I entered the hetero-identification room with trepidation. I had spent the months leading up to this moment talking to everyone I could: political activists, legal professionals, even a sociologist and an anthropologist. I needed help to pass the civil service exam and was willing to claim a right, yet I feared committing an injustice. Ahead of me, three people would evaluate my declaration: a white woman with a serene, compassionate gaze and a sweet, almost maternal way of speaking; a middle-aged man with brown skin (similar to mine) and a characteristic Black phenotype; and a younger woman with equally striking Black features. They were assisted by a young woman who greeted and guided me, a young man filming everything, and a third person recording the minutes. They all stared at me throughout the process.
Despite feeling some discomfort with the situation, the atmosphere was relaxed, and the seriousness with which they conducted the process did not deny me courteous treatment. The woman was the one who began the evaluation: “Mr. Laudivan, do you self-declare as Black?”
“Black?!! There was no such option on the registration form! There were only options for white, black (preto), brown (pardo), indigenous, yellow. Not Black,” I thought. How should I respond? I chose, without any certainty, to reinforce what I had marked: “No, I declare myself as pardo.”
I immediately realized I had chosen the wrong answer. Their countenances changed; I could see the three of them furrowing their brows. I couldn’t say exactly how long the silence lasted, but I know I felt naked, exposed like never before, and it felt like an eternity.
“Do you have any more questions?” the white woman asked, again taking the initiative. In response, the other woman shook her head, but it was the man who spoke, in a somewhat taciturn manner: “No, I have everything I need.”
The woman addressed me again, regaining her sweet and compassionate tone: “Have you ever suffered any discrimination?”
I racked my brain searching: “Have I? When was it discrimination and when was it not?” I spoke of a rather harsh police stop, but without any certainty in my voice. I had never thought about it, and the result did not change even after appealing the decision: my declaration was not accepted. So, am I not pardo? Am I not Black?
Meditating on these questions since then, I remembered my mother rebuking some relatives’ comments: “My son isn’t black, no; he’s ‘moreninho’ and has ‘good hair’.” I remembered when I was excluded from the 3rd-grade ‘A’ class and sent to the remedial classes for those repeating the year, even though I had excellent grades, under the justification that I would “help them.” Memory helped me recall who came with me: another classmate with Black features more prominent than mine. Despite my efforts to the contrary, I can only remember the white classmates who stayed in class ‘A’.
I remembered being called a “bum” in front of everyone by my 6th-grade history teacher, even though I was a studious student who sat in the front and loved to learn. I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, and I was too “wimpy” for a fight: a typical nerd. The result is that to this day I have difficulties with History, and the rebellious phase that followed resulted in some actual infractions.
Intense bullying and a sense of not belonging marked my time until the 7th grade ‘A’, with that same white class from before—some of whom later became my friends—and even a childhood platonic love. However, at that moment, I no longer felt part of the group. I didn’t socialize with them, I didn’t do group work, I sat alone in the back-left corner of the room, spoke to them only when necessary, and during recess, I sought out the older, repeating students.
I recall the police frisks where something curious would happen to the groups of friends I hung out with. Usually, only one was searched and treated harshly: if there was someone with Black features, it was him; if not, guess who it was. Every now and then I was called a “bum” or a “brat,” but not always. There were frisks where a “jovial” officer squeezed and pulled my testicles; there was even a time he preferred a strike with a baton, “just for fun” (right?).
I’ve been called a “monkey” just for fun; I was also prevented from sitting in the front seats of the school bus; I was followed by employees in some stores without anything being offered; a pizzeria, once, took too long to serve me; I gave up on 3 years of Mining Engineering when, after successive attempts to pass Chemistry, I appealed to the common sense of the old white professor. Something was wrong, since every classmate I tutored passed, except me. The answer?! “Fine, you can pass. I held you back until now because I didn’t like your face; I can wait for you in the next subject.” Was it racial discrimination? I don’t know. I’m not black, I’m not pardo, I just carry the “color of sin” and still have “good hair,” don’t I?
I remembered so many other situations, some recent, some not so much, some harsher. That I started life living in a dangerous neighborhood; that I even had to defend myself from another boy armed with a knife because I was so bad at soccer that I “shinned” him; of seeing my mother fetch water from the public fountain while I played among open sewers. Of the many opportunities denied at work even when they emphasized how “intelligent” and “capable” I am.
DNA testing points to Black ancestors from Northwest Africa; researching family history to build my genealogical tree shows that Sephardic Jews also composed my family while fleeing the Catholic Inquisition alongside Muslim Arabs; and that a Native American great-grandmother was hunted in the woods and forced to marry a grandson of Europeans.
Today I know that exam boards are incapable of understanding the complexity of my identity; that parts of identity movements want me as an activist, yet do not accept that my suffering is also the result of various injustices, including racial ones, because despite not being white, I am not “black enough.” Fortunately, there are those who think differently and also suffer for it, such as Beatriz Bueno and her multi-racial anti-racist struggle and her academic project for the conceptualization of pardidute.
Now I know that I am all of this and much more: I am hybrid; diverse; neurodiverse. A “mestiço” of everything the Brazilian person is; a citizen of the World in skin, blood, culture, and mind. Therefore, if you need a name to classify me, I warn you that there isn’t one that encompasses the entire reality of my Being. Let it be, then: PARDIDUTE.