Opening Pandora's Box: The Extreme Right and the Resurgence of Racism in Brazil

• Author: Joaze Bernardino-Costa
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221147596
• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221147596

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 248, Vol. 50 No. 1, January 2023, 98–114

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221147596

© 2023 Latin American Perspectives

98

Opening Pandora's Box

The Extreme Right and the Resurgence of Racism in Brazil

by

Joaze Bernardino-Costa

Translated by

Heather Hayes

The emergence of Bolsonarism as a face of the extreme right in Brazil has come out of the

articulation of several groups mobilized on social networks around a handful of key ideas

including moral conservatism, economic liberalism, patriotism, public security, and a com-

mon enemy. Research on social networks and articles in the press shows that Bolsonarism

has opened a Pandora's box, releasing behavior that combines racist antiracialism and racist

racialism and that aims to dismantle the recent achievements of black and indigenous groups.

A emergência do Bolsonarismo como manifestação da extrema direita no Brasil deve

sua origem à articulação de vários grupos que se mobilizaram nas redes sociais em torno

de um conjunto de idéias chaves que inclui um inimigo comum, um conservadorismo

moral, um liberalismo econômico, o patriotismo e a segurança pública. Estudos sobre as

redes sociais e artigos nos jornais mostram que o Bolsonarismo tem abrido uma caixa de

Pandora, fomentando um comportamento que combina o antiracialismo racista com um

racialismo racista que almeja desmontar os sucessos recentes conseguidos por grupos

negros e indígenas.

Keywords: Bolsonarism, Far right, Social networks, Racism, Antiracism

Jair Bolsonaro's rise to the Presidency of the Republic in Brazil was accom-

panied by, on the one hand, the threat of the destruction of the antiracist poli-

cies adopted by previous governments and, on the other, the creation of

incentives for racist behavior that until recently had not been publicly admit-

ted in Brazil.1 His election led to the emergence of Bolsonarism, “a phenome-

non that transcends the very figure of Jair Bolsonaro and is characterized by

an ultraconservative worldview, preaching a return to traditional values and

assuming a nationalist and patriotic rhetoric deeply critical of everything that

Joaze Bernardino-Costa is an associate professor of sociology at the Universidade de Brasília

and author of Saberes subalternos e decolonialidade: Os sindicatos das trabalhadoras domésticas no

Brasil (2015) and Decolonialidade e pensamento Afrodiaspórico (2018). He thanks the anonymous

reviewers of Latin American Perspectives, Sales Augusto do Santos, and Emerson Ferreira Rocha

for their comments. This work has been supported by the Swedish Research Council

(Vetenskapsrådet) research project “Principles and Practice in Approaches to Deracialization:

Countering the Social Dynamics of Contemporary Racialization in Brazil, South Africa, Sweden,

and the United Kingdom” (2016-04759). Heather Hayes is a translator living in Quito, Ecuador.

1147596LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221147596Latin American PerspectivesBernardino-Costa/THE EXTREME RIGHT AND RACISM

research-article2023

Bernardino-Costa/THE EXTREME RIGHT AND RACISM 99

is minimally identified with the left and progressivism” (Freixo and Pinheiro-

Machado, 2019: 19). From a racial point of view, Bolsonarism is equivalent to

the enthronement of whiteness, the mistaken belief in the superiority of white

people over other racial groups and, at the same time, the belief that the white

man represents universality—a group that has no social markers. Within this

logic, it is proposed that race be eliminated from our lexicon, given that only

blacks and indigenous people possess social markers. Meanwhile, whiteness

is seen as the default identity, making it universal. Although there are black

people in the government apparatus, they exist there only to deny the antira-

cist agenda.

While until Bolsonaro's election it was believed that Brazil was a cordial,

tolerant, and friendly country, today we are faced with an image of a country

that for a long time we refused to recognize. Just as Pandora's box, in Greek

mythology, when opened, letall the evils of the world escape, Bolsonarism

revealed an intolerant, racist, homophobic, sexist, misogynist, antirefugee,

denialist, antiscientific country that has proved to be a defender of dictatorship,

the military, and torture. Bolsonaro's election campaign slogan "Brazil above

everything, God above everyone" is but one example of his refusal to mention

particular groups. When it comes to racial issues, he has apparently chosen to

understand the Brazilian people as an amorphous and homogeneous mass

made up simply of Brazilians instead of recognizing the existence of racial dis-

tinctions. In concrete terms, the refusal to recognize the existence of race as a

social category is equivalent to the refusal to recognize racism in the country

and the need to develop antiracist policies.

In these efforts to generate an image of the country as a nation free of racial

problems, thereby reinforcing the myth of racial democracy, the president and

his supporters have produced an antiblack, anti-indigenous, and antiquilom-

bola racist discourse. This tone of the Bolsonaro government constitutes an

“authoritative” attitude toward its supporters. To a certain extent, the govern-

ment's behavior is a conduit for the manifestation of racism by other Brazilians

who identify with its ideology. What we have seen in recent years is the open-

ing of Pandora's box through the ongoing manifestation of racist speeches and

practices in a country that, until recently, imagined itself as nonracist and toler-

ant. Part of the explanation for this phenomenon lies in Bolsonarism. This is the

most palpable expression of the extreme right, characterized by the confluence

and consolidation of a variety of groups that mobilize mainly on social net-

works around certain key ideas including the perception of a common enemy

(the left, in general, and the Partido dos Trabalhadores [Workers’ Party—PT],

in particular), moral conservatism (defense of the traditional family, patriarchy,

and a Christian nation), economic liberalism (neoliberalism, the theology of

prosperity, the inviolability of private property, and entrepreneurship), patrio-

tism (Brazil above everything), and public safety (as in the saying that the only

good criminal is a dead criminal).

Jair Bolsonaro's and Bolsonarism's modus operandi has numerous conse-

quences when it comes to what we would call an egalitarian agenda and respect

for human rights. One of the dimensions strongly affected and under threat is

antiracism. In this article, I will discuss the threat of destruction of an antiracist

agenda that has been gradually coming together since the redemocratization of