The moreno identity masks racial discrimination and hardens with age and class mobility

Evidence

The moreno, then, is the symbol of racial democracy actualized, racelessness materialized. The proof is in the melt of color and culture. The moreno’s popularity obscures discriminations against darker-skinned Brazilians, diluting the possibility of their identification in the alchemical mix. While roughly 40 percent of Brazilians self-identify as moreno, as Bailey and Telles point out, youth do so more readily, as do those who are otherwise white, and poorer people. Identification with the moreno tends to give way to hardening racial distinctions, by contrast, as people grow older and enter the workplace, and with class mobility, in short, as the experience of racisms materialize and multiply. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1190

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Goldberg’s broader argument on racial neoliberalism and colorblind ideology; also resonates with US colorism/‘‘passing’’ literatures.
• ADDENDUM: Pushes beyond the ‘Grafting’ article’s infrastructure metaphor into how social categories materialize and harden through life-course experience.