Abstract
Barack Obama’s election to the US Presidency was hailed as laying the foundations for a new era of ‘post-racial politics’. His victory was seen as a turning point in global politics and society. In her book Barack Obama Is Brazilian: (Re)Signifying Race Relations in Contemporary Brazil, Emanuelle K. F. Oliveira-Monte explores the significance of Obama’s victory for Brazil – ‘a country famous for its racial democracy myth and where the majority of the population is of African ancestry’ (p. vii). She argues that Obama’s election has had ‘a tremendous impact on the collective unconscious of the African diaspora’ (p. vii) because he represents ‘“a sense of possibility”; that is, a sense that everything is possible’ (p. 150). In her view, a key question his victory posed for her country was whether it was possible for them to elect a Black president too. Oliveira-Monte investigates what Obama’s victory means to Brazil by examining his depictions in the Brazilian media and exploring whether they ‘confirm or challenge Brazil’s racial relations imaginary’ (p. 6). Her argument is that ‘if Brazil could not elect a black president, Brazilians had to show how Obama was not really American, but in reality a “true” Brazilian, if not by his nationality, then by his “essence”’ (p. 6). The book is divided into six chapters – Introduction and Conclusion, and four substantive chapters. Chapter 2, ‘Obama Dreams of Brazil: A Mulatto in the Land of Racial Democracy’, analyses two books – Obama’s memoir Dreams from My Father and a Brazilian book called If It Were Not for Brazil, Barack Obama Would Have Never Been Born. It also discusses the media’s representation of the relationship between Brazilian President Lula and Obama. Chapter 3, ‘Barack Obama Is Brazilian’, explores Brazilian artists’ reimagination of Obama as Brazilian. It provides interesting examples of the process of (re)appropriation of the US President as Brazilian – from him joking that he looked like a Brazilian to his association with Brazilian symbols of national identity such as football and samba. However, Oliveira-Monte also provides examples of negative portrayals of Obama, including representations of him as ‘the dominant face of imperialism, threatening to exploit Brazilian natural resources’ (p. 10). Chapter 4, ‘Obama and Dilma in Love: Race and Gender in the Realm of Political Humor’, explores Obama’s relationship with the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff by focusing on humorous Internet blogs and memes and by depicting ‘the construction of an Obama seduced by the Brazilian charms of Dilma Rousseff, who consequently finds himself immersed in the nation’s mythic ideals of racial accord’ (p. 13). Chapter 5, ‘“Our” Candidate Obama: Barack Obama in the Brazilian Elections’ then explores the ‘Obamization’ of Brazilian politics – the obsession with Obama during the Brazilian elections, manifesting itself in various ways, including examples of how some candidates renamed themselves after the US President. The conclusion then focuses on the significance of more recent events such as Brexit, the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency, Rousseff’s impeachment and the rise of ‘Trump-like candidates’ (p. 147) in Brazil. Oliveira-Monte argues that these developments suggest that ‘diversity, which has been a core value of the turn of the twentieth to the twenty-first century, has been giving way to homogenization’ (p. 146). Some of the questions she poses will be relevant for years to come, for example: ‘Will Obama’s symbols of hope and change, so significant for Afro-Brazilians, be gradually dislodged by a wave of racism, sexism, and xenophobia?’ (p. 147). The book is an excellent read for scholars and students from around the world who have been grappling with similar issues.