The Brazilian model of racial mixing has long been considered a utopia, a vision of what a non-racist humanity could be. Mixed race is indeed a reality in Brazil, a country where almost everyone is, in some way, a little black, a little white, a little indigenous… and where we know how to live together. The Brazilian, mixed race by essence, embodies those who carry within them a single drop of black or indigenous blood, in accordance with the American rule of “one drop”, according to which anyone with a single drop of non-white blood is not considered white. Once presented to the world as an example of harmonious interbreeding, this Brazilian model today reveals a profound identity crisis.

Although the majority of Brazilians have characteristics that are a little black, a little white, a little indigenous, they are mentally under the pressure of the centuries-old domination of the white world. This domination began with explorers like Christopher Columbus, who, in the name of God, often claimed a civilizing mission by conquering other peoples. Today, despite the passage of time, mixed Brazil seems prey to a mental and psychological contortion, similar to that experienced by capoeira. This martial art disguised as a dance deceived the white master, making him believe that the slaves were dancing when in reality they were preparing to revolt for their liberation.

Likewise, the African religion of Candomblé had to adopt syncretism with Catholicism to hide from the eyes of white masters the practice of voodoo, used to free oneself from slavery. If this ingenuity of camouflage and deception gave birth to an extraordinary culture, with a mixed aesthetic, it nevertheless lost its original intention. It has failed to persist in people’s minds due to the pressure of a white culture which imposed itself, not through its superiority, but through its brutality.

The Brazilian, like many black people in the world, could therefore be considered a vanquished of mental colonialism, having ceased to be a capoeirista a long time ago. Today, only the bodies continue to move, but the intention to revolt and free oneself from domination has been exorcised. Comfortable in the position where the white world has left him, the Brazilian is plunged into a “Muntu Crisis”, no longer knowing what is expected of him as a Black or indigenous, bearer of ancestral values, nor as a as White, “civilized”. More importantly, he no longer knows what he expects of himself.

If color is a contortion and even a syncretism, it shows or does not show… that we are mixed, but the head says something completely different, or even better, the mouth, the racist remarks, of exclusion, of rejection… Racism is here… and the identity crisis that goes with it. Crossbreeding is not in people’s minds. The fault lies with an always abusive white world which has not been able to cross-breed or at least carry out contortions or reverse syncretism in its turn: a Capoeira and a white Candomblé!

If Brazil is the place where the utopia of mixing races is most advanced in a world today prey to identity withdrawal, it must also be the first to cure humanity of these mental and psychological crises linked to identities , beyond appearances and skin colors. Capoeira should not simply be another lure to distract young black people from a revolutionary ideal in a world prey to other forms of domination from which we must free ourselves. Candomblé must not become a simple folklore for tourists or another opium of the black people, but rather the utopia of a true mixed humanity.