A popular weekly news magazine based in São Paulo is under fire for featuring only white faces on its “Brazilians of the year” cover – underneath a headline that asks why “angry racism” still exists.



The cover provoked indignation in a country where most people describe themselves as black or mixed race. Racism has become an increasingly hot topic as Brazil confronts its violent history of slavery and questions its cherished self-image of a harmonious racial democracy.

Istoé’s cover features 10 people – including anti-corruption judge Sérgio Moro, the finance minister, Henrique Meirelles, and actor Isis Valverde – all of whom are white.

“I just wanted to throw up when I saw this,” said Lena Santana, 48, a black Brazilian who shared her anger over the cover on Facebook. “It is an insult.”

Santana, a professor of fashion design at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, said the magazine was moving in the opposite direction to Brazilian society.

“Nothing against white people,” Santana said, “but come on, we have careers, we work hard, we have got brains, we think, we talk.”

Brasileiros do ano só se for do país Noruega do Sul 🤔

PQ NÃO TEM NENHUM NEGRO AI? Se enfiou Ísis Valverde, que enfiasse Taís Araujo!! @RevistaISTOE pic.twitter.com/xzlaG1MihI — André Medina (@medina_andr) December 2, 2017

Reaction across social media was scathing. “Brazilians of the year only if the country is South Norway. Why isn’t there a single black person there?,” asked one Twitter user.

Sérgio Pardellas, Istoé’s editor, said Lázaro Ramos, a leading black actor, had been due to star on the cover but was unable to attend a prize-giving gala and was replaced. He said that the magazine has previously honoured black Brazilians, such as former supreme court justice Joaquim Barbosa, and its sister title Istoé Dinheiro features black businessman Celso Althayde as one of its six business leaders of the year.

“It is a false controversy. In no way did we discriminate against anyone,” Pardellas said.

He said the same issue included articles on the racist abuse suffered by a black African child adopted by white actors Bruno Gagliasso and Giovanna Ewbank, and black actor Diogo Cintra, who was badly beaten up last month at a São Paulo metro station while security guards stood by.

The row over the magazine cover came shortly after prominent actor Taís Araújo – wife of Lázaro Ramos – shared a TED talk she made in São Paulo in August called “How to raise sweet children in an acid country”.

“My son is a black boy. And freedom is not a right he will enjoy,” she said, adding that when he becomes a teenager, her son is likely to face violent police searches and the presumption that he is a bandit.

“In Brazil, the colour of my son is the colour that makes people change sidewalk, secure their bags and armour their cars,” she said.

Ivone Caetano, a black appeals court judge and director of racial equality for the Rio de Janeiro Bar Association, said Brazil was beginning to realise just how racist it is.

“The racial democracy is always referred to but it never existed here,” she said. “In making prejudice in Brazil invisible, it took away the weapons that the blacks could have to fight against this whole issue.”