Hillary Clinton is in Brazil today. Her agenda includes a visit to Zumbi dos Palmares University. According to this and this, the school has rigid quota that reserves 50 percent of its enrollment for black students. So much for the notion that Brazil is a “racial democracy,” a term that seems to come up most often when writers or speakers want to criticize race relations in the United States. Here’s how Wikipedia defines the concept (as of right now):

Racial democracy (Portuguese: Democracia racial) is a term used by some to describe race relations in Brazil. The term denotes some scholars’ belief that Brazil has escaped the racism and racial discrimination of other countries, most notably the United States. These researchers contend that Brazilians do not view each other through the lens of race, and do not harbor racial prejudice towards one another. Because of this, while social mobility of Brazilians may be constrained by many factors, gender and class included, racial discrimination is considered irrelevant (within the confines of the concept racial democracy).

UPDATE: Surprise, surprise. Brazilians try to game the system–and, as usual, young people see the absurdity of the system right away. See this (via an e-mailer).