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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsXipe Totec
(43,890 posts)I'm in love with her voice
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)At a Blues Alley concert in DC.
She was very gracious and friendly. I wish that I had taken a camera with me that night.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Flora Purim - SARARA
In Brazil, a sarará (Portuguese pronunciation: (saɾɐˈɾa) or (saɾaˈɾa)) is a multiracial person, being a particular kind of mulato or juçara (a tri-racial pardo with Amerindian features), with perceivable Negroid facial features, light complexion and fair but curly hair, called cabelo crespo, or fair but Afro-like frizzly hair, called carapinha, cabelo encarapinhado or cabelo pixaim (IPA: (piʃɐˈĩˑ ). In the 1998 IBGE PME (Monthly Employment Survey), 0.04% of respondents identified, in an inquiry on race/colour, as "sarará".[1]
While the emphasis on fair skin in Brazil is not as visible as in other post-colonial societies, with many preferring and advocating the moreno or olive skin beauty type, European facial features and hair texture are a beauty standard in Brazil, and many people of diverse backgrounds use flat irons and chemical hair treatments to pass their hair as straight or wavy. In a society that divides between "white" and "black", sararás will be placed together with the Brown-skinned pardos as non-whites, despite their fair complexion and hair.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)Truly you had a unique, enviable experience.
I would trade places with you in an instance.
I have to tell you: It took almost a lifetime for me to realize, or recognize, that I was white.
Surrounded by towheadeded siblings and being the only one who could actually tan, I always saw myself as the 'darkie' in the family. I'm not kidding. I saw myself as the only one who actually had some Indian blood in me. My siblings were pure Spaniards in my mind.
I was proud of me.
I felt that, if any one of us had a right to grow up in Mexico, it was me because I was dark. I practically felt like a direct descendant of Cuauhtémoc.
But, no matter how I saw myself, the rest of the world around me saw me as a güerito; a blondie. And treated me with that deference bestowed upon the white privileged class.
I swear, I was not conscious of it. In my mind I was a mestizo, or a mulatto, or even a coyote; a mix of Indian and black blood.
It has taken many years of living in the US to see myself for what I am; a member of the white class.
I can drive into any truck stop, or stop at any shack by the side of the road and when people see me they think: 'white'
They even make jokes about 'those fucking messkins' right to my face, never knowing I'm one of those 'fucking messkins'.
It's weird. Really, really weird, to watch these rednecks drop their britches right in front of me and show the true depth of their bigotry.
It's a privilege, actually, I feel like a spy among them now.
Someone to whom they confide the deepest darkest secrets of their rotting disgusting racist souls.
God help them.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Looking as I do in this country, to others outside of my family, a lot of people didn't know what to make of me. When I was growing u, you were either white or black in Detroit, not a lot of room for someone who didn't fit into either category.
But it was amazing to me that I had loved that song for many years and didn't know what it meant, because I can't speak of lick of Portuguese. And she told me that after all that time, that song was about someone like me.
I'll never forget that moment with Flora Purim.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)Truly an enviable encounter.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)and that laid-back Brazilian hipness. One of my favorite albums of all time is Chick Corea's Light As A Feather, with Flora Purim doing several great songs and Airto providing incredible percussion. Each tune on this album is a shiny jewel. And Joe Farrell on sax still gets me high without any other aide.