Skin Color, Favelas, and Human Dignity

Reflections from Brazil

Rio de Janeiro.

I still remember the light over the city early in the morning. The ocean near Copacabana. The mountains rising behind the crowded neighborhoods. The music flowing through open windows long after darkness had fallen.

Brazil was full of life.

People sang in the streets. Danced. Laughed loudly. Strangers approached us and started conversations as if we already knew one another. Most people had never heard of Norway, but when we said “Northern Europe,” they nodded and smiled.

No one treated us as strangers.

Perhaps because Brazil itself was built by people who once came from somewhere else.

The history of Brazil is a history of slavery, migration, poverty, and people trying to create new lives far from where they began. In many places, I experienced identity as something more fluid than at home in Norway. No one seemed to belong completely. Perhaps that was precisely why there was such openness toward others.

At the same time, the contrasts were enormous.

Beauty and poverty.

Joy and violence.

Warmth and fear.

Brazil contained all of this at once.

“Here in Brazil We Are Colorful”

One evening, I asked a social worker in a favela what it was like to be Black in Brazil.

He looked at me with an almost puzzled expression.

“I’m not Black,” he replied.

“I’m dark brown.”

Then he smiled broadly.

“In the United States everyone is Black or white. Here in Brazil we are colorful.”

Suddenly he pointed at me and laughed.

“And you are not white either. You are light brown. But that is probably because of the sun.”

I still remember his laughter. His bright white teeth. The warmth in his humor.

But I also remember that something inside me paused.

In only a few seconds, he had challenged my entire Norwegian way of thinking.

In Norway, we like clear categories and precise definitions. We often try to organize the world through either–or distinctions. But in Brazil, identity appeared far more fluid. Skin color was not simply about ancestry or biology, but also about nuance, class, language, clothing, body language, and the way people perceived one another.

Edward Telles describes precisely this in his important book Race in Another America.

In Brazil, race is understood primarily through skin color and physical appearance rather than rigid categories like those historically found in the United States. Brazil is at the same time one of the most racially mixed societies in the world — and one of the most economically unequal.

Perhaps that was why Brazil felt so difficult for a Norwegian to fully understand.

And perhaps also why the country taught me something important:

Human beings are always more complex than the categories we try to place them in.

The Vitality of the Favelas

One of the strongest impressions Brazil left on me was the vitality of its people.

We walked through favelas where poverty was visible everywhere. Small houses pressed tightly together along the hillsides. Bare electrical wires hanging between buildings. Children playing in narrow alleyways.

And yet:

Music.

Laughter.

Dancing.

People sitting outside their homes talking late into the evening.

It was impossible not to be touched by this joy of life.

For in the middle of poverty, we encountered a warmth and openness that was difficult for a Norwegian to describe.

Perhaps because in Scandinavia we often associate happiness with security, order, and material stability.

In Rio, we met people who possessed very little materially, yet seemed rich in community, closeness, and spontaneity.

This challenged me.

Not romantically. Poverty is not beautiful. It destroys possibilities and places enormous burdens upon people.

But human beings are always more than their living conditions.

The Children in the Streets

One of the experiences that affected me most deeply during my time in Rio was meeting the children in the streets.

Small children walked between cars carrying boxes of matches, flowers, or small items they tried to sell. Some gently knocked on car windows at traffic lights. Others simply stood still and looked at us with eyes that seemed far too old for a child.

I remember the feeling of helplessness.

What do you do when a child tries to sell flowers late at night in a city far from home?

I was told that many of these children still had families living in the favelas. But poverty was so severe that the children had to spend much of their lives in the streets in order to earn money. They survived through small sales, begging, and theft. The money they earned was brought home to their families.

It was difficult to comprehend.

Here poverty revealed itself in its most brutal form. Not as statistics or research reports, but as children’s faces in traffic.

Several times I felt tears rise in my eyes.

Perhaps because no child should carry such responsibility.

Perhaps because one suddenly realizes how fragile safety truly is.

In Norway, we often discuss poverty as an economic or political issue. In Rio, poverty had faces.

Small hands.

Tired eyes.

Children who should have been home.

The Shadow of Violence

At the same time as we encountered warmth and human closeness, violence was never far away.

Police officers carrying automatic weapons patrolled the streets. Many people spoke about gangs controlling different favela areas. Several described daily life as something where fear had become normal.

The favelas had their own invisible borders.

There were places one did not enter alone. Not as a foreigner. Not without people who were respected by those living there.

We quickly understood how important our Brazilian friends were for us. They did not merely open doors. They created safety.

And yet life continued.

Families prepared food.

Children played.

Music still drifted through open windows.

Perhaps that was what affected me most deeply:

The human ability to continue living even under difficult conditions.

One of the World’s Most Unequal Societies?

Brazil is widely known as one of the most economically unequal societies in the world. A small part of the population controls enormous resources, while millions live in poverty.

The numbers Edward Telles presents are striking.

Black and brown Brazilians earn significantly less than white Brazilians. Many Black and brown citizens remain almost absent from the middle class.

But statistics never tell the whole story.

What truly leaves an impression is meeting the human beings behind the numbers.

Children selling flowers.

Women carrying entire families on their shoulders.

Young men trying to find a way out of poverty.

Social exclusion never remains an abstract concept once one encounters the people living inside it.

Practical Philosophy Begins in the Encounter

What does all this have to do with practical philosophy?

Perhaps everything.

Practical philosophy is not only about theories and abstract ideas. It is about how human beings live together. About dignity, justice, and the ways societies shape human lives.

When a child must sell flowers in traffic in order to help support a family, it is not only a social problem.

It is also a philosophical question.

What kind of society accepts that some children must carry such burdens?

Brazil challenged me in many ways.

Not only intellectually, but humanly.

For at the same time as I witnessed poverty and violence, I also encountered a vitality that was difficult to fully understand.

The music.

The laughter.

The warmth.

The ability to continue hoping.

I still think about the man who laughed and said:

“Here in Brazil we are colorful.”