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| Léo Moura of Flamengo, wife Camila |
This is part 3 of our series; see part 1 and part 2
“It is the blondes who prefer black men”
With less reason but more emotion, the sports instructor Cristiano dos Santos, 26, married for five months with a blonde, is also part of those who believe that this choice, according to his standards, has obvious reasons: “They are more beautiful, more seductive, more cultured.”
Cristiano is from Rio de Janeiro, he lives in Dourados, (state of) Mato Grosso do Sul and says that he talks a lot about the subject with his friends, most of them married to white women: “We talked a lot about it because we have felt discrimination first hand. I lost my mind because of it. But today, I don’t care anymore, even though everyone says I married my wife because she is white, she has a degree in Psychology, and because her family has money. It doesn’t enter people’s minds that it was the love that brought us together.”
“Relieving” the black man’s consciousness, there is another factor to consider when it comes to mixed relationships. And it is once again Antônio Campos who speaks: “The truth is that it is white women who prefer black men. Since, it’s clear, they have something to offer.”
“This is the point”, confirms anthropologist Ana Lúcia. “They prefer blondes, but the reverse is true. They (white women) also prefer black men. And this only reinforces the ambiguity of race relations in Brazil. For this reason mixed couples bother people so much. The blonde next to the black man, somehow, shows that she is not racist. She goes to bed with him, she has children with him. I mean, they put down the banner of racism. Now, if the relationship between the two doesn’t work out, if the black man leaves the blonde for any other woman, she can take on the attitude that ‘blacks, if they don’t mess something up when they come in, they mess up something when they leave…’ and ‘it’s a good thing that they warned me’ etc, etc.”
In the analysis of psychologist Sérgio Ferreira, black men close the door of affection with the black woman because to accept her he would have to really identify with her.
In the view of Sueli Carneiro, of Geledés – Black Women’s Institute – “for black men and women that are engaged and committed to changing the social and racial relations in Brazil and abroad, their partners, when they are white, are not objects of consumption, status symbol nor a guarantee of social mobility: they are our fellow human beings who do not symbolize success, but the possibility of the meeting, solidarity and love between different racial and ethnic groups.”
The bad thing is that in mixed relationships, often times, blacks no longer manage to maintain their identity.
Successful black + blonde woman
It’s not necessary to search for examples of the now classic formula: “successful black man + blonde woman.” Just focus your eyes on the soccer fields or the stage. The former minister of sports, Pelé, for those that don’t remember, was (blond TV host) Xuxa’s boyfriend. The list has, among others, the Corinthian soccer team players Gilmar and Marcelinho Carioca and most emblematic of all cases: Ronaldinho, the fiancee of Susan Werner. Among the Pagode (music) groups, who doesn’t think of Alexandre Pires and Carla Perez?
As noted by the psychologist Sérgio Ferreira: “The successful black men does not have the economic issue, but they have the concrete question of color, in other words, although they have more money, they can’t get rid of their black color. He seeks in the blonde his white side.”
For Sueli Carneiro of Geledés “any black man in Brazil, for all the fame, or for all the social mobility that he experiences, he has no real power, if he is ‘successful’ individually he only serves to legitimize the myth of racial democracy.”
“The black man,” she says, “uses the white woman as an emblem or a guarantee of his success.”
The discussion
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| Roundtable discussion on black men/white women |
The huge controversy caused by the article Why do They Prefer Blondes, in issue No. 26 of Raça Brasil, paid off. We selected amongst the hundreds of letters that came to our newsroom, those that synthesized the thinking of readers of the magazine. The authors, more women than men, were invited to a debate on the subject. Five of them agreed to participate and attended the Editora Símbolo headquarters. For nearly two hours, they discussed this issue in a frank, open manner. The results are what you will read in the following article.
Research
Many black men prefer blondes. And this fact is not a new.
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| Soccer legend Pelé and former wife Assiria |
What has changed, in this, the end of this millennium, has been the standard of visibility especially of black men who have been highlighted in the media: in the rhythm of the Pagode, in politics or even through the old national passion, soccer. Our Pelé, in fact, may have been the first black man to open up this reality when he was at the height of his fame, in the 1960s and 70s. His first wife, Rose, was white and his daughter, Kelly Cristina, was also born “white”, at least that’s what he put on her birth certificate, causing outrage among black activists of the Movimento Negro at the time.
At the time, Pelé was anointed the great traitor to the race – also, he was our only black “king”. Not now. Last year, the World Cup showed our players with white women, blondes. The boys of the Pagode, with rare exceptions, loved to show off women of light complexion and hair at their side, and from what we know, never did our mulatas ever earn a tenth of what the blondes of Axé music have conquested, with only the grind of their hips.
For all these reasons, the magazine decided to finally investigate why black men prefer blondes. The result of our research came out in issue 26 and became a topic of discussion in bars, unions, TV shows, family reunions and obliged many couples to rethink their relationships.
There’s no doubt that love sees no color. But it is also clear that no one loves what they don’t admire; what one doesn’t like one doesn’t even accept in principle.
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| Joel Rufino dos Santos |
In this article, we chose to interview mostly black men, i.e., those “accused” of preferring blondes, in order to understand their reasons, their feelings. We also sought the views of black professionals capable of analyzing the “phenomenon”; people like the psychologist Sérgio Ferreira da Silva, the historian Joel Rufino dos Santos and black men who were successful or not, married to white women, such as sports instructor Cristiano dos Santos and a business administrator identified by the letters PD, among others.
There were indeed black men that preferred white women who didn’t even try to justify themselves for finding this natural choice. There were others, however, who know that by denying the black woman, shutting the door of affections for the black woman, they were denying their origin, mother, father, brother, family…And all this because they had grown up hearing that black is ugly, dirty, a donkey, a monkey, incompetent and everything bad that has been associated by the Portuguese language itself, to the words for black: preto and negro.
I mean, it’s understandable that he wants to escape, that he feels oppressed. Moreover, it is clear that this man needs help so that he can exist and be the subject of his own history. Women like the philosopher Sueli Carneiro, of Geledés – Black Women’s Institute, and the post-doctorate in Anthropology at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Ana Lúcia Valente, both black, were able to perceive the suffering of black men that fight not in order not to be what they are, that has a complex of low self-esteem, far more than the woman, who has an inferiority complex, who seeks a white woman – any white woman – to re-establish his manhood.
Source: Raça Brasil
Related articles
Why do black Brazilian men prefer blondes, Part 1
Why do black Brazilian men prefer blondes, Part 2
White female soccer fans on dating black players: “If he weren’t a player, I’d stay with my little white guy”, Black men, white women in Brazil: Although common, still a taboo
Just when I thought that some of the Black Men in America were tripping. We have some brothers in Brazil that have lost their “DAM MIND”.
This is a message to all my Beautiful Black Sisters in Brazil. It will come a time when he wish that he chose you.
You always get some LOST BROTHER that identify with the GENTILE, more than he identify with the woman who likes the woman that brought him in the world.
Maybe they want the white women because as dark skinned black men they were rejected often by black women in their formative years.
Maybe they want to one-up white men
Maybe they want to try something “different”, exotic
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might state. This is the very first time I frequented your web page and
thus far? I surprised with the analysis you made to make
this actual submit extraordinary. Magnificent job!
These men are crazy! Black women are the best! I would never date a white woman.
“Rape of the Sabines.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women