Bleach in the Rainbow: Latin Ethnicity and Preference for Whiteness

Bleach in the Rainbow: Latin Ethnicity and Preference for Whiteness

Transforming Anthropology
Volume 13, Issue 2 (October 2005)
Pages 103-109
DOI: 10.1525/tran.2005.13.2.103

William A. Darity, Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Jason Dietrich, Section Chief, Compliance Analytics and Policy
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Washington, D.C.

Darrick Hamilton, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy
Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment
The New School, New York, New York

The conventional wisdom is that race is constructed in vastly different ways in the United States and throughout Latin America. Race is ostensibly understood as genotypical in the United States, while race ostensibly is understood as phenotypical in Latin America. Furthermore, the conventional wisdom, represented by the rainbow people metaphor, characterizes racial identity as far less a source of stigma in Latin America than in the United States. In contrast, research reported in this article indicates strong similarities in the construction and the operation race the entire Americas. Genotype, or African ancestry, is shown to matter in Latin America; phenotype, or appearance, is shown to matter in the United States. Race is strongly associated with social exclusion and inequality throughout all of the Americas, with Latinos demonstrating a strong preference for Whiteness and an aversion toward a Black identity. African Americans’ tendency to be Black identified may be the result of the social selection effects the phenomenon “passing.”

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