This was written last year at around the time of the World Cup. I have just seen it, forwarded to me by my nephew; but it still seems appropriate in the context of Brazil's enduring miserably mediocre footballing performances at the Copa America and the equally enduring inequality and racism of Brazil's people of African descent.

10 minutes read

Neymar and the Disappearing Donkey

June 17, 2014

Leia este em Português aqui.

By the time you read this, it's possible that every single person on the planet will know who Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior is.

The image above is of Neymar from five days ago.

This is Neymar from one year ago:

This is Neymar from three years ago:

This is Neymar from five years ago:

This is little Neymar with his family:

You could come to any number of conclusions from Neymar's remarkable transformation. For instance, you could conclude that race doesn't exist in Brazil, which is the favourite line of a specific tribe of Brazilians – impeccable liberals all, who just happen to be upper-class, white and at the top of the heap.

Or you could conclude that everyone in Brazil is indeed mixed – which is, incidentally, the second-favourite line of the selfsame tribe.

Or you could wonder what happened to this boy.

***

It's too easy to condemn Neymar for pretending to be white: judging by the images, he is partly white. It's silly to accuse him of denying his mixed-race ancestry, because the simplest search throws up hundreds of images of him as a child, none of which he seems to be ashamed of. There is this: when asked if he had ever been a victim of racism, he said, "Never. Neither inside nor outside the field. Because I'm not black right?"

Actually, the word he used was preto, which is significant, since, in Brazil, when used as a colour ascribed to people – rather than things, like rice or beans – it is the equivalent of the n-word; negro and negra being the acceptable ways of describing someone who is truly black. (And moreno or morena being standard descriptors for someone dark-skinned, as well as, occasionally, euphemisms for blackness). Technically speaking, however, his logic was faultless – and even kind of interestingly honest: the Neymar who made that statement was an unworldly eighteen-year-old who had never lived outside Brazil. And in Brazil, Neymar is not black.

***

In 1976, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics ran a household survey that marked a crucial departure from other census exercises. The Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) did not ask Brazilians to choose a race category among pre-determined choices; instead, researchers went out and asked people to describe the colour they thought they were.

This is what was returned:

