Stereotypic Content and the Discourse about Racial Prejudice in Bahia

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the content of stereotypes associated with racialized white and black people, and to verify the justifications for the existence of racial prejudice in Bahia. 146 people participated, of which83 were university students and 63 were non-university students. Participants responded a free association task, containing the words stimuli: black and white people; and a question regarding the existence of prejudice in Bahia, justifying its response. The contents of stereotypes indicate that stereotypes regarding status and social conditions are associated with whites and blacks. White people were perceived to have higher status (rich and beautiful) and lower status black people (poor and workers), corroborating the stereotype content model of Fiske et al. (1999, 2002, 2007). The participants affirmed that there was racial prejudice in Bahia. The justifications were grouped into two clusters. The first show racial prejudice as a historical phenomenon, while in the second, prejudice is seen as a current phenomenon. Therefore, it can be verified that racial prejudicewas perceived as a social phenomenon whose roots are in the Brazilian social structure, forming itself as an institutional phenomenon, questioning the myth ofracial democracy in Brazil.Keywords: Contents of stereotypes, racial prejudice, institutional prejudice.