Note from BW of Brazil: For the understanding the context of race and how racism functions in Brazil, it is necessary to comprehend the unique brand of social engineering that has taken place in the country over the past five centuries. Brazil’s particular form of racial ideology has perhaps more in common with that of other Latin American countries than with the United States and South Africa, two racist regimes to which comparisons are often to made. But regardless of comparisons and contrasts with those two nations, Brazil’s manner of discriminating against its population of African descent is every bit as brutal and arguably more effective in maintaining its hierarchy. Simply put, Brazil’s particular form of psychological enslavement was such that many people who are seen as black and/or treated as black (even having varying degrees of mixed ancestry) don’t necessarily see themselves as such. Which is a potent mechanism…