Nearly 85% of black Brazilians say they have suffered racial prejudice
Of every 100 black people in Brazil, 84 report having suffered racial discrimination. The figures can be found in a survey sponsored by the Ministry of Racial Equality released this week. It lists experiences faced by Brazilians in a number of everyday activities. Items include:
- I am treated less kindly than other people.
- I am treated with less respect than other people.
- I receive worse service than other people in restaurants and stores.
- People act as if they were afraid of me.
- I am threatened or harassed.
- I am followed around in stores.
Respondents had to indicate whether these happened always, often, rarely, or never, putting discrimination on a scale.
Responses show that just over half of the black population (51.2%) report being treated less kindly. Among pardo people, this level stands at 44.9 percent. Among white Brazilians, the proportion is 13.9 percent. The pattern repeats itself in other criteria:
| Black | Pardo | White | |
|
Treated with less respect |
49.5% |
32.1% |
9.7% |
|
Service is worse |
57% |
28.6% |
7.7% |
|
Followed around in stores |
21.3% |
8.5% |
8.5% |
The survey, conducted by the nonprofits Vital Strategies Brasil and Umane, collected information online from 2,458 people from August through September 2024. The sample was weighted to accurately represent the Brazilian population.
When it announced the partnership in August last year, the Ministry of Racial Equality explained that the aim of the survey was to look into public data on the health of black Brazilians, with a focus on promoting public policies against racism in public health care.
The research received technical from the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel) and the Devive Institute. Both Devive and the researchers are active in public health care.
Prejudice
According to the director of Vital Strategies Brasil, Pedro de Paula, the results reinforce the perception of the “brutal racial inequality found in Brazil.”
“We see the abyss that exists in the discrimination experienced in people’s everyday lives in Brazil. There’s one group living primarily and routinely with discrimination,” he noted.
In addition to measuring the existence of discrimination, the researchers sought to ascertain what types of prejudice the respondents had faced.
While 84 percent of the black population said it was related to skin color, among white people this percentage stood at 8.3 percent. For pardo individuals, this number was 10.8 percent.
Other forms of discrimination named include sexual orientation, income, religion, and obesity.
The study also found strata that had suffered more than one case of discrimination. The worst situation is faced by black women—72 percent.
This is followed by black men, with 62.1 percent. In the white population, the proportions are 30.5 percent for women and 52.9 percent for men.
Social inequality
The data placing black people as the most vulnerable in of suffering discrimination are combined with other statistics depicting racial inequality in Brazil.
The Atlas da Violência (“Atlas of Violence”), released last week, reveals that being a black person in Brazil means having a 2.7 times greater risk of being a victim of homicide than a non-black person.
The 2022 census, carried out by the statistics bureau IBGE, found that black and pardo people for 72.9 percent of favela dwellers.
The Continuous National Household Sample Survey, also by IBGE, showed that black (8.4%) and pardo Brazilians (8%) have a higher unemployment rate than their white counterparts (5.6%).
A course of action
The data show where efforts to combat discrimination should be focused, the experts behind the study believe. The results also stress the need for public policies targeting discrimination also in areas such as health care.
“We know there’s much more obstetric violence against black women than against white women. We know there’s much less access; we know there’s much less dispensation of analgesia and other types of medication for black people,” Director Pedro de Paula said.
“Any group, any organization, government, nonprofit, or company addressing social issues in Brazil has a commitment to fight against this structure, which is unequal in every respect—especially from a racial point of view,” he added.
