Beyond black and white: colorism, racial classification, and white passability in Brazil

This article examines transracialization as an emerging yet under-theorized concept in racial studies, arguing that racial identity differs fundamentally from gender identity because it depends not only on self-identification but also on social recognition, lived experiences of racism, and collective historical consciousness. Using the case of Rachel Dolezal, the study argues that claims of Black identity by white individuals lack social legitimacy because they disregard the structural dimensions of racialization and the privileges associated with whiteness.The article explores colorism as an intraracial system of hierarchy produced by structural racism, demonstrating that lighter-skinned Black individuals may enjoy relative social advantages over darker-skinned Black people while remaining subject to racial discrimination. Drawing on Brazilian and North American scholarship, the study shows that colorism reinforces whitening ideologies, fragments Black political identity, and reproduces material, symbolic, and psychological inequalities. The research further analyzes the impact of the 2001 Durban Conference and affirmative action policies on racial identity formation in Brazil, emphasizing the expansion of racial consciousness, the strengthening of Black political movements, and debates surrounding Blackness, pardo identity, white passability, and racial quota fraud. It distinguishes between pardo movements that deny structural racism and decolonial perspectives that understand pardo identity as a racialized position shaped by colonialism and colorism. Finally, the article argues that white passability functions as a structural regime of privilege influencing access to rights, opportunities, and social credibility. It concludes that examining transracialization, colorism, and white passability is essential for advancing racial studies, protecting the legitimacy of affirmative action policies, and confronting the historical and contemporary mechanisms that sustain white supremacy and structural racism.