“I’m not saying this to be racist, but…”: uncovering attitude of whiteness in a narrative study of a Brazilian Pentecostal church leader

ABSTRACT

This article examines the existence of whiteness and white supremacy in the words of Bishop Edir Macedo, leader of the powerful neo-Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) in Brazil. Through constructive narrative analysis, this article demonstrates evidence of attitude of whiteness (Teel 2019) in the bishop’s writings on race and racism, thereby demonstrating forms of racist thinking (Martinot 2003, 2010). These are manifested through thought patterns which suggest that to be white is to be normal or neutral and through a performance of whiteness which Macedo subtly encourages among pastors within the Church.

KEYWORDS:

• Brazil
• Pentecostalism
• racism
• Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG)
• whiteness
• white supremacy

Introduction

Since the 1980s, Brazil has seen tremendous growth in the numbers of people converting to conservative Evangelical Protestantism, mainly in the form of Pentecostalism, which has led to increased religious, gendered, and racial tensions.¹ The current body of research on the relationship between Evangelical Protestantism and racism in Brazil points in particular to the conflict between Pentecostal churches and Afro-Brazilian religions, highlighting Pentecostal intolerance and demonisation of African culture and Afro-Brazilian religions (Bonfatti 2000; Burdick 1998; Miranda 2020; Nascimento 1978; Oliveira 2004; Oro 2007; Reina 2017; Silva 2014; Soares 1993). It appears that the ‘black’ Protestantism found in the United States, which includes black preachers and exclusively black churches, allowing for the preservation of certain African cultural traits, does not exist in Brazil (Bastide [1960] 1995, 494). Instead, the Brazilian scholar, politician, and activist, Abdias do Nascimento argues that the rejection of African culture and identity is endemic within Brazilian institutions, linked to a process of masked but real racism in Brazilian society. Nascimento argues that the process of ‘whitening’ found within Brazilian organisations, even religious ones, ultimately leads to the genocide of Brazilian blacks (Nascimento 1978, 93–100). On the other hand, some argue that there is less racism in Evangelical churches than in wider society because the liturgy and universalising discourse do not highlight racial difference, allowing for the development of self-esteem for all converts (e.g. Burdick 1998, 193–195).² Yet Roger Bastide ([1960] 1995, 343–365) argues that it is precisely Evangelical Protestantism’s universalising discourse—so-called because anyone can have access to the gifts of the spirit—which creates a mask of supposed equality that effectively hides the practices of prejudice, discrimination, and racism within Evangelical Protestant churches. In this article, rather than focusing on black and/or African identity within Pentecostalism, as most Brazilian literature on racism and religion has done so far, I examine the existence of whiteness and white supremacy—the often covert system of domination by which whites maintain power, control, and imbued superiority (Ansley 1989, 1024) which lies at the root of racism—in written extracts by Edir Macedo, leader of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus or IURD).

Bishop Edir Macedo and the UCKG

The UCKG is the third largest church in Brazil, with approximately two million members and eight million internationally. Begun in the 1970s, the Church has been the major driving force of the growth of neo-Pentecostalism, the general characteristics of which include a focus on Prosperity Theology, regular tithing/donations, a discourse on a spiritual war against the Devil on earth, and substantial use of mass communication to reach new followers (Rocha 2020).³ The UCKG is a church that has been mired in controversy, both in Brazil and abroad. Its founder and leader, Bishop Edir Macedo, is one of the most powerful religious figures in Brazil, a self-made billionaire and the owner of Brazil’s second largest television network, Rede Record. He has a vehement (and vocal) dislike of the Catholic Church and Afro-religions (e.g. Umbanda and Candomblé), which, he claims, are responsible for all the illness, misfortune, vice, and unhappiness that human beings are subject to (Macedo 1997, 67–68). In 2019, the UCKG was found guilty of institutional racism and religious intolerance by a court which concluded that the Church demonised Afro-Brazilian religious cults in documentaries produced for its Record TV channel (O Globo 2019). Moreover, the UCKG and Macedo himself have been accused of racism in both Angola and South Africa by native pastors and their families, alongside accusations of human rights abuses, including obligatory vasectomies for pastors, as well as tax evasion and money laundering (Fiorotti 2020; Nascimento 2021). A cursory glance at much of the UCKG’s internet media content demonstrates an almost complete absence of images of black or brown people; instead, pictures of white affluent people predominate. On the one hand, this is perhaps not surprising. In his book examining religion and race in Brazil, John Burdick (1998, 4) points out that media advertising in general is highly racist, with very few black people represented. Yet the UCKG’s target audience is people tormented by problems, generally working-class and poor people who are looking for ways to improve their lives (Almeida 2009, 17) and statistics suggest that converts to the UCKG tend to be young, poor, urban, predominantly black or brown, who generally have low levels of schooling (IBGE 2010, 89–93). It would therefore appear that the white middle-class lifestyle the UCKG portrays on its web sites is at odds with the identity and social reality of the majority of the Church’s followers, raising questions about the role of whiteness within the UCKG.

