Goleiros Negros and Quarterblacks: Racial Discrimination in Brazilian Soccer and American Football

Racism is a powerful force in society. It is no surprise, then, that it has played a large role in sports as well. We might hope that players would be treated based solely on their ability, but that has not always been the reality. In Brazilian soccer and American football, racist stereotypes have played a large role in determining the positions black athletes have been discouraged from playing.

Both Brazil and the United States are countries with sizable black populations. These populations are the descendants of former slaves, a factor that is key in understanding contemporary views on race in both countries. For while legal slavery no longer exists, stereotypes about blacks remained firmly planted in the national consciousness of both Brazil and the US.

The continued existence of these stereotypes can be seen in the way blacks have been steered away from being goalkeepers in Brazilian soccer and quarterbacks in American football. Let’s start with Brazil.

When Dida made his debut with the Brazilian national team in 1995, he became the first black goalkeeper to play for the Seleção in nearly 50 years. The previous black keeper was Moacyr Barbosa, a well-known figure in the Brazilian soccer history.

Barbosa was the goalkeeper for the national team during the 1950 World Cup, a tournament the Brazilian people expected its team to win. The team had made it to the final and over 200,000 came out to the Maracanã to see Brazil take on Uruguay. Nearly everyone expected Brazil to win (some newspapers had pre-printed early editions proclaiming them to be world champions).

Late in the second half, the game stood at 1-1. Alex Bellos, author of Futebol: Soccer, the Brazilian Way, picks up the story:

Gigghia again dribbled past Bigode and entered the box. Instead of crossing like he had done when he set up the first Uruguayan goal, Gigghia shot immediately to the near post. The angle was tight. Barbosa was caught off guard. He dived to his left but was too late.

The game finished 2-1 and Uruguay were crowned champions. The shock of losing a game they had expected to win was huge for many Brazilians (it has even been given a name: the Maracanazo). In the search for blame, David Goldblatt writes in his book The Ball is Round, “the scapegoats were the left-half Bigode, defender Juvenal and goalkeeper Barbosa. All were condemned in the press as cowards, lacking fibre and discpline – and all three were black. Barbosa was singled out for special levels of opprobrium which endured until his miserable poverty-stricken death fifty years later” (293-4).

Goldblatt writes that advances in race relations that had been occurring in the lead-up to the 1950 World Cup were halted and “dissolved in an acid bath of racism, self-doubt and self-loathing.”

For many Brazilians, the take-away message of the Maracanazo was that black goalkeepers like Barbosa could not be trusted. From Barbosa’s error, many Brazilians extrapolated that blacks weren’t made to be goalkeepers. Black forwards were loved for their fancy tricks, but black goalkeepers just weren’t trustworthy enough to hold down the position. Some also questioned whether a black goalkeeper would possess the leadership qualities to organize his teammates (some of whom would, of course, be white).

These stereotypes led many coaches to steer black players away from becoming goalkeepers. Sociology professor Ronaldo Helal explains that “even if a black goalkeeper were better than a white one, the white one would play. It’s a question of stereotypes.”

At the same time that these powerful stereotypes were keeping black Brazilian goalkeepers off the national team for nearly fifty years, black quarterbacks were suffering similar discrimination in the United States.

Although blacks began playing in the NFL in 1946 (shortly after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball), the quarterback position was off-limits to them for the next 20 years. It wasn’t until 1968 that Marlin Briscoe took his first snap for the Denver Broncos and broke the long-standing taboo. Briscoe’s accomplishment, however, did not lead to a flood of African-American quarterbacks. Indeed, the number of black quarterbacks in the NFL remained small for the next three decades, as stereotypes persisted.

Marlin Briscoe playing for the Denver Broncos

As in Brazil, stereotypes about African-Americans were based on residual racist views. The main stereotype was that black quarterbacks were not intelligent enough to play a position that required memorizing a complex playbook. Doug Williams, the first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl, told the Washington Post in 2005 that growing up he had to deal with people who thought he was “not smart enough.”McGill University graduate student Jason Chung did a study titled Racial Discrimination and African-American Quarterbacks in the National Football League, 1968-1999. His findings confirm Williams’s first-hand experience: “From the 1960s until 1999, black quarterbacks were continually labelled [sic] as not intelligent enough for the quarterback position” (12). He continues: “This emphasis on intelligence has traditionally served as a barrier against African-American quarterbacks who were viewed as athletically gifted but not intelligent enough for the jump to NFL football” (5).

And in an eerie echo of the views that hampered the progress of black goalkeepers in Brazil, African-American quarterbacks’ ability to lead their teammates was questioned.

Slaves in Brazil and the United States had been freed long ago, but stereotypes that had been used by slave-owners were now being employed to discriminate against black athletes. Fortunately, in both countries, there are encouraging signs of change.

The past decade has seen an explosion of black quarterbacks in the NFL. Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, Steve McNair, Daunte Culpepper, Donovan McNabb, and Michael Vick, and Vince Young are just some of those who have excelled in this position.

Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles

And in Brazil, there is a relative boom in black goalkeepers. When Helton of Porto and Gomes of PSV were called up to the national team along with Dida last year, all three goalkeepers on the roster were black (Gomes clarified that he was in fact mixed). More and more black goalkeepers are also playing in the Brazilian league.

Brazil’s current crop of black goalkeepers (L to R): Helton, Gomes, and Dida

The stereotypes that limited black goalkeepers in Brazil and quarterbacks in United States for several decades are finally being exposed for what they are. We can only hope that in the future, black players’ opportunities are determined by their ability, and not the color of their skin.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Ethnicity/Race, History, Latin America, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.