	Acastanhada	Somewhat chestnut-coloured
	Agalegada	Somewhat like a Galician
	Alva	Snowy white
	Alva escura	Dark snowy white
	Alvarenta	(not in dictionary; poss. dialect) Snowy white
	Alvarinta	Snowy white
	Alva rosada	Pinkish white
	Alvinha	Snowy white
	Amarela	Yellow
	Amarelada	Yellowish
	Amarela-queimada	Burnt yellow
	Amarelosa	Yellowy
	Amorenada	Somewhat dark-skinned
	Avermelhada	Reddish
	Azul	Blue
	Azul-marinho	Sea blue
	Baiano	From Bahia
	Bem branca	Very white
	Bem clara	Very pale
	Bem morena	Very dark-skinned
	Branca	White
	Branca-avermelhada	White going on for red
	Branca-melada	Honey-coloured white
	Branca-morena	White but dark-skinned
	Branca-pálida	Pale white
	Branca-queimada	Burnt white
	Branca-sardenta	Freckled white
	Branca-suja	Off-white
	Branquiça	Whitish
	Branquinha	Very white
	Bronze	Bronze-coloured
	Bronzeada	Sun-tanned
	Bugrezinha-escura	Dark-skinned India
	Burro-quando-foge	Disappearing donkey (i.e. nondescript) humorous
	Cabocla	Copper-coloured ( refers to civilized Indians)
	Cabo-verde	From Cabo Verde (Cape Verde)
	Café	Coffee-coloured
	Café-com-leite	Café au lait
	Canela	Cinnamon
	Canelada	Somewhat like cinnamon
	Cardão	Colour of the cardoon, or thistle (blue-violet)
	Castanha	Chestnut
	Castanha-clara	Light chestnut
	Castanha-escura	Dark chestnut
	Chocolate	Chocolate-coloured
	Clara	Light-coloured, pale
	Clarinha	Light-coloured, pale
	Cobre	Copper-coloured
	Corada	With a high colour
	Cor-de-café	Coffee-coloured
	Cor-de-canela	Cinnamon-coloured
	Cor-de-cuia	Gourd-coloured
	Cor-de-leite	Milk-coloured (i.e. milk-white)
	Cor-de-ouro	Gold-coloured (i.e. golden)
	Cor-de-rosa	Pink
	Cor-firme	Steady-coloured
	Crioula	Creole
	Encerada	Polished
	Enxofrada	Pallid
	Esbranquecimento	Whitening
	Escura	Dark
	Escurinha	Very dark
	Fogoió	Having fiery-coloured hair
	Galega	Galician or Portuguese
	Galegada	Somewhat like a Galician or Portuguese
	Jambo	Light-skinned (the colour of a type of apple)
	Laranja	Orange
	Lilás	Lilac
	Loira	Blonde
	Loira-clara	Light blonde
	Loura	Blonde
	Lourinha	Petite blonde
	Malaia	Malaysian woman
	Marinheira	Sailor-woman
	Marrom	Brown
	Meio-amarela	Half-yellow
	Meio-branca	Half-white
	Meio-morena	Half dark-skinned
	Meio-preta	Half-black
	Melada	Honey-coloured
	Mestiça	Half-caste/mestiza
	Miscigenação	Miscegenation
	Mista	Mixed
	Morena	Dark-skinned, brunette
	Morena-bem-chegada	Very nearly morena
	Morena-bronzeada	Sunburnt morena
	Morena-canelada	Somewhat cinnamon-coloured morena
	Morena-castanha	Chestnut-coloured morena
	Morena-clara	Light-skinned morena
	Morena-cor-de-canela	Cinnamon-coloured morena
	Morena-jambo	Light-skinned morena
	Morenada	Somewhat morena
	Morena-escura	Dark morena
	Morena-fechada	Dark morena
	Morenão	Dark-complexioned man
	Morena-parda	Dark morena
	Morena-roxa	Purplish morena
	Morena-ruiva	Red-headed morena
	Morena-trigueira	Swarthy, dusky morena
	Moreninha	Petite morena
	Mulata	Mulatto girl
	Mulatinha	Little mulatto girl
	Negra	Negress
	Negrota	Young negress
	Pálida	Pale
	Paraíba	From Paraíba
	Parda	Brown
	Parda-clara	Light brown
	Parda-morena	Brown morena
	Parda-preta	Black-brown
	Polaca	Polish woman
	Pouco-clara	Not very light
	Pouco-morena	Not very dark-complexioned
	Pretinha	Black – either young, or small
	Puxa-para-branco	Somewhat towards white
	Quase-negra	Almost negro
	Queimada	Sunburnt
	Queimada-de-praia	Beach sunburnt
	Queimada-de-sol	Sunburnt
	Regular	Regular, normal
	Retinta	Deep-dyed, very dark
	Rosa	Rose-coloured (or the rose itself)
	Rosada	Rosy
	Rosa-queimada	Sunburnt-rosy
	Roxa	Purple
	Ruiva	Redhead
	Russo	Russian
	Sapecada	Singed
	Sarará	Yellow-haired negro
	Saraúba	(poss. dialect) Untranslatable
	Tostada	Toasted
	Trigo	Wheat
	Trigueira	Brunette
	Turva	Murky
	Verde	Green
	Vermelha	Red

Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, an anthropologist at the University of São Paulo, has a range of astonishing insights around this historic survey; her paper, Not black, not white: just the opposite. Culture, race and national identity in Brazil, from which the table is reproduced, is a gem. (She also has a book that examines the early history of the subject: The Spectacle of the Races: Scientists, Institutions, and the Race Question in Brazil, 1870-1930).

Schwarcz's work is filled with thoughtful, original analysis, and is characterised by an unusual fearlessness. (Unusual, that is, for a subject so complicated). Reading her is a revelation; it turns out there is a real place hiding under that avalanche of clichés. If you've ever wondered how crushing racism can flourish in a country where, apparently, race itself has been crushed, consider that everything Brazil is defined by – from its "we-are-all-mixed" anthem, to feijoada, capoeira and candomblé, right down to samba and soccer – is the result of an insidious, revisionist, far-sighted political manoeuvre of the 1930s, courtesy the combined skills of popular intellectual Gilberto Freyre and populist dictator Getúlio Vargas. The battered body of slave culture was abducted by national culture in order to renew white culture.

Among the many eye-popping results reported in the PNAD survey, the one I am most drawn to is burro quando foge. You'll find it up there in the table at No. 34. Google inexplicably translates the phrase as "saddle", which is awesome, since it means that Lusofonia still keeps some secrets beyond the reach of the behemoth. Burro quando foge is translated by Schwarcz, within the constraints of a column slot, as "the disappearing donkey" and explained as a humorous phrase that denotes a nondescript colour.