Drawing on the work of scholars of both religion and Critical Race Theory in the analysis of selected texts written by Macedo, I argue that the leader of this powerful neo-Pentecostal church exhibits attitude of whiteness (Teel 2019), demonstrated through thought patterns which suggest that to be white is to be normal or neutral and through a performance of whiteness which Macedo subtly encourages in his advice to would-be pastors within the Church.

The article is structured as follows: I begin with a discussion on the way theories about race and whiteness have affected Brazil from colonialism and slavery to the present day. I then demonstrate how I analyse whiteness and white supremacy in Macedo’s narrative, using Karen Teel’s (2019) concept of attitude of whiteness and Steve Martinot’s notion of racist thinking (2003) as heuristic devices for analysis. Next, I explain my choice of a constructionist form of narrative analysis and present the analysis of two narratives on the themes of race and racism, written by Macedo. Finally, I offer concluding remarks and suggestions for further research.

Whiteness and white supremacy: the root of racial discrimination

Although most scientists now agree that race is a social construct without a sound basis in biology, racialisation continues to shape the way people relate to one another and to have tremendous social and political significance (see e.g. Ansley 1989; hooks 2004; Teel 2019). Whiteness as a racial identity was essentially developed as a means to justify Europeans’ power to enslave Africans and take land from the Indigenous in pursuit of profit (Teel 2019, 403). In Brazil, racist narratives have been woven into the history and development of the country, as colonisation since the 1500s included the domination and genocide of Indigenous populations, while it is estimated that approximately five million Africans were enslaved and brought to Brazil.⁴ It was the last country in the world to end slavery in 1888 and, post-Abolition, no measures were taken to integrate the new African-descendant citizens into the national economy or society (Telles 2004, 30–31). Official racial segregation laws such as the Jim Crow laws in the US did not exist in Brazil, but, according to the historian Thomas Skidmore (1974), the whitening ideal permeated the articulation of public policy in the formative years of the early Republic as the pseudo-scientific racist discourse of eugenics circulated. Towards the end of the nineteenth century and during the early twentieth century, mass European immigration was therefore subsidised, while ‘undesirable’ races were excluded in order to ‘whiten’ the population and improve what was seen as “the racial inferiority of Brazilians” (Nascimento 2006, 52).

The Brazilian Republic ended with the revolution in 1930, which led to a long period of state-sponsored nationalism under the leadership of Getulio Vargas (Skidmore 1974, 35). In 1933, Gilberto Freyre, a leading first-generation social scientist from the northeast of Brazil, produced his seminal work on race relations, Casa Grande e Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves). Freyre romanticised the colonial period, putting forward “an image of Africans, Native Americans and Portuguese living happily together as they built the new nation and, through miscegenation, a new race of morenos—light-skinned mulattoes and mestizos” (Nascimento 2006, 53). Conveniently ignoring the violence, rape, and racist principles on which this social phenomenon was based, Freyre’s work influenced state discourse on race relations during the following decades, allowing Brazilians to celebrate mestiçagem (racial mixture). This created a myth of racial democracy in which Brazilians denied the existence of racial prejudice and discrimination in Brazilian society, allowing for an ideological pretence of anti-racism (Nascimento 2006, 17–18). Despite sustained criticism of such romanticising, beginning in the late 1940s, by intellectuals at the University of São Paulo, such as Florestan Fernandes and Roger Bastide, the myth of racial democracy persists. Moreover, argues Elisa Nascimento (2006, 56), the celebration of mestiçagem camouflages the ideal of whitening and whiteness that is ever present. In reality, white supremacy continues to reign, visible through an élite who are almost entirely white, while the country’s so-called racial ‘melting pot’ is actually made up of the working class and the poor (Telles, n.d). Black and brown Brazilians earn half the income of the white population and 20–25% less than whites with the same background, when age, work experience, educational level, sex, class origin, and labour markets are considered, demonstrating clear racial discrimination (Telles, n.d.). More than double the number of black and brown Brazilians live in poverty or extreme poverty compared to the number of whites, while Afro-Brazilians are excluded and almost invisible from decision-making structures and institutions. For example, almost 70% of managerial roles are filled by whites and 75% of all elected federal deputies are white (IBGE 2019, 1–12). Furthermore, amid Brazil’s tremendously high levels of inter-personal violence, a black person is nearly three times more likely to die a violent death than a white person (Cerqueira and Bueno 2020, 18). Such deep inequalities demonstrate the ways in which white supremacy is an intricate and interconnected system of structures and processes through which white people maintain and control power, wealth, and resources (Ansley 1989; hooks 2004).

