Combating racism: Brazil, South Africa and the United States

The author provides a contemporary definition of the term "racism", taking as empirical reference the current political and intellectual debates in South Africa, Brazil and the United States. Based on the analysis of such debates, he puts forth an international anti-racist agenda. The text is structured in the form of notes. The first note demarcates an axiological terrain common to anti-racism; the second clarifies the meaning of the term "racism"; the third discusses the sociological context of racism in the three countries taken as reference, exploring the relationship between the definition of the rights of citizenship and the definition of nationality; the fourth note examines the mechanisms that produce and reproduce important social inequalities in the distribution of resources and social status; the fifth analyzes the specific nature of racism in Brazil, while the sixth, seventh and eighth notes are an appraisal of the current anti-racism struggles in each of the three countries.