Which it is – and then some. The metaphor is unique to Brazil, and signifies a colour. That colour could be nondescript, ill-defined, elusive, or ugly – and, just to make things really clear, also fawn, beige, or a tricky shade of brown. The sentiment conveyed in the phrase is just as interesting. Used between friends, it could pass for a joke. Otherwise, it almost always denotes something unpleasant. It's usually used an insult, although – oddly enough, given the colours and sentiments – it's not specifically a racial insult.

Of all the one hundred and thirty six colours of race in Brazil, this is my favourite. It's flippant and factual and fictional all at once, and as such, suits me perfectly. Race is not a term that has much currency in India, where I live. It is, however, a central feature of Johannesburg and São Paulo, the two cities I occasionally work in, and as much as I'm aware of how privileged I am not to be wholly subject to it, I feel curiously bereft of race in both places. Certainly, I grew up with colour: being a dark-skinned child in a uniformly light-skinned family meant that I had to regularly contend with well-meaning relatives who'd pinch my cheeks and chide me for "losing my colour" – as though my skin tone was something I had brought upon myself in a fit of absent-mindedness. To choose a race then: Indian might work for some people, but it is both my passport and my residence, and that's quite enough. Brown is too generic, and black, a bit too unbelievable, all things considered. Given that I spent my childhood reading Gerald Durrell and dreaming of donkeys, adopting their colour seems right in so many ways.

***

And where does that leave our boy wonder? We might start with the Estado Novo, Vargas' authoritarian reign between 1937 and 1945. Only a few years earlier, Freyre had published the crowning achievement of his career, Casa-Grande e Senzala, ("The Big House and the Slave Quarters", released in English as The Masters and the Slaves), and the book was catching fire. Freyre's central theory was something he called Lusotropicalism. It told a soothing story of the past (by casting the Portuguese as a kinder, gentler breed of imperial slaver), offered a handy solution for the present (by turning the mixing of races into a virtue) and held out an appealing conclusion, namely, the idea that Brazil was a racial democracy.

Upon publication, Freyre's work immediately attracted the ire of the Portuguese nation for suggesting her citizens were prone to miscegenation. At home, however, it became Vargas' blueprint for the country he had seized – and his strategy for political survival. Three quarters of a century later, Freyre's big think remains the enduring idea of Brazil, an idea whose appeal grows in leaps and bounds across the globe and, to be sure, often escapes the clutches of its creators to dazzling effect. Still, consider the irony: the country's sense of itself as a racial democracy was smuggled in to its soul by an autocracy.

The term Estado Novo refers to a few different periods of dictatorship, and it literally translates as "new state", which is prophetic, since the words also describe a peculiar duty that is incumbent upon at least half the Brazilian population. That duty, of course, is the business of branqueamento – of whitening – of transforming, quite literally, into a new physical state. (For all his pro-miscegenation advocacy, Schwarcz notes in The Spectacle of the Races, Freyre was as keen as his critics on keeping the structure of Brazil intact: as a hierarchy with whiteness on top). In that sense, Neymar is only the latest in a long line of celebrities and Brazilians of lesser value who get it. Who get the fine print on the contract; who understand that national identity rests on racial harmony, which, in turn, rests on a kind of potential access to opportunity. Not the opportunity to be equal, mind you, but the opportunity to be white. We may gawk at him all we like, but in straightening his hair, extending it out and dyeing it blonde, Neymar was fulfilling his patriotic destiny in exactly as much as confounding the Croats and leading his team to victory last week.

***

I'll venture that the disappearing donkey colour fits Neymar to a T. After all, he is both undoubtedly and elusively brown. Yes, there is the matter of his blonde ambition. O burro fugiu, we might well ask: has the donkey left the room? I'd really like to think not. For one thing, the boy's only twenty two. He's got a whole lifetime to change his mind – and his hair. For another, I've got a whole World Cup to watch. Have a heart. I spend hours every week learning Brazilian Portuguese, I'm devoted to the country, and I come from Bangalore, a city in which Pelé is god. I do not mean this metaphorically. In a neighbourhood called Gowthampura, around the corner from where I live, residents have erected a lovely shrine to four local icons – the Buddha, Dr. Ambedkar, Mother Teresa, and the striker from Santos.

So there you have it: my hands are tied. I've got my own patriotic destiny to fulfil, and it involves rooting for Brazil, which means I'm going to need to love Neymar a lot.

I can do it.

Anyway, donkeys are famously stubborn animals. They're good at waiting.

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