second term began on January 1, 2015, the crisis was already under way. There was a mix of dissatisfaction with the country's poor economic performance, accusations of corruption, and criticism of a progressive agenda in the field of human rights that ranged from income redistribution, women's rights, and sexual rights to the rights of black and indigenous populations.

Dilma Rousseff was removed from the presidency on August 31, 2016. Michel Temer took over as president of Brazil, and a succession of events strengthened the mobilizations of the extreme right both on social networks and in the numerous demonstrations organized during this period. During the weakened Temer administration, the right-wing agenda within the government was restricted to economic matters, with the government adopting several pro-market measures. A far-right agenda when it came to traditional cultural issues was coming together on the social media in terms of public demonstrations against the PT and against corruption. However, all this saw the full light of day only when the Bolsonaro administration rose to power.

As for racial policies, on the government’s part an antiracist racialist agenda existed up through Dilma's impeachment. Under this agenda, race as a social category was mobilized to produce antiracist policies in order to promote equality and social justice. With the Temer administration, this agenda began to be dismantled. For example, in the ministerial reform proposed by Temer, SEPPIR was downgraded to a secretariat lacking any resources. Under Bolsonaro, there has been a mix of racist antiracialism and racist racialism. The government produces an official discourse in which race is not a category in public policies (antiracialism) because there are supposedly no divisions among Brazilians (Brazil above everything). Meanwhile, the president makes statements that promote a biological racialism with racist content. However, the fact is that both the antiracialism and the racialism of the Bolsonaro administration have fostered racism. Beyond Bolsonaro's statements, whiteness is the hallmark of his administration. Only blacks, indigenous people, and quilombos are named and socially marked, while whiteness is unidentified and therefore universal (Schucman, 2014).

This combination of racist antiracialism and racist racialism is not just a characteristic of the state but is also present from time to time in society, especially among the sectors that identify with the right-wing agenda. People declare themselves to be antiracialists, since under the Brazilian ethos they do not see themselves as racist or, at most, believe that racism is found in the other, never in themselves (Fernandes, 1978; Datafolha, 1995; Telles, 2003). Therefore, this mix of racist antiracialism and racist racialism is something that we find not only in Jair Bolsonaro but also in the phenomenon that we call Bolsonarism.

Bolsonarism is racist antiracialist when it insists, in connection with the rhetoric of the myth of racial democracy, that everyone is equal and that there is no distinction in terms of color and race among Brazilians. Within this logic, there is no way to politicize and treat acts of racism as a public issue. Therefore, when they occur, they are treated not as structural racism but rather as circumstantial racism, since ultimately they are the exclusive and individual responsibility of the perpetrator of a racist act. Now, if everyone is equal and if racism is an individual and private matter, there is no reason to have racial equality policies. Bolsonarism is also characterized by its attempt to dismantle quota policies because, in its mistaken conception, they corrupt the principle of equality and meritocracy. That said, at the same time as it defends this supposed (formal) equality, Bolsonarism also produces an openly racist discourse. This leads us to identify the presence of a racist racialism, a racialism that mobilizes a notion of race very close to the biological sense of race found in the nineteenth century, as a foundation for racist conceptions and attitudes. Before examining the racist racialism in the president's discourse, let us first look at two sets of events in which the combination of racist anti-racialism and racist racialism of Bolsonarism occurs: everyday events and demonstrations on social networks.

Bolsonarism, the Far-Right, Everyday Events, and Social Networks

Through everyday events that have been reported in recent years, we can see the emergence of an ultraconservative mentality with embryonic far-right components.

1. Because of the country's income redistribution policies, many black people began to enjoy services that had been perceived as almost exclusive to white people belonging to the middle class. One such service was air travel. The reaction of the white middle class (Souza, 2019) was seen in comments that Brazilian airports were full of poor and black people and therefore similar to bus stations, which are traditionally identified as spaces for poor and black people.

