Fabiana Bolsonaro, a member of Brazil’s São Paulo state assembly, last week used makeup to darken her face and arms in what can only be described as a crude attempt at blackface in the middle of a parliamentary session. Her performance appeared to be a doubling down, in distinctly embarrassing fashion, on her earlier insistence that she is of mixed race – parda, in Brazilian-Portuguese.

Fabiana’s birth surname is Barroso. She is a white woman, the daughter of the politician Adilson Barroso. Like her father, she belongs to the Liberal party of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whose name she adopted in 2022.

Her blackface performance was reportedly intended as a protest – not only against what she perceives as preferential policies for people of colour, but also against the progressive transgender agenda associated with Erika Hilton, a fellow São Paulo politician. Hilton (not her original name – which is reportedly Felipe Santos Silva) is parda and a transgender woman.

Race remains a delicate subject in South America’s largest country. Brazil’s history of casual and overt racial discrimination is beyond dispute, though matters have improved somewhat in recent........

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