However, white supremacy does not necessarily refer directly to white people per se, nor to interpersonal acts of racism, but should be understood as a political, social, economic, and religious system of domination. As white supremacy operates in and across all spheres of life, around the world, humans are born into societies that teach whiteness as an ideal (Teel 2019, 407–416). Therefore, racist domination is worldwide in scope, but it is expressed in specific local terms (Nascimento 2006, 6). In Portuguese, whiteness translates as two terms, brancura and branquitude. There is general consensus in the literature that brancura refers to the ‘white’ phenotype, including light skin, narrow facial features, and straight hair, while branquitude refers to a position of privilege that one occupies in a racially hierarchical society (Roth-Gordon 2017, 18; Schucman 2014, 102). This is because, as Jennifer Roth-Gordon (2017, 42) and Jerry Davila (2003, 6) underscore, in Brazil, race and class have never really been understood as separate phenomena and the acquisition of attributes normally linked to socio-economic class, such as money, education, professional standing, and celebrity, are often assumed to increase the whiteness of otherwise phenotypically black individuals. Reginald Daniel (2006) describes this as ‘situational whiteness’, suggesting that dark-skinned individuals can gain temporary access to the privileges of whiteness by taking on cultural and linguistic practices associated with intellectual capacity, rationality, and cultural refinement, which, as Roth-Gordon points out, simultaneously highlights that racial ideas of white superiority and black inferiority permeate daily interactions (Roth-Gordon 2017, 44).

Such theories also connect to research from the US where scholars argue that whiteness should be understood as a performance (e.g. Dyer 1997, 45; Yancy 2012, 7). ‘Whiteness’ is therefore confusing in Brazil. On the one hand, phenotype is critical to racial meaning and physical attributes, such as shade of skin colour, hair colour, and hair texture, are heavily scrutinised in a veritable ‘pigmentocracy’ (Pinho 2009, 40). On the other hand, embodied practices are almost as important as appearance, as brown (mestiço) bodies in particular can be read as either ‘black’ or ‘white’, depending on the ways in which they are displayed. For example, according to Roth-Gordon’s study on whiteness and blackness in Rio de Janeiro (2017, 41), material and physical associations to hip-hop connect individuals to ideas of ‘blackness’, while these same bodies can be read as ‘white’ when they occupy exclusively private spaces such as social clubs and/or demonstrate ‘proper’ restraint and decorum. Moreover, this racial malleability as well as the whitening ideal explain why many brown people classify themselves as white in census surveys (Nascimento 2006, 44).

