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Alongside the activists' challenge to the idea of racial democracy, there has emerged a body of literature that has reinforced the findings uncovered by Bastide and Fernandes in the 1950s. Included in this literature are works by Carlos Hasenbalg, António Sérgio Guimarães, Nelson do Vale Silva, Lilia Monitz Schwarcz, and the scholars associated with the Centro de Estudos Afro-Asiáticos of the Cándido Mendes University in Rio de Janeiro. North American scholars also have made a contribution to the rethinking of the notion of racial democracy. Among them are Michael Hanchard, Kim Butler, Edward Telles, Melissa Nobles, George Reid Andrews, Anthony Marx, Robin Sheriff, and Anani Dzidzienyo (of Ghana).
One strong indication of the abandonment of the idea of racial democracy is the set of laws and policies implemented to address the issue of racial discrimination in Brazil. One of these is Brazil's antidiscrimination law of 1989, known as the Caó Law, which defines racial discrimination as a felony crime and which imposes stiff prison penalties on those found guilty of discrimination. Also, a number of public universities have implemented policies of affirmative action in student admissions on the grounds of redressing the low numbers of Afro-Brazilians in higher education.
Despite the erosion of adherence to the notion of racial democracy, it still occasions disputes about the genuine nature of Brazilian race relations. Social scientists such as Peter Fry and Livio Sansone have argued that Brazilian race relations, even acknowledging patterns of racial discrimination, still do not reach the level of hostility seen in the United States.
Andrews, George Reid. "Brazilian Racial Democracy: An American Counterpoint, 1900–1990." Journal of Contemporary History 31, no. 3 (1996): 483–507.
Bastide, Roger, and Florestan Fernandes. Brancos E Negros Em São Paulo, 3d ed. São Paulo, Brazil: Companhia Editrora Nacional, 1970.
Butler Kim D. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998.
Fry, Peter. "Politics, Nationality, and the Meanings of 'Race' in Brazil." Daedalus 129, no. 2 (2000): 83–118.
Guimarães, António Sérgio Alfredo. "Democracia Racial." 2003. Available at <www.fflch.usp.br/sociologia/asag>.
Hasenbalg, Carlos. "Race and Socio-Economic Inequalities in Brazil." In Race, Power, and Class in Brazil, edited by Pierre-Michel Fontaine. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California, 1985.
Nascimento, Abdias do. O Negro Revoltado. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: GRD, 1968.
Nobles, Melissa. Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Sansone, Livio. Blackness Without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz. O Espetáculo das Raças: Cientistas, Instituições, e a Questão Racial no Brasil. São Paulo, Brazil: Companhias das Letras, 1993.
Sheriff, Robin. Dreaming Inequality: Color, Race, and Racism In Urban Brazil. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
Skidomore, Thomas. Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993.
Telles, Edward E. Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Wagley, Charles, ed. Race and Class in Rural Brazil. Paris: UNESCO, 1952.
michael mitchell (2005)