Customer Reviews

Africans in Brazil: A Pan-African Perspective

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Imagine if Amiri Baraka or Nathan Mccall were Brazilian: you'd have Abdias do Nascimento. Do Nascimento argues that the portrayal of Brazil as this race-mixing paradise is a racist myth meant to deny how much the country owes to African people and influences. It's a strong tail about African pride. Many people that argue for integration and miscegenation will be turned off by this book, but hopefully they will find it a provocative read as well. This book really gave me an idea of how pan-Africanism is global. If you're an angry Black person like myself, then you are really going to like this book.

I liked this book and Abdias had a lot of great ideas on improving conditions for people of African descent. I would say that he is a mix of Malcom-X and DuBois in his thinking. Many Brazilian say that his big error was pushing for too many changes too fast! Abdias actually taught at several universities in the US while in exile. I think that it may come as a surprise to many that he never learned how to speak English and his wife had to translate his lectures as he spoke. Also surprising is that his wife is a white American woman.