I begin this article with an anecdote to highlight how mestizaje is an anti-Black discourse. In the next section I theorize about "mestizaje" as an anti-Black discourse. There is a relatively new body of scholarship within Black studies called "Afropessimism." This intellectual field has central to it the ideas of the…

Afro-Brazilian residents of urban favelas (outlying, unincorporated slums) have established community schools in response to lack of public schools. A study of three such community schools in Salvador, Bahia, focused on social justice issues, school efforts to rescue a Black identity denied by Brazil's official "racial democracy"…