Attitude of whiteness and the role of racist thinking

Taking inspiration from the literature on whiteness as a performance, the US theologian Teel (2019) conceptualises attitude of whiteness in order to describe (white) Catholic theologians’ failure to engage with racism and white supremacy within Christian theology. In particular, she draws on the ideas of critical theorist Peter McLaren who describes whiteness as a kind of “collective wilful ignorance, ‘a sociohistorical form of consciousness’ that includes ‘a form of social amnesia’” (McLaren 1998, 66, as quoted in Teel 2019, 410) as well as the work of the philosopher George Yancy who defines whiteness as a feeling of non-specificity (Yancy 2012, 7). Teel suggests therefore that attitude of whiteness exists when whiteness appears normal or neutral, rather than racist to white people and a key element of this feeling of normalcy is to deny, ignore or fail to notice the fact that whites exercise unearned social power or specifically that whites engage in racist practices that negatively affect the lives of people of colour. Importantly, Teel (2019, 411) underscores that whiteness is not consciously white supremacist or malicious, which means that addressing it is a difficult task, precisely because it is designed to be invisible and to feel normal. This invisibility echoes bell hooks, who suggests that, while the term ‘white supremacy’ tends to evoke ideas of overt racism from extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan or Neo-Nazis, representing it in this way locates the problem within certain individuals and hides its ideological and structural reality. Such a form of individualising means that white people tend to see themselves as separate from the legacy and current influence of white supremacy, despite being deeply implicated (hooks 2004, as quoted in Walsdorf et al. 2020, 66).

In order to highlight attitude of whiteness in Christian theological method, Teel deploys Martinot’s (2003, 2010) concept of racist thinking. Martinot (2003, 2010) put forward a theory of US class formation as grounded in racial formation, in which racist thinking is central. He demonstrates that racist thinking is an identifiable thought process which promotes whiteness and maintains racial disparities, even when no one consciously intends it (Teel 2019, 417). Racist thinking forms a “triadic gesture” (Martinot 2003, 9, as quoted in Teel 2019, 416) in which something is granted, something is withheld, and something is maintained. For example, in the case of those who oppose affirmative action, the argument is typically framed as follows: “all discrimination is bad; affirmative action privileges some people over others based on race; therefore, affirmative action is bad” (Martinot 2003, 2, as quoted in Teel 2019, 416). In the first argument, the speaker grants that discrimination is bad, implying that this is so self-evident that all reasonable people must agree. However, in the second statement, the speaker withholds essential information—the acknowledgement of the history of discrimination, which meant that, until recently, whites took all the university spots and allowed none for people of colour. The second step therefore rejects the consideration that the history of discrimination has created an unlevel playing field in the present day and recognition of this history is deemed irrelevant or withheld. In the third argument, the speaker concludes that affirmative action is therefore bad, maintaining their power to be the one who decides on the matter and implementing the solution that they deem appropriate, on the basis of the information that only they consider relevant. Thus, to engage in racist thinking

is to grant a general premise framed as self-evident, to withhold acknowledgment of relevant information, and to maintain one’s power to decide what is relevant and to implement the outcome of one’s choice (Martinot 2003, 7, as quoted in Teel 2019, 417).

Martinot is speaking of the US where segregation laws meant that black people could not attend university. However, the concept of racist thinking can clearly be extended to Brazil: while there have perhaps been fewer blatantly racist laws than in the US, socio-economic factors linked to racist and white supremacist beliefs have generally kept black and brown people subjugated, as demonstrated above. Furthermore, I shall show below how affirmative action policies have helped to increase black and brown students’ presence at Brazilian universities, with similarly reactive forms of racist thinking that Martinot describes. As one of the main aims of this article is to shed light on the invisibility of whiteness, Teel’s concept of attitude of whiteness can be successfully transposed to the Brazilian context, a country that has traditionally denied racism and racist practices and only really begun discussions on racism since the turn of the twenty-first century. Therefore, in order to analyse the existence of whiteness and white supremacy within Macedo’s narrative, I draw on the understandings of whiteness and white supremacy as explained above and use Martinot’s (2003, 2010) example of racist thinking as a heuristic device to demonstrate Macedo’s attitude of whiteness in his writings on race and racism.

Methodology

I use the method of constructionist narrative analysis of written material produced by Macedo. In constructionist narrative analysis, the story is taken as the analytical unit, then different levels of context are explored, including the broader socio-cultural and historical contexts. The constructionist approach also takes into account power relations, examining how the narrative is an effect of specific historical, social, cultural, political, and economic discourses, making this method ideal for an investigation of whiteness and white supremacy. Finally, constructionist narrative analysis takes into consideration not only the speaker, but also the listener, paying attention to the positioning of both and to the way their personal, social, cultural, and political worlds come together to interact with the narrative process. (Esin, Fathi, and Squire 2014, 204) As pointed out earlier, Macedo is the wealthy white leader of a church which primarily caters to a low-income black and brown audience. Therefore, taking into consideration both speaker and listener is especially important in the analysis of his narrative.