2. In late 2013 and early 2014, young people—mostly blacks—from the outskirts of large cities used the social media to organize rolezinhos (slang for taking a walk with friends) in shopping centers in large cities (Erber, 2019). After several successful rolezinhos brought together approximately 6,000 young people, some shopping centers in the main Brazilian cities, especially those that are practically exclusive to rich white people, closed their doors to avoid having such events happening there. These gatherings were understood by many as manifestations of “savages who spit on civilization” and “barbarians incapable of recognizing their own inferiority” (Constantino, 2014).

3. In 2013, Dilma Rousseff's administration launched the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) program, which had the objective of placing doctors in the public health network in the interior of the country and in the peripheral regions. The open positions were primarily intended for newly graduated Brazilian doctors and those trained abroad. After that target group, the positions went to foreign doctors. In order to encourage the arrival of foreign professionals, the Brazilian government set up an agreement with the Cuban government in which more than 15,000 Cuban doctors came to participate in the program. This program was strongly criticized by the opposition, which claimed that the program veiled indirect financing of the communist government of Cuba, since part of the salary paid to the professionals went directly to the Raúl Castro administration. However, this was not the only reaction to the program. What was surprising was the reaction of the Brazilian population to black Cuban doctors. During the orientation course they were required to take, Cuban doctors were harassed by Brazilian doctors and journalists (Pragmatismo Político, 2013). The most explicit racism came from a journalist who posted the following on the social media: “Forgive my prejudice, but these Cuban doctors look like maids. Are they really doctors? How terrible. Doctors tend to have a doctor's attitude, a doctor's face, and command respect based on their appearance alone. What a shame for our people. Do these doctors even know what dengue is? Yellow fever? God protect our people!” (G1 RN, 2013).

In addition to these horrifying examples of the conservative reaction to the expansion of the rights of the black and poor population, we have examples that include the affirmative action policies for admission into Brazilian universities and public service, the Racial Equality Statute, and the immigration of Haitians and Venezuelans, all of which were the subject of criticism. In this last example, some such immigrants were even physically attacked. This set of policies and transformations in Brazilian society—although identified as a "weak reformism"—represented a threat to the patterns of social distinction to which the middle class was accustomed. At a time when policies of income redistribution and racial equality were being implemented in Brazil, discomfort was generated among the white middle class and anti-PT sentiment was strengthened.

Along with the anticorruption agenda and hostility against the PT and the left, there was also an agenda related to national customs, particularly relating to the traditional values of Brazilian society that went against progress on the antiracist agenda. Social networks became the silent space for propagating those values and worldview. This meant that such ideas were not restricted to a small group but won over a significant portion of the population, which ended up giving Jair Bolsonaro 55.13 percent of the vote in the presidential election in 2018. ²

This gave us a scenario marked by a strong congressional opposition to President Dilma, with the press and the judiciary clearly taking the side of Operation Car Wash, which accused and convicted the PT and former President Lula before any trial took place. On the social media, the warped mind-set of the extreme right was built to become stronger and stronger as the days went by, leading millions of Brazilians to accept that agenda, which included racism.

Social networks would provide the necessary fuel for Bolsonarism, a phenomenon that expresses an ultraconservative moral and neoliberal economic worldview. From a moral point of view, Bolsonarism defends a return to traditional values, assuming a nationalist rhetoric and enthroning a type of white masculinity. From an economic point of view, it denies any obstacles arising from social pacts (such as the rights of workers, indigenous peoples, quilombos, and the forest code). ³ Both Bolsonarism and the extreme right bring together diverse groups with fluid borders and an intercommunicable agenda whose union is motivated by the perception of a common enemy: the left (Miguel, 2018).

Over the past decade, and more intensely beginning in June 2013, groups identified as belonging to the extreme right began to organize and take action, especially on the social media. Something that was fundamental to every such organization was the construction of a common enemy: the left, in general, and the PT in particular. If there is a common denominator in all far-right opinion makers, it is the creation of a polarization on the Internet between “us” and “them,” with “us” being the standard bearers of all the country’s restorative virtues and “them” the enemies responsible for both the economic crisis and the moral degeneration of the country. Far-right opinion makers disseminate arguments on their social media that identify the PT as responsible for corruption in the country, with the entire left being the incarnation of dishonesty and evil and Lula as the gang’s leader (Miguel, 2018; Ribeiro, 2018; Freixo and Pinheiro-Machado, 2019; Messemberg, 2017). As if that were not enough, the bipolarity of the Cold War is also restored in this discourse, making the PT representative of communism in Brazil. There was even talk of a plot engineered by Marxists to end all of Western culture and civilization. This conspiracy theory revolved around a concept of cultural Marxism that was said to be omnipresent in public education, especially in public universities, the media, among civil rights activists, and in the entertainment industry (Miguel, 2018).

