Afro-Brazilians – a category that includes Black and mixed-race people – comprise 56% of Brazil’s population but 43% of elected officials. So when almost 29,000 Afro-Brazilian city council and mayoral candidates took office on Jan. 1 after winning their races last November, communities of color celebrated their growing political representation.

But Brazilian politics may not be as diverse as official statistics suggest.

More than 42,000 veteran politicians who ran for office in 2020 had changed their self-declared race since their last campaign, potentially to gain access to new campaign financing earmarked for Black candidates.

Of the 28,764 winners who identified as Afro-Brazilian last year, 16% – 4,580 people – had identified themselves as a different race when they ran for office in 2016, data from Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court shows. Nearly all were previously registered as white, according to my analysis of Brazil’s race-switching politicians. The data analyzed does not include first-time candidates, whose past racial identification is not documented.

Brazilians were outraged when they learned that so many veteran politicians had decided to identify as Black. Black voters are left questioning whether the lawmakers actually understand their experience as a marginalized majority – and represent their needs in the halls of power.

(Feb 1, 2021 04:58 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Should leftists oppose this if its ok for biological males or females to just declare they're the opposite sex? Are you a hypocrite if you do oppose whites declaring themselves blacks? IDK

(Feb 1, 2021 05:48 PM)Syne Wrote:

(Feb 1, 2021 04:58 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Should leftists oppose this if its ok for biological males or females to just declare they're the opposite sex? Are you a hypocrite if you do oppose whites declaring themselves blacks? IDK

Yes, leftists are always hypocrites. They accept transgenderism, although the science, they also disingenuously claim to accept, clearly defines sex/gender by DNA. Race is a much less rigorous classification than sex/gender, as it is almost wholly about appearances. So they are actually going against science to accept transgenders and enforcing a racist segregation by demanding you can't identify as another race.