Furthermore, this article is based on culturally informed knowledge gained from previous research exposure to the UCKG (seven months of fieldwork in São Paulo, Brazil), in which I discovered that race played an important role within the women’s groups I studied. Based on this research I argued that race and gender are used as disciplining tools within the UCKG to encourage predominantly low-income black and brown women to become whiter, more feminine, and emotionally controlled Pentecostal converts (see Beecheno 2021).

Data and design

Macedo produces a large amount of media across the UCKG’s media empire, ranging from his personal blog to authoring numerous books as well as numerous video logs available on Instagram (IGTV) and YouTube. I focused on online material and in particular his personal blog (see https://www.universal.org/bispo-macedo/blog, accessed 20 April 2023), finding that he rarely makes overt references to race, which is consistent with the universalising attitude within Pentecostalism as it does not highlight racial difference. However, searching the terms raça (race) and racismo (racism), the site showed three blog posts between 2014 and 2018. The oldest, dated 1 August 2014, is entitled Vida Europeia (European Life) (see https://www.universal.org/bispo-macedo/post/vida-europeia/, accessed 20 April 2023), the repost of a xenophobic article about Muslims, suggesting that Macedo supports these views, although the text is not actually written by him. The second, dated 9 August 2016, is O Poder da Fé contra a força do braço (The Strength of Faith Compared to Physical Strength) (https://www.universal.org/bispo-macedo/post/o-poder-da-fe-contra-forca-do-braco/, accessed 20 April 2023) and the most recent blog post, dated 14 April 2018, is entitled Racismo reverso: a escravidão da atualidade (Reverse Racism: Present-day Slavery) (Macedo 2018a). While researching Macedo, I also came across a polemic on the internet, in which he was accused of racism due to a section in his book O perfil do homem de deus: características, autoridade e limites (The Profile of a Man of God: Characteristics, Authority, and Limits) (Macedo [1999] 2010). Here, Macedo includes race as an aspect of consideration in marriage and procreation for men who want to become pastors in the UCKG. For the narrative analysis, I chose to focus in particular on the book extract and the blog post on reverse racism. I focus on these because the blog post “European Life” is a repost, as indicated, and its reposting suggests that Macedo supports these views; however, as he is not the author of the narrative, it does not fit the purpose of this article. Furthermore, some of the arguments that Macedo makes in the post of 2016 are repeated in greater depth in the post of 2018, making the latter more apt for analysis. The present study has therefore clear limitations: these are selected pieces of text considered relevant for the topics of racism and whiteness, but they are not representative of all the media output Macedo creates. These are thus a small selection of items. I have not conducted an exhaustive search of all his material and the chosen material dates from different years and are different types of media format. However, I suggest this also demonstrates that whiteness and white supremacy can be explored over time and across a variety of Macedo’s media output. I now turn to the analysis.

Becoming a pastor in the UCKG: performing whiteness through marriage and procreation

The book The Profile of a Man of God (Macedo [1999] 2010) is aimed at men who are interested in a career as pastors in the UCKG and gives such men advice about how they should think and act as pastors working for the Church. The front cover depicts a white man in a smart shirt, suggesting confidence and affluence. Pastors work for the UCKG around the world and Macedo insists they be married because “the most important thing after conversion sealed with the Holy Spirit is the constitution of the family” (Macedo [1999] 2010, 13, author's translation). In the first chapter entitled “The Family”, Macedo writes that a pastor’s wife should also be a woman of God, with specific characteristics in relation to age and race. According to Macedo,

there wouldn’t be any problems for a man of God to marry a woman from a different race than him, if it weren’t for the problems of discrimination that the children could encounter in the racist societies of this crazy world (ibid, 15, author's translation).

He warns that couples need to take into consideration the risk of psychological trauma that children could develop at school, which they would then carry with them throughout their lives. Macedo explains that the Church does not say this because of any kind of racism, but that the reason is simply to avoid problems in the future (ibid, 16).

