Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Black Brazilian


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   redirect to Afro-Brazilian. Content disputes may not be resolved through forking an article, see WP:CFORK. Please use the article talk page to resolve the content disagreements instead.  Sandstein  07:25, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Black Brazilian

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Highly opinionated fork of Afro-Brazilian (used to be a redirect). Was brought up at Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Should be deleted or made a redirect again. Opinions? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 11:12, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * On the contrary, the opinionated article is African Brazilian, which is a collection of absurds and original research, part of a broad attempt to deny the existence or importance of Portuguese colonisation of Brazil.


 * In articles about Brazilian demography, systematically, "pardos" are relabeled as Black - even those "pardos" who have absolutely no African ancestry at all - and Brazilian Whites are reclassified as "mixed race", result of an European-Amerindian admixture. Only "actual Whites" - ie, descendants of recent European, especially Italian and German, immigrants - are acknowledged as "White". As a result, the figures for Blacks and "pardos" are conflated, the figures of descendants of immigrants are grossly exaggerated, sources are misinterpreted as saying the exact opposite of what they actually say, etc., etc., etc. This is the logic that drives the African Brazilian article, including its very title: to group together Black Brazilians and "pardos", even though this is, in the context of Brazilian culture, a very problematic move.


 * Black Brazilian should stay and be improved; perhaps the correct thing to do would be to delete African Brazilian. Ninguém (talk) 13:41, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Then would you care to explain (as has been pointed out at the NPOV-noticenoard) why Black Brazilian is based on few sources and has a host of cn-tags, whereas Afro-Brazilian has 51 sources and no cn-tags? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 13:52, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Brazil-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:20, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:21, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Afro-Brazilian because of what I typed in the NPOV noticeboard. Oh, and I agree with Seb az86556's response. B-Machine (talk) 14:44, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. First, for "African Brazilian" above (I mean, as an article title), read "Afro-Brazilian". I have to agree with Ninguém when he says above that it's a mess. As an example, let's consider its very start: Afro-Brazilian, African-Brazilian or Black Brazilian, is the term used to racially categorize Brazilian citizens who self-reported to be of black or brown (Pardo) skin colors to the official IBGE census. As of 2005, 91 million Brazilians were included in the black and brown category. So term X, term Y, and term Z (all of them English) is (sic) the term (note the singular) used to racially categorize (as opposed to some other categorization?) Brazilian citizens who checked that they were of black or brown (Pardo) skin colors (note the plural) in the official IBGE census -- as opposed, I guess, to all the unofficial IBGE censuses. Wouldn't a Portuguese census -- sorry, an official Portuguese census use a term in Portuguese? Oh, perhaps it does, and this one term is pardo. If it is pardo, then how on earth did this get translated into "Afro-Brazilian, African-Brazilian or Black Brazilian"? (Actually it isn't pardo; it's negro.) And it blunders on after that, mixing up pigmentation, the social construct of race, heredity, and so forth. By which I don't mean to say that it's all bad; rather, that it's a hell of a mess. &para; By contrast, the introduction of Black Brazilian is clear (though I can't say this for the "History" section). &para; I'd be inclined to retain (and improve) Black Brazilian for matters of "race", and to retain "Afro-Brazilian" for matters of slavery and emancipation. Or, if they are joined, to make sure that the result is not merely written in accordance with what would normally be taken as "reliable sources" but instead are written in accordance with academic works from mainstream publishers that have appeared as recently as possible. &para; Compare the article Pardo, which is good; and White Brazilian, which is grotesquely bad. -- Hoary (talk) 14:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The question here is (and I only nominated this since it was pointed out to me), which of the two articles is worse. Obviously, they both deal with the same topic, albeit with an English title. Right now, there's a double-entry, and one of them has to go. I think it makes sense to delete the shorter one with less sources, and rework the better one of the two. No? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 15:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Mm-hm. You can have largely "white" ancestry and still appear and be regarded as "black". You can have largely African ancestry and still appear and be regarded as "white". Should one article deal with both kinds of people? If so, why? (Because in north America both could be called African-Americans and Brazilians should be categorized as if north American, perhaps?) And what should the article be titled? -- Hoary (talk) 16:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * To the extent that African Brazilian has some validity, no, it is not the same thing as Black Brazilian. One thing is to be of African descent; another thing is to be socially perceived as Black. Evidently there is (much) overlapping; but conceptually they are different things. Moreso because this conflation of "preto" and "pardo" includes people who aren't neither Black nor of African descent: caboclos and acculturated Indians.


 * As Hoary hints, both articles are not good; Black Brazilian is very lacking, almost a stub, and African Brazilian is confuse. And I would say, POVed, trying to push a very specific, and practic, classification (that some, and not all, Brazilian governmental agencies use in regards to affirmative action public policies planning) as scientific truth about a complicated subject (because by this means, all discussion about race in Brazil is slanted; mixed-race people become Black, which allows for White people becoming mixed-race, which allows for only German Brazilians and Italian Brazilians being described as "actually White").


