Pursuing Racial Order and Social Progress: Violence, Afrophobia and “Religious Racism” in Brazil

Abstract

This article explores “religious racism,” or discrimination against devotees of African-derived religions in Brazil, as a broader pattern of structural racism rooted in racialized religious alterity, Afrophobia, and the epistemic divide between religion and nonreligion. The term religious racism has been proposed by some devotees and anti-racist activists to emphasize that Afro-Brazilian religions are uniquely targeted in ways other non-Christian religions are not. Unlike religious intolerance, the term religious racism explicitly connects discrimination against Afro-Brazilian religions to colonization, color or racial hierarchy, and anti-Black prejudice. This article clarifies the ideological groundings of religious racism that encourage Neo-Pentecostal extremists to pursue “order and progress,” as the national motto suggests, through physical violence.