It appears that Macedo accepts racism as the norm and encourages couples to adjust their behaviour, not by addressing or confronting racism, but by accepting it as the status quo and thereby sticking to their own ‘race’ when it comes to marriage and procreation. As explained above, the idea of different ‘races’ is itself a social construction, based on biological determinism and white supremacy. Moreover, many UCKG pastors are phenotypically black and brown, as are their children, which means that their offspring are already potentially subject to the ‘discrimination’ and ‘psychological trauma’ that Macedo warns against. This makes Macedo’s stance confusing and illogical. However, taking into consideration the way that branquitude works in Brazil, mestiços can be considered white and this whiteness can be emphasised through embodied practices. For example, UCKG pastors are taught to dress smartly in business suits (like the pastor on the cover of the book), thereby embodying the white middle-class identity standard endorsed and cultivated by Western society and supposedly universal. Following Roth-Gordon (2017), pastors are therefore able to demonstrate whiteness through ‘proper’ restraint and decorum in their everyday attire.

Furthermore, the front covers of Macedo’s two other books in the same series continue in this vein: O perfil da mulher de deus (The Profile of a Woman of God) (Macedo 2018b) depicts a demure-looking middle-class white woman and O perfil da familia de deus (The Profile of a Family of God) (Macedo 2012) depicts a white Western-looking family with the idealised husband/wife/son/daughter scenario. The UCKG therefore represents the perfect pastor’s family, the ultimate representatives of the UCKG, as a white heterosexual and middle-class family, with only two children. Such imagery suggests that UCKG pastors can further demonstrate whiteness through the construction and production of their families (through marriage and procreation), which, according to Macedo, is a vital step for a UCKG pastor as well as a public demonstration of their faith. However, because this delicate performance of whiteness is based on the complex combination of both phenotype and embodied practices, perhaps Macedo sees marrying across racial lines (a ‘white’ pastor marrying a ‘black’ woman) as a stymieing of the whitening process. Macedo says nothing of the racism that children from black pastors would endure, he only warns against the racism and psychological impact arising from racial ‘mixing’. Is racism against black children from black and brown parents therefore just taken for granted? Following Teel’s analysis, Macedo demonstrates attitude of whiteness, through a narrative which suggests that whiteness is neutral, or the norm, and that it is only when whiteness is mixed with blackness, producing brown children, that problems of discrimination and psychological trauma arise. Furthermore, Macedo says nothing about the white people who practise the racial discrimination he describes, appearing to accept it as normal, thereby ignoring the social power that whites exercise. Macedo’s attitude demonstrates the way in which whiteness is not always consciously white supremacist or malicious, but rather designed to be invisible and to feel normal. Macedo himself appears not to understand the whiteness hidden in his words, claiming that his narrative has nothing to do with racism. Interestingly, although the book was first published in 1999, it was reprinted in 2010, but Macedo did not change his advice on inter-racial marriage in the new edition, despite the polemic it had caused online, which suggests a continued attitude of whiteness, more of which will be explored below in his blog.

Reverse racism as a form of racist thinking

In the blog “Reverse Racism: Present-day Slavery”, Macedo argues that black people can be just as racist as white people. He blames black racism against whites on a ‘victim mentality’ which, he argues, can be solved by focusing on oneself and finding inner strength through one’s faith in God:

The idea we normally have about racism is that white people don’t like black people, right? Wrong! Racism consists of certain types of people who don’t like, avoid, hurt or exclude other types of people. Note that I didn’t write ‘races’ but ‘people’ because we are all human and, if we belong to a ‘race’, it’s the ‘human’ one, not white, black, oriental, indigenous, etc. (Macedo 2018a, author’s translation)

Changing his narrative from the book extract examined above, which was written 19 years earlier than the post, Macedo rejects the debunked theory of different ‘races’ and argues that there is only one ‘human’ race. This point supports the ‘universal’ Pentecostal worldview which is supposedly blind to colour. However, Macedo then uses this point to argue that racism simply occurs between people who do not like other people and suggests that the racism of black people towards white people is the same as white racism against black people. Yet such an argument ignores the historical roots of racism which is based on white supremacy and which is deeply and structurally embedded in societies on a worldwide scale and not merely interpersonal.