Anti-PT sentiment is like a big tent with four posts, all of them articulated and intercommunicable: patriotism/anti-corruption, moral conservatism, economic liberalism, and public security. Racist implications can be found in each of these. The patriotism/anticorruption theme is strongly intertwined with anti-PT rhetoric and gained a lot of strength when associated with Operation Car Wash, which served to turn into common knowledge the idea that the country's corruption began with the PT administrations and that the country's economic crisis was fallout from the related corruption. It includes statements relating to the indivisible and homogeneous character of the homeland, which is allegedly under threat from globalist forces (the UN, the World Health Organization) and from discourses produced in international contexts such as North American antiracism. The moral conservatism theme is characterized by the defense of moral and Christian values, bringing together Neo-Pentecostal leaders with activities in the world of virtual networks, in the media, and in Congress. A strong position against a progressive agenda in the field of cultural traditions includes statements to the effect that Brazilian society is connected to a Greco-Roman-Christian tradition. The economic liberalism theme is characterized by identifying the state as a source of corruption and privilege and therefore an enemy, either because it regulates economic relations or because it is being co-opted by political groups that corrupt it. The solution to avoid corruption, therefore, would be the privatization of public companies. Meanwhile, adherents criticize social income transfer policies, arguing that they discourage economic competition, violate the principle of meritocracy, and encourage laziness (Casimiro, 2018; Rocha, 2015; 2018). The theme of public security, strongly identified with what has come to be known as the bullet caucus in Congress, defends people's right to carry weapons as a self-defense strategy against increasing urban violence and to prevent the land invasions promoted by the Movimento Sem Terra (Landless Workers’ Movement—MST). Another issue here is reducing the age of criminal responsibility to 16 years. The narrative of virtual social stakeholders can be summarized in words such as “Don't feel sorry for a thief, because the thief doesn't feel sorry for you.”

Drawing on an analysis of the values and ideas shared among the communities of readers that are formed in relation to these themes, I find the following ideas relevant to understanding the racial policy proposed by Bolsonarism: (1) rejection of the relevance of race in the belief that the Brazilian population is homogeneous, devoid of racial distinctions; (2) aversion to religions of African origin and any positive mention of Africa, reiterating the Greco-Roman and Christian tradition of Brazilian society and underestimating any African and indigenous contribution; (3) the portrayal of the state as the source of corruption, making it necessary to reduce its size by eliminating income transfer policies and quota policies; (4) support for the criminalization and mass incarceration of the black population by reducing the age of criminal liability and normalizing conflict by defending the right to carry weapons—implying that the Brazilians in question are the “good citizens,” a group represented by middle-class white males. The construction of Bolsonarism and the consolidation of the extreme right that we can observe in everyday events and in social networks leads to a combination of antiracialism and racist racialism.

What we find here is the transition from an antiracist racialist agenda created beginning in 1988, when the nation's new constitution was being drafted, to an agenda with a combination of racist antiracialism and racist racialism—between the option of avoiding naming race and actually naming it. However, one dimension is quite evident: whether or not race is actually named, the Bolsonaro administration threatens a number of antiracist policies that were achieved by the black movement. This ambiguity of Brazilian racial politics took on its most complete form under Jair Bolsonaro, who is seen by his supporters as uncouth but authentic, far from the figure of the traditional politician. In fact, he has used his uncouth and supposedly authentic personality to excuse himself from the numerous accusations of racism that have marked his political career.

