Obama's rise forces Brazil to look at racial divide

By Ana Nicolaci da Costa

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Barack Obama's rise to power in the United States has exposed cracks in Brazil's self-image as a racially integrated society, with many seeing the Latin American giant years away from electing a black president.

With only a few blacks in top government posts, deep-rooted, veiled racism in a country that is among the world's most racially mixed has prevented the emergence of a serious black presidential candidate.

"Low political representation shows how difficult it is for Brazilians, and even Afro-Brazilians, to see blacks as a political alternative for our country," Minister for Racial Equality Edson Santos, one of two black government ministers, told Reuters.

With almost half the population considered black, Brazilians often boast that their country is a more harmonious melting pot than the United States. But analysts say that is only because blacks in Brazil have never posed a threat to the dominance of the white elite in politics and business.

"Everything runs smoothly when everyone is exercising their expected roles in society," said Marcelo Paixao, a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, or UFRJ, who specializes in the economics of race.

Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888 and is home to the largest black population outside of Africa. Blacks have played a major role in shaping its national identity, and the most famous Brazilian of all, soccer legend Pele, is black.

But latent discrimination is rampant, as illustrated in the scant presence of blacks in television and advertising. Blacks also fare among the worst in health and education indicators.

Infant mortality among blacks is 40 percent higher than among whites, and illiteracy rates among blacks are also much higher.

Brazil has only had seven black ministers since democracy was restored in 1985, according to a UFRJ study.

Five of them have been under the current leftist leader, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but they still tend to be limited to certain policy areas such as culture, sports and racial equality.

Analysts say it will take years before blacks take on powerful positions, and that only then would the ground be laid for an eventual black president.

"For us to have a black president in Brazil, we would need to have (blacks) at the head of companies, universities, town halls," Paixao said.

CLASS DIVIDE VS RACIAL BARRIER

Jose Vicente, the dean of a university founded to promote blacks in higher education and job markets, said race relations in Brazil were thawing, pointing to Lula's racially mixed cabinet and the adoption of quotas in many universities.

Vicente, the head of University Zumbi dos Palmares, said a black Brazilian president would speed up the process and help lure elites into accepting a new status quo in the same way they warmed to the presidency of former union leader Lula.