Following Martinot (2003), what is at work is a form of racist thinking because Macedo’s argument essentially suggests that: 1) all racism is bad, 2) black people are sometimes racist towards white people, 3) therefore, black racism towards white people is just as bad as white racism towards black people. As Martinot (2003, 7) points out, racist talk begins by granting the supposedly obvious premise that all racism is bad, then leads to the second premise that black people can be racist against white people. However, here, the acknowledgement of relevant information is withheld—the historical, structural, and social nature of racism—which continues to be perpetrated against black and brown people, resulting in the kind of structural, social, and economic racial inequalities described above. For Macedo, this leads to the third premise: that racism between black and white people is the same thing and therefore of equal weight, in either direction. In the third step, as the powerful leader of a religious institution, Macedo clearly reserves the right to decide what is relevant and to argue the outcome of his choice and does not acknowledge the impact of slavery or the ideal of whiteness so prevalent in the country and the unequal playing field which has been created. This does not mean that black ‘racism’ towards white people is impossible, but it does not have the deeply embedded structural nature of racism towards black people.

Macedo then writes that the abolition of slavery in May 1888 “should have meant freedom for black people in Brazil” and that “the only reason it didn’t is because black people have a ‘victim’ mentality” (Macedo 2018a, author's translation). For Macedo, the end of slavery appears to mean that both whites and blacks are now ‘free’, suggesting that they are on an equal footing, as though slavery and colonialism had no impact on present-day race relations. Macedo writes:

I’m speaking to the proper ‘victims’. I’m speaking to you, black woman, who like me has lived moments when you have felt pain for being what you are, for having black skin. I’m speaking to you who thinks we would be happier if there were no racists and I’m addressing you when I say: stop dreaming about a world without racism and stop being a racist yourself first! Stop waiting for a law to guarantee you places at university and instead improve your own intellect, letting go of the air of self-pity! Stop choosing doctors, political candidates, friends, artists, spiritual leaders, workers, and even partners, just because they are black like you, as if this were the determining criteria for success. (Macedo 2018a, author’s translation)

Macedo links the so-called ‘racism’ exercised by black people to affirmative action policies in the form of racial university quotas, appearing to suggest that these achievements gained by Brazil’s black movement are racist in themselves. Telles (2004, 72–77) explains that, although race-based policy initiatives existed in some Brazilian municipalities, in 2001, the announcement of affirmative action programmes on a large scale at federal level caught policy analysts and the general population off guard, mainly because they were considered anathema to the long-established idea of Brazil as a racial democracy. Affirmative action has progressively expanded to many public universities and federal law now requires it at all federal universities (Telles 2004, 248–250), yet opposition remains strong precisely because of the race/ethnicity criteria, reflecting “the resistance of Brazilian society to recognizing racism’s role in creating educational disadvantages and thus adopting race-based policies to redress them” (Telles and Paixão 2013, 11). Most opposition comes from the middle class and sectors such the media, especially the principal newspapers and news magazines, although over time, the number of Brazilians supporting racial quotas has grown (Telles and Paixão 2013, 11). Yet Macedo’s argument is clearly of someone who opposes racial quotas and exemplifies quite plainly Martinot’s (2003) description of racist thinking.

Macedo then says that black people should not try to identify with other black people, suggesting that to do so is racist. The effect of this narrative is to disconnect the experience of racism as a structural problem in which black people are permanently subordinated—especially because Macedo insists that racism is something that also happens to white people—instead racism becomes a purely interpersonal problem. Macedo suggests that “freeing oneself” of such “slavery of the mind” is possible by following the Bible and “adopting a life led by the word of God” (Macedo 2018a, author's translation). This is because, in Macedo’s Pentecostal worldview, colour/race should not matter because anyone can convert and find God, should they choose to accept Jesus as their saviour. Macedo accepts that racism exists, but argues that focusing on one’s internal state, through faith, is how to achieve happiness and freedom. Yet, even if unwittingly, such an argument reflects a form of white supremacy, because he refuses to acknowledge the different experiences of black and brown people and the privilege experienced by white people. Moreover, while arguing that race and racism do not matter, Macedo appears to be simultaneously berating non-whites for their so-called ‘racism’. By refusing to reflect seriously on the role of whites in racial inequality and by singling out black people as the ones who have a problem with race and racism, Macedo actually demonstrates very clearly the way in which attitude of whiteness permeates his thinking.

Furthermore, Nascimento argues that discussions of racism in Brazil

unfailingly elicit a warning against the danger of what is considered to be even more pernicious: the possibility of reverse racism by the target population against the mainstream one—blacks’ racism against whites (Nascimento 2006, 6).