 * "African-Brazilian" isn't normally used in Brazilian political discourse (where "Negro" is preferred), nor in Brazilian daily practice (where a plethora of very different terms, with very different denotations and conotations - preto, negro, mulato, moreno, crioulo, escuro, and their diminutives and augmentatives, such as negão, mulatinha, crioulinho, etc. - are used. On the other hand, the term that most commonly links to Africa, afro-descendente, which is used in governmental discourse, is ignored in the articles. Ninguém (talk) 16:35, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and about why Black Brazilian has many fact tags, etc.

Because I included fact tags in Black Brazilian. Fact tags should be a means to help improve the articles, pointing where they need further or more precise sourcing, not a means to imply that the articles are bad.

On the other hand, African Brazilian probably has no fact tags because they were removed, more or less like these:,.

There were many articles like this, with no fact tags: White Brazilian, Immigration to Brazil, Demographics of Brazil, etc. An accurate readin shows that many of their sources absolutely do not support the articles' text (and sometimes directly contradict it); that some sources make unsupported statements and seem to be written by inexpert people; that some sources are contradictory, stating in one paragraph what they deny in the previous or following one; that some sources are of dubious quality, etc.

Some examples: in White Brazilian, Darcy Ribeiro was extensively quoted to support the idea that there are no "caboclos" in Brazil (while Ribeiro's book has a whole chapter on Caboclos); in German Brazilian, a newspaper article was given as the source for the "information" that speaking German in Brazil during WWII was forbidden under a "torture penalty" (requests for an actual law being rebuffed as a totally unheard of theory about "illegal penalties" was put up); in Immigration to Brazil the source reports about an amnesty for "illegal immigrants", but the law it reports nowhere uses the term "illegal immigrant"; in São Paulo, the article stated that thre are more than 100 ethnicities in the city, and the given source does absolutely not say it, or anything that directly implies it; again in São Paulo, a figure for descendants of Portuguese immigrants is given, together with a source, but the source merely reports a third party stating such figure, and takes no responsibility for it; in the same article, a source is given for the figure of Asian Brazilians, and it happens that the source has, for some strange reason, simply made up the figure.

I am quite certain that having a detailed look on African Brazilian sources will result in the accretion of many fact tags to the article. Ninguém (talk) 17:21, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Afro-Brazilian or delete per WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. This articles is stuffed with unverified sentences and seem to be pushing POV. It is a clear intend to insert personal conclusions and opinion on wikipedia, which is against NOR and NPOV. Lechatjaune (talk) 17:50, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete and replace with protected redirect. Clear WP:POVFORK. Verbal chat  17:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

While African Brazilian only has objective and scientific material, such as:


 * ''From this idea, since the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the Black Brazilian population is treated as the sum of the self-declared Blacks and Browns. This conception is based on the idea that Black Brazilians lie to the census and say they are Browns.

Really unbiased and unPOVed. "Brown" Brazilians are Black Brazilians who lie to the Census that they are Brown. Ninguém (talk) 18:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * So let's have a look at the 51 sources for Afro-Brazilian. First of them is the 2006 PNAD, which will be difficult to understand for those who don't read Portuguese. It points to a huge PDF, and it doesn't explain how or where you should find the information it supports. So let me explain: in the menu on the left, open "Notas Técnicas" and chose "Características Gerais e de Imigração". Scroll down until you find a blue title "Cor ou Raça". There it explains what races the Brazilian Census researchs:


 * ''Consideraram-se cinco categorias para a pessoa se classificar quanto à característica cor ou raça: branca, preta, amarela (compreendendo-se nesta categoria a pessoa que se declarou origem japonesa, chinesa, coreana etc), parda (incluindo-se nesta categoria a pessoa que se declarou mulata, cabocla, cafuza, mameluca ou mestiça de preto com pessoa de outra cor ou raça) e indígena (considerando-se nesta categoria a pessoa que se declarou indígena ou índia).


 * Basically this explains that there are five different categories concerning colour/race: White, Black, Yellow (comprising those who declared themselves of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc., origin), "parda" (comprising those who declared themselves "mulato" - ie, a mix of Black and White -, "caboclo" - ie, a mix of White and Amerindian -, "cafuzo" - ie, a mix of Amerindian and Black -, "mameluco" - ie, again a mix of White and Amerindian -, or any mix of Black and other race), and Indigenous (comprising those who self declared Indigenous or Indian). There is no mention of Blacks and "pardos" being the same thing; on the contrary, each one has a different definition.


