Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1918-04-13
A LETTER FROM BRAZIL
BY Jose Clarana

your admOnitiOn that Il make them as short
as possible by writing one letter with the
simple statement that there is no color prob
lem in Brazil
BY way OF explanation, however, | must
add that this does not mean that black
skin is an open-sesame to any and every
drawlng-room and a shibboleth of easy ac-
cess to the heart of any maiden and the
purse OF her father. 1t MEANS for one thing
that man is not necessarily black because
his skin is not so white as somebody's else
skin. In the terms Of the "social eouality.'
which the kilograms say that German spies
have been trying to obtain for the not-quite-
whiteenOugh in Alabama, it means that the
color OF the pelts in a draWing-room is the
exclusive business Of the people who wear
them, and that if the son of some gentle
man violates the servant girl there is no
law to prevent him from marrying her be-
cause she does not come up to the popular
specifications as to complexion. In word,
in Brazil the mere possession Of a white
skin does not entitle a man to superior civil
rights and opportunities, nor does an in
creased fermentation condemn it's owner to
the status Of pariah.
Occasionally an attempt is made in Bra
zil to establish standard Of whiteness
est usefulness must conform. Generally, if
not always, these attempts to divide the
Brazilian people are made by foreign resi-
dents. For instance, the son of colored
teacher was not long ago refused admittance
to college conducted by Belgian priests
| do not know how this affair ended, but
the action of the rector of the school was
severely criticized by the newspapers. A
striking contrast to the attitude Of the Bel
gian friar is the fact that recently one Of
the largest and wealthest churches in Rio
was crowded with people attending a mass
Of intercession for the early trump of the
ideals of the Allies, including, of course,
those valiant defenders of the rights of op-
pressed peoples who used to cut off the
hands of the natives the rubber planta-
tons in the Congo. Most of the worshippers
at that mass were altogether white and
many Of them were distinguished foreign
ers. The ceebrant was colored man, who,
when he is not saying mass or singing in
the choir of a church, conducts school
whose students are nearly all white.
Americans Of course, are not slow in at
tempting to establish caste discrimination,
especially when they first come here. A
friend of mine told me, shortly after he
arrived here that the Negroes ought to be
separated from the whites in public places
[ do not know whether he got that notion
so much from having resided in Alabama
as from reading The Outlook, which is
ashamed to tell the American public that,
in trying to show how superior they are to
the "niggers, white people have dsgraced
their civilization by committing acts of saw
agery unexcelled by the lowest tribes in the
heart Of Africa. It does not mind libeling
the colored people of the States by charac-
terizng as ''envy" the natural desire of
decent man to sit in clean railway car
rage or to enter restaurant without fear
of buying steak fried with spit or shar-
ing the fate of the colored Georgian who
in neutral Chicago, was killed for the crime
of unwittingly seating himself at the side of
a Texan at a public lunch counter
1t got the Chicago story from an eye
witness, the son of Confederate officer
who told it. with the greatest sang froid
at lunch in a Brazilian clearinghouse.
mention it here in the hope that some Of
the editors, politicians and counting-house