Unleashing the Evils of Pandora's Box: Bolsonaro's and His Administration's Racism

Bolsonaro's statements about the black and indigenous population exhibit an undisguised racism. While at times there is no mention of race—for example, in the government program of the then-candidate that was filed with the Superior Electoral Court or in his electoral slogan "Brazil above everything, God above everyone"—on numerous other occasions throughout his political career his statements have cast a bright light on his racism. In fact, racism transcends his entire persona and is the very mark of what makes Bolsonarism what it is. The strategy of not mentioning the terms “black” or “indigenous” is very much in line with his campaign slogan. It is fundamental to the racist antiracialism of Bolsonarism.

What “Brazil” is this? What “God” is this? As we can infer from both the electoral campaign and the government’s actions, this Brazil is the Brazil of whiteness (Schucman, 2014), which sees no need to name itself, and this God is a sectarian, partisan god who does not respect beliefs and religiosities of African origin. From an institutional point of view and in practical terms, the slogan “Brazil above everything, God above everyone” led to a weakening and dismantling of SEPPIR, which turned into nothing more than a secretariat within the Ministry of Human Rights without a course of action or any specific projects and devoid of resources and personnel. At the same time, it has been used as a ploy for making attacks on the black, quilombo, and indigenous movement.

Bolsonarism is also racist racialist. Blacks are accused of being leftists, profiteers, victimists, antinationals, and “damned scum,” to name just a few of the epithets used against them. Not only the discourse but also the actions taken by Bolsonaro's administration point to an antiblack, anti-indigenous, antiquilombo racialism. Demands made by the black movement are seen as coming from foreign sources and as being accompanied by divisive actions. The demarcation of indigenous and quilombo territories is seen, above all, as an obstacle to the megaprojects proposed by transnational capitalism to exploit the forest and the subsoil. This explains the government's eagerness to disregard these groups’ position as groups claiming their collective right to land. To counter this, the government argues that indigenous groups are already well-established in modern society (asserting that the quilombolas are lazy) and can therefore be integrated into global capitalism through projects aimed at exploiting the natural resources found on their lands.

The president's racist racialism functions as a type of “hall pass” for the rest of Brazil to express its own racism and identify with the extreme right. Bolsonaro himself is at once the figure and the symbol that opens Pandora's box, revealing and fostering a country that breaks from preexisting pacts of coexistence and civility. Below are several illustrative instances of Bolsonarism: In 2008, in the context of discussions on the demarcation of the Raposa Terra do Sol Indigenous Reserve, he said, “If I make it [to the office of the president], there won't be a demarcated corner for an indigenous reserve or a quilombo.” In 2011, on a television program, he said, “Anyone who makes use of a quota, in my opinion, is putting an ‘unqualified’ next to his signature. I would not get on a plane in which the pilot got his job thanks to a quota, nor would I accept being operated on by a doctor who earned his position through a quota.” In a lecture at the Clube Hebraico in Rio de Janeiro during the presidential campaign in 2018, he said, “I went to a quilombo, in Eldorado Paulista. The lightest Afro-descendant there weighed something like seven arrobas. ⁴ They don't do anything! I don’t think they can even reproduce themselves anymore.” During the election campaign, the then-candidate told an audience of approximately 1,000 financial executives at the Banco BTG Pontual that he had a solution for Rocinha, the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, with approximately 70,000 inhabitants. He would send helicopters to drop flyers warning the drug dealers that if they didn’t surrender within six hours he would machine-gun the whole favela. The proposal was applauded by the bankers in attendance (Jardim, 2018). Does this type of discourse go uncontested because these favelas are largely made up of black bodies?

Since his taking office as president, the frequency of Bolsonaro's racist statements seems to have subsided. However, in July 2021, while greeting his supporters in front of the Planalto Palace, Bolsonaro addressed one of his supporters, a young black man with black-power hair, saying, “How are the cockroaches growing in there? Look at the cockroach breeder here!” (making direct mention of a black person's hair). These demonstrations by Bolsonaro make use of well-known rhetorical devices, turning racist comments into jokes, but behind this rhetoric is a discourse and a practice of dehumanization and animalization of black and indigenous people, identifying them as dirty, stupid, incapable, and therefore unworthy of having their territory demarcated (in the case of indigenous people and quilombolas) and undeserving of quota policies (in the case of urban black people).