 * Then you may close "Notas Técnicas" and open "Tabelas de resultados". Chose "Dados Gerais". In the text, chose "1.2". This will show you the table of results for "cor ou raça", colour/race. If you sum up the figures for "pardos" and "pretos", they will make for 92.69 million people (because it is the 2006 PNAD), instead of 91 million as stated in the text (which is based the 2005 PNAD). Again, the figures for Blacks and Pardos are shown separately, with no indication that they are or should be summed in any level different from the general total including all five categories.


 * Up to now, we have "pretos" and "pardos" as two different categories - in 2006, in a research conducted by an agency of the Federal Government, the IBGE. Where does the summing up of both into "African Brazilians" or "Afro-Brazilians"? From source number two, which is a paper by the Fundação Sistema de Análise de Dados - SEADE -, an agency of the São Paulo State government. There the two categories are summed up, but no explanation of why it has been done is given. As an aside, the words "Africa", "African", or "Afro-Brazilian" are not mentioned even once in this source, that should support these statements:


 * Afro-Brazilian, African-Brazilian or Black Brazilian, is the term used to racially categorize Brazilian citizens who self-reported to be of black or brown (Pardo) skin colors to the official IBGE census.


 * So now we have a Federal Government agency counting "pretos" and "pardos" separately in 2006 versus a State level Government agency counting them together in 2005. Which should prevail? Or should we consider, for the moment, that the sources are insufficient for actually understanding the categorisation of Black/pardos/Afro-Brazilians?


 * See what I mean when I say the sources are misused in these articles? Ninguém (talk) 19:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Question. Afro-Brazilian purports to be an article about a population that consists in two subsets: 1. Black Brazilians, and 2. Pardos. The article on Black Brazilians is nominated for deletion. Shouldn't the article on Pardos be nominated for deletion too? If not, why not? Ninguém (talk) 22:36, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Another Question. The article on Afro-Brazilians uses the phrase "Afro-Brazilian" 28 times (including the title). It uses the phrase "African Brazilian" 11 times (eight of them as "African-Brazilian"). It uses the word "Black", referring to race, more than 150 times. Is it an article about "Afro-Brazilians" or an article about Blacks? Ninguém (talk) 13:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * A Perfunctory Research. I have taken a non-intensive (for instance, I haven't checked Casa Grande e Senzala or most of O Povo Brasileiro, or Laurentino Gomes' 1808) look on the sources of Afro-Brazilian. Besides what I have already shown above - that the source that reportedly supports the statement that Afro-Brazilian, African-Brazilian or Black Brazilian, is the term used to racially categorize Brazilian citizens who self-reported to be of black or brown does not mention, even once, Africa, Africans, or Afro-Brazilians, I have found the following gems:


 * Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses by David I. Kertzer and Dominique Arel is cited as a source for the following statement: The largest concentration of Afro-Brazilians is in the state of Bahia where over 80% of the people are descendants of Africans. The book doesn't mention Bahia.


 * Uma Gota de Sangue, by Demétrio Magnoli is cited as the source for this absurd statement: From this idea, since the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the Black Brazilian population is treated as the sum of the self-declared Blacks and Browns. This conception is based on the idea that Black Brazilians lie to the census and say they are Browns. But Magnoli is a strong opposer of treating Blacks and "pardos" as the same thing, and defends the right of "pardos" to not classify themselves as Black. And, in fact, he is, a few lines below, cited as a critic of this "binary division".


 * Simon Schwartzman is cited as supporting the idea that (the official figures) would hide the true size of the black population in Brazil, which if defined in a similar way to what happens in the United States would reach at least 50% of the population; and they would also not measure the true size of the Amerindian population. However, as it has been shown, in detail, in the Talk Page, Schwartzman merely quotes this line of reasoning to better refute it. He is also reported as following the same "thinking" as Darcy Ribeiro, which is utterly false; they have very different positions and lines of reasoning.


 * Darcy Ribeiro is cited as believing that the prejudice in Brazil, due to be primarily social, can be finished. This will happen when many black Brazilians be out of the condition of misery and take part in the consumer market. What Ribeiro effectively writes is very different: Assimilationism, as we see, creates a fluid atmosphere in interracial relations, but dissuades Blacks of their specific struggle, making them unable to understand that victory is only attenaible by social revolution.


 * Edward Telles is cited as stating that any person with a significant amount of European ancestry was systematically classified as White. But what Telles effectively writes seems to directly contradict this: Unlike in the United States, race in Brazil refers mostly to skin color or physical appearance rather than to ancestry.

There are other direct contradictions between text and the sources that should support it: an article about Spanish television, which doesn't mention Brazil, is the source for statements about the presence, or lack thereof, of Black actors in Brazilian TV; an article that states that scientists have proven that races have no biological meaning and are social is cited as saying that races don't exist and are "merely" social constructs.

However, I think that an article that actually falsifies the positions of four authors - Magnoli, Ribeiro, Schwartzman, and Telles - stating or implying that they defend ideas that they in fact oppose, cannot be considered NPOV, better than the other article, or even a passable article at all. Ninguém (talk) 19:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.