Rising black self-identification tracks reduced stigma and affirmative action, not just birth rates

Evidence

This recent bump in blackness was accompanied by the mildly progressive embrace of affirmative action programs introduced initially, if barely enacted, by President Cardoso and implemented more emphatically by the Lula administration. Lula has also prompted an emergent social discussion around redress, largely undercut by the more recent corruption scandal that has plagued his administration. But the increase among blacks demographically was not the product simply of a relatively high birth rate. It followed also from a modestly diminishing stigma attached to being black and practicing what is perceived as “black culture,” or cultural practices embedding African retentions. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1187

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the classic ‘passing’/whitening dynamic — here desirability of black identity increases as stigma falls, echoing shifts described in racial passing literature.