Methods:

• There is a mixed method approach that is used with original survey data that was retrieved in 2005-2006 and survey data from 2008. There is also survey data used from the Latin American Opinion Project from 2010 and 2012. There is a reliance on open-ended questions and self-identification. Randomization was ensured by selecting streets from neighborhoods at random for trained students to conduct face to face interviews.
• There is a mixed method approach that considers cultural, structural, and rational choice influences but there is a focus on the structural approach because there are systematic issues with discriminatory policies and under-representation that are creating systematic racism. There are environmental factors that influence one’s behaviors so a culturalist approach could also be used to analyze how racial identities influence political behavior. A structuralist approach examines how the history of slavery has created a structure of systematic racism that influences the political behaviors of Afro-Brazilians.
• The racist views from the past were used to create institutions that are still in place today working to oppress the Afro-Brazilian people. The hate that was alive in slavery is still living today in the form of police brutality. There was an increase in police brutality for the World Cup and Olympics that led to the deaths of many Afro-Brazilian people. Violence is ingrained in Brazil’s society for example police brutality is direct violence, discrimination in the workplace is structural violence and negative stereotypes in the media is cultural violence.
• There is a focus on structural sources of group-based inequality such as under-representation in government positions rather than examining the influence of cultural or heredity. Negro linked fate comes from a shared experience of discrimination. Individual behaviors are examined in addition to group political behaviors because there is an underlying element of self-interest like in the rational choice method. People with a negro linked fate are more likely to support affirmative action and Afro-Brazilian nomination policies because they are attached to that community and they have a self-interest in seeing their community flourish.
• There is a cross sectional analysis to show how racial identity influences political behavior in Brazil’s three largest cities which are known for their black movement activism. These cities vary in income disparities, racial, composition and geographic location to show a comparison of how political behaviors are shaped by racial identities.
• In Salvador since the 1970s there is been a belief that racial discrimination is nonexistent but now there is a welcoming of blackness and activism by grassroots organizations. Sao Paulo is 33 percent Afro- Brazilian but they only hold less than 10 percent of government positions with white earning more than 2 times than Afro-Brazilians. There is a lack of ethnic voting in Sao Paulo so movements that address black mobilization have been key to fighting underrepresentation. Rio de Janeiro is almost fifty percent Afro- Brazilian yet it is the example of how Afro-Brazilians are excluded and unwelcome from public spaces.
• Police harassing people who weren’t in black spaces shows that Afro-Brazilians face racism and exclusion in all aspects of life. There is a system of violence and discrimination that shapes Afro- Brazilian people and this discriminatory violent racial experience effects their political behaviors by sparking activism and black movements to create policy that will lead to equality.
• Afro-Brazilians are confronted with the harsh reality that there is a belief that curly hair and dark skin is seen as inferior regardless of their socioeconomic position their appearance is the basis upon which they are judged by society.