The government's racist manifestations continue to date thanks to Sérgio Camargo, president of the Fundação Cultural Palmares. The foundation was established in 1988 with the mission of promoting and preserving the cultural, historical, economic, and social values of the black population, and until 2018 its presidency was always held by a person committed to antiracism. However, under Bolsonaro it turned into an authoritative source for the government's racist discourse, since Camargo's comments are not rebuked. In April 2020, in a meeting with advisers, he referred to the black movement as “a bunch of bums” and “damned scum” (G1, 2020). A few months earlier he had declared on Twitter that slavery had been beneficial to people of African descent. He also tends to express prejudice against the practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions. His most recent and controversial statement was made in September 2021, at an event for a conservative audience, when he said that the Fundação Cultural Palmares “has in its DNA the gene for victimization, grudges, and resentment. . . . [It is] a Marxist slave quarters or, if you prefer, a victimist slave quarters.” He continued: “Unfortunately, I don't see the possibility of recovering this idiotic black militancy, blacks on a leash. What black people need to do is free themselves, turn their backs on this movement, seek strength to overcome the difficulties, and this can only be done through study, discipline, merit, work, family, country, and religion.” Finally, after a meandering discourse, he said that racism against whites was what has emerged in the country: “Black people have a certain immunity when it comes to insulting white people. . . . We are witnessing the birth of a new type of racism, racism by the victim. This type of racist cannot be criminalized because he is, in theory, oppressed because his ancestor was enslaved” (Correio Braziliense, 2021).

This political performance is illustrative of Bolsonarism and the opening of Pandora's box. Camargo, a self-styled right-wing black man appointed by Bolsonaro in 2019, became the main spokesperson for racism during his presidency. (In March 2022 he was removed from office in order to run for the post of federal deputy for São Paulo.)

Examples of racist racialism by the president himself, his administration, and Bolsonarism in general can be identified almost daily. What we see in the daily life of Brazilian society is a racial tension in the air in which the president and his government indirectly authorize racist discourse and practices by any citizen who aligns himself with his government project. This is not to say that Bolsonaro is creating racist behavior in Brazil or that such behavior did not previously exist; the fact of the matter is that this type of behavior is reinforced by the president’s own behavior. In addition to structural and institutional racism, there is attitudinal racism.

Conclusion

Built under the banner of whiteness, a place of symbolic and material privilege that is seen as a nonplace devoid of any social markings (Schucman, 2014), the current administration brings true threats and risks to the black, indigenous, and quilombola population. From the point of view of contemporary racial politics, we have what I characterize as a racist racialism combined with a racist antiracialism, something that jeopardizes the political achievements of antiracist movements. The evils that were once trapped inside of Pandora's box have been released.

The aggressive way in which Bolsonarism is imposed, however, not only affects the black, indigenous, and quilombola populations but threatens the entire social pact built since 1988, when we had not only a social-democratic constitution but an entire social-democratic society. The long-term success (or failure) of the extreme right will eventually be the result of the political game that has been taking place on a daily basis in the country. This game threatens and puts at risk the gains made by feminists, environmentalists, the working class, religious minorities, and others. As a result, resistance to the evils that have escaped from Pandora's box seems to me not simply a task to be undertaken by black, indigenous, and quilombola actors but one for all those who defend the dignity of each and every person as a basic condition for social existence.

While this analysis of today’s government points to desolation, some events signal the resurgence of hope and resistance. In the Black Lives Matter movement or the removal of statues of slave-owning figures from the past, the formation of coalitions for democracy in the country is beginning in the form of efforts to reposition antiracism as a central issue. This, for example, is the tone of the document Com racismo não há democracia ⁵ of the Coalizão Negra por Direitos (Black Coalition for Rights), which represents more than 100 Brazilian black organizations. Documents like this one point to the importance of understanding the centrality of race for understanding and rebuilding the country. If racism is a structural phenomenon in Brazilian society, then we need structural public policies to overcome the harm it has caused.

While the Pandora's box opened by Bolsonarism reveals evils that have always been present in Brazilian society, it also provokes a response from this society’s democratic and antiracist actors. Only by recognizing race will we be able to challenge the racism present in the state, in civil society, and even in ourselves as individuals. Closing Pandora’s box is the job of all social actors committed to antiracism.