She argues that this “spectre” is raised particularly with respect to Afro-Brazilian organisations and that it tends to halt debate before it can begin (ibid). The title and subject matter of Macedo’s post thereby speak volumes. Macedo appears to view black people who complain about racism as racists themselves, which is also evident at the start of the post when he warns that the post could annoy “pro-black (anti-white) movements”. The equation of pro-black as anti-white is the common misconception that black identity consists of oppositional attitudes towards white people, when this is actually not the case (Herring, Jankowski, and Brown 1999). Moreover, the timing of the post is interesting as, in April 2018, Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential election campaign was in full swing. Macedo was a supporter of Bolsonaro who ran on a platform advocating (among other things) the rolling-back of affirmative action policies, claiming that they were racist and divisive (Heringer 2020). Therefore, Macedo’s argument could also be a masked discourse of election propaganda, aimed at influencing the low-income black and brown Brazilians who form the majority of his Church.

Conclusion

In this article, I have sought to demonstrate how whiteness and white supremacy can be read in Bishop Edir Macedo’s narratives on race and racism, highlighting attitude of whiteness (Teel 2019), manifested in thought patterns which suggest that to be white is to be normal or neutral and through a performance of whiteness which Macedo encourages in his pastors, in particular through marriage and procreation. Attitude of whiteness is further evidenced using Martinot’s (2003, 2010) concept of racist thinking. The article has demonstrated how Macedo sees pro-black mobilisation, the vindication of black identity, and social policies aimed at redressing racial inequality, such as affirmative action policies, as racist in themselves. Whiteness is so deeply embedded in Macedo’s psyche that he overtly affirms a position of non-racism and yet completely fails to see his own role in reaffirming white supremacy. Macedo’s attitude towards race does not mean that his followers have the same attitude or beliefs, but this article shows how insidious racist narratives based on whiteness can be, because ideas based on white supremacy are unconsciously taken for granted. The fact that Macedo states he is not racist demonstrates how difficult it can be for white people to examine their own ingrained racism, which is based on beliefs surrounding whiteness and white supremacy, permeating most—if not all—societies around the world to different extents. The concept of attitude of whiteness has therefore been helpful, although it could be argued that the framework has limitations; for example, developing the idea of what constitutes ‘attitude’ could broaden the concept. Further research examining the workings of whiteness within Pentecostalism more broadly and in other Pentecostal media would be of great interest, especially considering the lack of such data from countries in the Global South. Moreover, a greater focus on white supremacy and whiteness would help to develop the nuanced complexities around the workings of religion and racism in Brazil.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the reviewers of the Journal of Contemporary Religion who read the article very closely and whose comments led to clear improvements in the article. I am also grateful to the editor, Elisabeth Arweck, who was patient and understanding during the complicated Covid times in which the paper was revised.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was generously funded by a post-doctoral grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundations in Stockholm, Sweden.

Notes on contributors

Kim Teresa Beecheno

Kim Teresa Beecheno has a PhD in the Sociology of Religion from King’s College London, UK. She is currently a Marie-Curie Horizon 2020-funded postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Religion and Society (CRS) in the Department of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests include gendered aspects of the growth of Evangelical Christianity in Latin America, social media and digital religion as well as issues of race and racism in relation to religion. CORRESPONDENCE: Uppsala University, Thunbergsvägen 3B, 752 38 Uppsala, Sweden.

Notes

1 The three main strands of Protestantism are Mainline, Evangelical, and Pentecostal. Evangelicals and Pentecostals differ from Mainline Protestants by their greater emphasis on members’ individual duty to preach the Gospel to non-Protestants. They believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible and place more emphasis on conversion and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (Pew Research Center 2011). Evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal doctrines are very similar, although Pentecostals place more emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues, miracles, and divine healing. Therefore, all Pentecostals are Evangelical, but not all Evangelicals are Pentecostal (ibid). However, in Brazil, Pentecostals form the largest and fastest growing group of Protestants; therefore, for the purposes of this article, the terms ‘Evangelical Protestant’ and ‘Pentecostal’ are used interchangeably.

2 This is unlike the Catholic Church in Brazil which adopted a ‘black liturgy’ in response to accusations of racism (see e.g. Silva 2014).

3 Prosperity Theology includes belief in financial prosperity. The greater the donations and sacrifices the followers make, the greater the reward from God (Almeida 2009, 12).

4 See the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, https://web.archive.org/web/20150315011309/ http://slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces, accessed 2 May 2020.